Any ideas on this strange video in XP issue?

[Steve_Perry]

Over the last day or so my laptop which runs XP home has taken to running video in a kind of negative colour scheme (not true negative but some colours seem reversed, kinda hard to describe). At first I thought it was a problem specific to Media Player 9.0 but now I'm pretty sure it isn't.

The issue seems to affect any moving video footage that's played in Windows: e.g. avi, mpeg, mov (Apple quick time movies), wmv even DVD-video streaming using PowerDVD 4.0... they are all affected. The really weird part is that if for example I start a .mov playing in Quicktime, if I then play a DVD or use WMP the subsequent videos play with a normal colour scheme whereas the first video remains with screwy colours. It seems format independent so that if I initially started playing an mpeg in WMP then that would look negative and subsequent starts of Quicktime or DVD would then look normal. Still images like jpegs, gifs, bmps and the normal Windows colour palette seem unaffected.

AFAIK the last thing to be updated were the two patches on 15 Sept 04, one was a security update (KB833987) I think that's the one to prevent hacks via jpeg images and the other an update for 'Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)' (KB883357). But as I say my laptop has been fine and only started playing up in the last day or so. I dunno you think all is fine with your PC and then there's always a gremlin that seems to pop up out of nowhere.

Anyone else experienced this? Any known issues? Any ideas at all?

Thanks,

S.

p.s. I still haven't jumped to the SP2 bandwagon.

 

[Kinky]

Is it a memory issue of some sort?

Is it like watching it on a low-res screen setting?

K

 

[Steve_Perry]

Resolution is fine, it's not like it's trying to change say 256 colours to 16, but more the colour reference has been messed about. As I said, the image looks like very much like a negative to what it should be but the brightness is not changed if that makes sense E.g. Reds are swapped for pale blues but blacks remain black and whites remain white. Hard to explain.

S.

 

[GrahamC230K]

Reinstall the video driver would be my 1st hunch to tick off the list.

 

[Sp!ke]

I betcha you've downloaded an Xvid codec so you can watch a movie you've downloaded. Does it have green & blue in this sort of b/w and the colours kids of merge and move about?

Sometimes the xvid Codec has problems when watching other clips recorded using different flavours of mpeg compression.

Did you install the Nimo codec pack by chance? If so, uninstall it and see if it fixes your issue, if not, figure out which codec you downloaded before the issue started.

 

[GrahamC230K]

Lots of Nimo codec packs out there with nasties in (virus') so watch out where you get them from too.

 

[Steve_Perry]

Sp!ke/Graham,

That sounds like that could be it, thanks for the advice guys,

... Does it have green & blue in this sort of b/w and the colours kids of merge and move about? ...

That's a pretty good description of what I have got Sp!ke.

Next question:
How can I check what video codecs are installed and which one was the last one to be installed? and how can I fix my problem?

Thanks again guys

S.

*EDIT* p.s. What's a 'Nimo codec pack' when it's at home? The only players that I use are WMP 9.0, Quicktime 5.0 and PowerDVD 4.0. I also use DVD Shrink. AFAIK I don't have a DIVX player as I don't really have a need for one.

*EDIT 2* I just noticed that my Media Player is set to 'Download codecs automatically' in the player tab of Options, I presume that this is a bad move?

 

[uumode]

I get a similar problem sometimes, but I don't think in my case it's the Codec...
I 'think' it's a memory problem or due to the fact WMP is fighting for the right to use my video card when say my TV tuner card is also fighting for it's attention (or some other video related problem)

If I quit all apps or reboot, the problem goes away.

 

[Steve_Perry]

Well I've found a temporary work around for WMP...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/mediaadvice/0026.aspx

Why does the video turn purple after I watch for a while?

If the video disappears or turns purple and green about 20 seconds before it stops playing, or the video for a file in your playlist isn't displayed, turn off video overlays. To do so, take the following steps in Windows Media Player:
1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Performance tab.
2. In the Video acceleration area, click Advanced.
3. Clear the Use overlays check box.

If the problem continues, try turning off the video mixing renderer (VMR) by clearing the Use video mixing renderer check box (located in the same area as the Use overlays check box).

But my PowerDVD and Apple Quicktime are still affected. On further reading and digging around I reckon my problems are caused by the latest round of XP hotfixes issued from M$

Might think about uninstalling the last hotfix and see the results.

Any other ideas still appreciated, thanks for the replies so far.

S.