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#1
da_stinger9

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For some reason almost all videos I play on my computer look faded out when I play them. I have downloaded several players and all look the same. Quicktime videos are the only ones that are not faded out. If I transfer the same faded out videos to my other computer they play normally. I'm not sure if I have some bad codec's or what the deal is but I wouldn't even know where to begin to test or resolve the issue if it was a problem with a codec.
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#2
Vaillant

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Check your Gamma settings for the monitor... They might be out of wack.

Same rule applies to the players, see if you cant ajust the GAMMA settings in the options, cause if you say they play and look good on other computers, it's something with your display.
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#3
da_stinger9

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Monitor displays everything else correctly. As for the players they are all set to defaults, I've checked them many times, played with them, but no matter what I do I can't get the picture to look right.
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#4
Vaillant

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Ok... when you say the video looks faded, you do mean like it's too bright or stuff?

Describe more what the problem is, please.
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#5
makai

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Did you check to see if you can change the Overlay settings in your Display adapter? A lot of times, this is all you need to do.

Open Display Properties and Choose the Settings tab. Click on the Advanced button. This should take you to your Advanced display properties window. You may see an Overlay tab where you can change the gamma/brightness/etc settings for videos. ATI display drivers have an Overlay tab, Nvidia usually has the option hidden in the Color tab. You may have to hunt around for the Overlay propeties.

Note that you may have to be playing a video to see any changes you make with Overlay. In fact it's recommended you launch a video while making the adjustments. Note also that the Overlay adjustments do not affect QT.
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#6
da_stinger9

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Well it just keeps getting weirder but at least I have more information for you. First of all when Vaillant requested a better describtion of the problem I decided taking a screen shot of a video playing on both my computers would show you the problem better than I could ever discribe it.

At first I ran into the problem of "The black screen". When I take a screenshot the video would appear as a blackscreen on my picture. After a little searching I found a program called Mr. Captor that claimed to be able to capture screenshots that included videos.

It worked prefectly, infact it worked better than perfect beause my video was than playing correctly, but only when I have Mr. Captor running before I open the player. So although I have a somewhat of a solution not a good one and still no screen shots of the problem :tazz:

As makai suggested I opened up the overlay options (Nvidia) and played with those. Neither the hue or saturation or any combination the two got the desired picture another puzzle arouse. When I would click the "Restore defaults" button the picture would look perfect! But if I click apply or ok the picture would again revert back to the faded out look. However! As I was just typing that last part there I was tested out apply and ok agian and I thought what the heck, why not try cancel too. I hit cancel on the advanced display settings after clicking the restore defaults button and picture stayed correct. I restared the video and it still is looking correct. I think next I will restart computer and see if it will stay after that.
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#7
da_stinger9

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I restarted and its back to the faded out look. I can get my other computer to look about the same way if I turn the brightness up in Windows media player. However, turning the brightness down does not fix the video on the computer in question.
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#8
makai

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Most people's monitors are not set up correctly to display colors the way they are meant to be displayed. This is done by gamma/brightness adjustments. I know you already know this. However, for most people, the programs that allow "correct" adjustment are quite expensive.

I'm sort of a photographer hobbiest. One of my tricks for adjusting gamma, since I can't really afford those expensive programs, is to cheat!

The way I cheat is this...
I go to this site... dpreview.com... and view the photo samples. Since dpreview is one of the largest and best photographic sites in the world, I also know that the webmaster utilizes expensive gamma tools. He has to in order to be able to display his review photos in such a way that they are color correct.

What I do is download a few photos of people. Using the photos, I then adjust my monitors brightness/gamma until the photos look "correct" to me in terms of color, hue, and brightness. I have used this technique for many years and it works quite well.

Now everyone really has their own level of perception of what color correct temperature is, but by using this technique, you should be able to get quite close to everyone else as we all tend to percieve color quite similarly.

I'm going to guess that your monitor is probably set up wrong to begin with. Thus when you view videos, they really look whacked out. Do this... download about 3 or 4 photos of people from dpreview, launch the photos in MSPhoto Editor, or Preview... do not use Photoshop. Now adjust your monitor brightness/contrast using the "MONITOR" settings until you get good balanced skin tones, hues, color and brightness. You won't get it to be perfect, but you should be able to get it close. Do not use the Display settings for this adjustment.

Once you get close, then use the Display settings to tweak until you're satisfied. After you're done, you can save the settings as default and have it apply/use the settings at startup.

Now to set up your Overlay, launch a video and use the Overlay settings in the Display panel. I'm not on an Nvidia card anymore, but if memory serves me, the Overlay is in the Color tab of the Nvidia Advanced settings. On the Color tab, you can choose to adjust the Desktop or Overlay. Make sure you are adjusting the Overlay and not the Desktop colors.

Just a note... under "normal" conditions, videos will look either faded or too dark without some kind of Overlay adjustment. So what you're seeing is not unusual.

Sorry for the long winded reply!

Good luck!
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#9
da_stinger9

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Got it, thanks. Had to install the newest Nvidia drivers.
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