G
Guest
Hey there guys. I have an issue when playing videos on Windows Vista that has
been annoying me. I watch a lot of videos on my computer so I decided to ask
for help.
When I play videos in fullscreen on Windows Media Player it fills the area
that does not have video (such as a 16:9 video on a 4:3 monitor) with a grey
color. I have taken a screenshot from a full black frame on a 16:9 video I
have.
http://rash.apanela.com/images/wmp_grey_back.jpg
Now, I have changed the color correction settings on my video card's display
driver (that would be a GeForce 6800 GT with ForceWare 158.18). The default
settings produce a "grey black" as well, just like WMP background above. I
know this is due to the TV YUV color range (16 - 235) that some videos are
encoded with. The problem is that the PC allows for full YUV range (0 - 255),
also called extended range. On Windows XP this problem was related to the
video card's driver that was supposed to detect when a video was encoded with
TV range and scale it to PC automatically. I believe NVIDIA's driver doesn't
support that yet on Windows Vista, hence I changed the video color settings
on ForceWare in order to "emulate" the PC range. 14% more contrast and 3%
lower brightness (to make blacks black).
Now, I believe WMP is detecting the video is in this TV color range and is
creating these grey bars in order to match the "grey blacks" from the video.
Here is a screenshot that shows the exact opposite effect from the first one
in this post.
http://rash.apanela.com/images/nv_color.png (this is a 2.35:1 video, so note
the grey bars from the video and the black bars from the player's fill in the
top and in the bottom - this screenshot was taken from PowerDVD and PureVideo
and is meant simply to show a video encoded in the TV range I mentioned).
Well, in fact, if I don't change ForceWare color settings then I'd see a full
grey screen on the first screenshot. That's why I believe WMP is producing a
grey background to match the exact 16 black from the TV range.
Since I don't think NVIDIA is supporting the range detection and scale any
soon on their drivers (and I believe it is their fault, not Microsoft's) I
ask: is there a way to make WMP produce a real black background (see first
screenshot) so it wouldn't contrast with my compensation? Moreover, I would
like to strongly suggest Microsoft to only sign WHQL drivers that detect the
PC/TV YUV color range and scale accordingly. Specially now that we have a
brand new renderer on Vista (Enhanced Video Renderer) it would be nice if
Microsoft pushed video card makers to deliver the best possible video
experience.
I would like to thank the reader who reached this far. Thank you. And I
really appreciate any help.
Andre
PS.: I posted this same question on the Pictures and Video discussion board.
I am posting it here again because I believe this group has more readers and
I would really like to have a solution. Thank you for understanding.
been annoying me. I watch a lot of videos on my computer so I decided to ask
for help.
When I play videos in fullscreen on Windows Media Player it fills the area
that does not have video (such as a 16:9 video on a 4:3 monitor) with a grey
color. I have taken a screenshot from a full black frame on a 16:9 video I
have.
http://rash.apanela.com/images/wmp_grey_back.jpg
Now, I have changed the color correction settings on my video card's display
driver (that would be a GeForce 6800 GT with ForceWare 158.18). The default
settings produce a "grey black" as well, just like WMP background above. I
know this is due to the TV YUV color range (16 - 235) that some videos are
encoded with. The problem is that the PC allows for full YUV range (0 - 255),
also called extended range. On Windows XP this problem was related to the
video card's driver that was supposed to detect when a video was encoded with
TV range and scale it to PC automatically. I believe NVIDIA's driver doesn't
support that yet on Windows Vista, hence I changed the video color settings
on ForceWare in order to "emulate" the PC range. 14% more contrast and 3%
lower brightness (to make blacks black).
Now, I believe WMP is detecting the video is in this TV color range and is
creating these grey bars in order to match the "grey blacks" from the video.
Here is a screenshot that shows the exact opposite effect from the first one
in this post.
http://rash.apanela.com/images/nv_color.png (this is a 2.35:1 video, so note
the grey bars from the video and the black bars from the player's fill in the
top and in the bottom - this screenshot was taken from PowerDVD and PureVideo
and is meant simply to show a video encoded in the TV range I mentioned).
Well, in fact, if I don't change ForceWare color settings then I'd see a full
grey screen on the first screenshot. That's why I believe WMP is producing a
grey background to match the exact 16 black from the TV range.
Since I don't think NVIDIA is supporting the range detection and scale any
soon on their drivers (and I believe it is their fault, not Microsoft's) I
ask: is there a way to make WMP produce a real black background (see first
screenshot) so it wouldn't contrast with my compensation? Moreover, I would
like to strongly suggest Microsoft to only sign WHQL drivers that detect the
PC/TV YUV color range and scale accordingly. Specially now that we have a
brand new renderer on Vista (Enhanced Video Renderer) it would be nice if
Microsoft pushed video card makers to deliver the best possible video
experience.
I would like to thank the reader who reached this far. Thank you. And I
really appreciate any help.
Andre
PS.: I posted this same question on the Pictures and Video discussion board.
I am posting it here again because I believe this group has more readers and
I would really like to have a solution. Thank you for understanding.