My Sanyo-3900 DVD-VCR shuts itself off! HELP

Okay, so I'm able to put a disk in, it will read and begin to play. I can get to the disk menu, when I hit play...it will play for a few moments then the tv screen will flash black, then snow, then black and the player will shut off. Now if I leave the menu screen on for too long ( around 3 minutes w/o selecting an option it too will flash then shut off.....can anyone help?