I just reformatted my computer, and I have installed all of my games and stuff back on. I updated Windows Media Player and tried playing a video on it and it comes up looking grainy and WAY too bright. I figured it might be a codec so i went and tried to download some codecs, but that didn't work. I also tried a different media player (divx) that didn't work either. The picture still came up all wierd. And it's not just the video files i have either. I tried streaming a music video and that came up the same way. Everything is really really bright, and most colors don't show up as even the right color, and every single shade in the video is off. I also updated my video driver, so it's not that either. If anyone knows how to fix this please help!!

Right Click your desktop, select settings, make sure you have 32bit color, then go advanced, on the trouble shoot tab, ensure that hardware acceleration is Full, on the monitor tab, make sure your refresh rate is ok, by starting of at 60Hz, then going up, until you hit the problem, (if 60Hz works fine).

Also, depending on you video card, make sure AntiAlaising is off, and vert sync is off. I always choose the midddle setting, which is application preference for most things.

May not help, but its an idea.

quick question
do you have an nvidia graphics card?

there was an issue with the latest drivers that messed up the gamma setting for overlays

easy fix