Member Avatar for Preppy

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!!

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by magusdf

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A short, practical diagnostic and fix guide for the symptoms reported by (all players showing overly bright, grainy, color‑shifted video after a reformat). Replies from and point in the right directions — display settings and driver regressions — but a few quick tests will clearly separate a renderer/overlay problem from a system/monitor problem and point to the correct repair.

Quick diagnostic checks:

  • Pause a playing video, press Print Screen, and paste into Paint. If the screenshot looks normal while the live video remains wrong, that strongly indicates a video‑renderer/overlay conversion problem (screenshots commonly capture the desktop framebuffer but not GPU overlays). If the screenshot shows the same bad image, the fault is earlier in the chain: monitor, cable, color profile, or system display settings.

  • Play the same file using a different player's output mode or force a software (CPU) renderer instead of hardware overlay. If software rendering fixes the image, the GPU driver/overlay or the codec/filter chain is the likely culprit.

  • Swap the monitor or cable, or view the same file on another machine. If the problem follows the PC, it is almost certainly driver/rendering related; if it stays with the display, the monitor or its input is suspect.

Targeted corrective steps:

  • For renderer/overlay faults: try a clean uninstall of the video driver and install a known‑stable release (rollbacks often fix overlay/gamma regressions). Change the player's video output to a software renderer or alternative renderer and disable any post‑processing filters (ffdshow/codec pack sliders) while testing.

  • For system/monitor faults: reset the monitor OSD to defaults, try a different cable/input, install the correct monitor driver/profile instead of a generic one, and check Windows color management for stray ICC profiles.

Following this diagnostic flow (screenshot → renderer swap → clean driver reinstall → monitor/cable swap) will normally isolate whether the GPU/driver or the monitor/system color path is at fault. The advice complements ’s display checks and ’s driver note while giving concrete tests and next steps.

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Member Avatar for MartyMcFly

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.

Member Avatar for magusdf

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

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