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General discussion

WIndows Media Player and other video playing programs

Nov 16, 2004 4:44AM PST

I have something that is mildly annoying going on with my media players. It affects both WMP and Real Player, assorted DVD players, except for PC Friendly, which of course sucks. The video plays in black and white on different players, occasionally color. DVD's stutter on WinDVD, but not on WMP. Streaming video plays only in black and white on both WMP and Real Player. Is there some conflicting program or driver out there that is causing this? ANY help would be greatly appreciated, thanks alot!

Discussion is locked

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Re: WIndows Media Player and other video playing programs
Nov 16, 2004 6:57AM PST

Just a sly hint you may want to tell more. My machine and software doesn't do that. But here's the hint. I didn't tell you what OS or anything about my machine, software versions and more.

Bob

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Re: WIndows Media Player and other video playing programs
Nov 16, 2004 8:53AM PST

Of course, my bad -
It's a Pentium 4 1.7 Ghz, 256mb DDRAM, Geforce2 5800, Windows XP Home. About 4 months ago I installed a new Phillips DVD-RW drive,and about 4 weeks later is when I started noticing a bunch of problems. I have up to date versions of WMP10 and RP9, and about a dozen other various media players. I just downloaded the newest drivers for my DVD-RW drive and haven't noticed a difference, ditto for the newest video card drivers from nVidia.

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I wonder. XP's DMA issue?
Nov 16, 2004 11:04AM PST
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It is NOT an XP issue
Jan 12, 2005 2:17PM PST

I am having pretty much the same problem, only using Windows Me. It is not XP or OS specific.

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It is not your thread.
Jan 12, 2005 8:36PM PST

You've jumped in the middle of a discussion and I'm unsure if you were trying to help or need help.

Be clear about such.

XP does have a DMA issue and be sure to read about it.


Bob

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I fixed the same (I believe) problem
Jan 30, 2005 4:23AM PST

I had the same problem of no color on my media players viewing screens but color everywhere else. When this problem started I had not installed any new software, hardware, codecs or anything else that I found discussed on internet forums, so I had it pretty easy figuring it out. The only thing I remember doing when the problem started was playing with my video card's settings, making my monitor show my desktop sideways and upside down and stuff, (Hey, I was bored!) and, alas, this is where I found the problem. To me it didn't seem possible that a setting for my video card would affect the media files and not the desktop, but what do I know?

I have an NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 graphics controller and WindowsXP pro. and this is what I did:

Click START / CONTROLL PANEL / DISPLAY,
Under the SETTINGS Tab click ADVANCED,
Here I have a tab labelled GeForce2 MX/MX 400,
When pressed I get a small green arrow on
the left side of the window wich gives
access to a pop-up menu.
On the menu press GeForce2 MX/MX 400 /
OVERLAY CONTROLLS, Press the RESTORE DEFAULTS
button. (My defaults are HUE: 0% - SATURATION
114%) Press APPLY then OK.

This fixed my problem and I hope it helps you.

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Windows media player B&W
Feb 14, 2005 11:07PM PST

Thank you very much for sharing. I used the same procedure, and the problem was fixed.