Member Avatar for Clive1

When i open a video of something and it is a .wmv file or the video is opened in Windows media player the colours are different to what they should be. i cant get a pic to show but the colours are brighter and more faded than they should be. the colours arent right in other words. ive tried playing with the contrast and such and it hasnt worked.

please DaniWeb, pimp my media player

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Dani AI

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Short diagnostic and where to start: determine whether the problem is file‑specific, player‑specific, or system‑wide. Play the same WMV with an alternative player that bundles its own decoders or copy the file to another machine. If alternate players/machines show correct colour, the Windows Media Player pipeline (decoder/DirectShow filter or video renderer) is the likely culprit; if every player shows bad colour, the issue points at graphics drivers, desktop colour depth or the monitor/ICC profile. This builds on ’s driver suggestion and ’s codec suspicion.

Why colours look “washed” or too bright: many compressed videos store colour as YCbCr (YUV). The player/decoder must convert YCbCr→RGB; an incorrect conversion matrix (BT.601 vs BT.709) or a wrong interpretation of limited (16–235) vs full (0–255) range will shift brightness and saturation. Hardware overlay / GPU acceleration can also bypass normal colour handling and produce wrong results. Useful tests are: toggle WMP’s video acceleration (Tools → Options → Performance), force software rendering or a different renderer (VMR7/VMR9/EVR), and ensure the desktop is set to 32‑bit colour with no unusual ICC profile active.

Codec and filter checks: inspect the DirectShow/decoder chain with a filter viewer (GraphEdit / GraphStudio) to see which WMV decoder/splitter is used; an old or third‑party filter can cause bad conversions. Unregister or remove suspect codec packs, then test with a clean WMV decoder. Reinstalling the GPU driver after removing previous driver files can help if overlays are handled incorrectly by the driver (as recommended).

If the renderer/codec route fails: transcode a copy to a modern container/codec (example tools: ffmpeg or HandBrake) and keep the original. Also compare against a calibrated reference image to rule out monitor/profile issues. This focuses the next troubleshooting steps toward either a renderer/codec fix or a safe conversion path and builds on suggestions from , and .

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Member Avatar for MartyMcFly

Sounds like overall display problems. If you have updated your GFX Drivers recently, it may be an idea to install them again, or if you haven't touched them, give them a refresh.

GFX Drivers can be found on the web. Graphic Card drivers are best uninstalled in Safe mode. If you need help on the process let me know.

What Graphics card do you have?

Member Avatar for Clive1

first of all is the graphics driver the same as the card
and in either case how do i find out the details?

Member Avatar for MartyMcFly

Yes

and (for XP)

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Information

On system summary > Expand Components > Select Display

Should say next to Name. Let us know, and I will find a link for a new driver download.

David

Member Avatar for Clive1

under display i found driver version and it had "6.14.10.7772"

by the way my graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200

thanks a bunch

Member Avatar for Xpenetrator

A friend had this trouble, too. Unfortunately XP was reinstalled, before I could track down the problem, but the drivers for his Geforce were new and properly installed. I had a suspicion that it was related to a codec pack he installed before, because it happened only with certain video formats (I guess *.wmv). WMP played other formats fine.

Member Avatar for Clive1

if this doesnt work, ewhich im not saying it doesnt, but if it doesnt, is there a way to convert certain video files to other video files eg .wmv to .mpg, or .avi to .mpeg

to the person above
what codec did he/she upgrade to to get the videos to display properly?

Member Avatar for FC Jamison

There are many programs that can convert video formats...

Canopus Pro Coder
TMPGEnc
Dr DIVX
VCD Easy
Windows Media Encoder
RM Converter

just to name a few

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