Washed-out display, all video formats

[KErichsen]

I'm having trouble getting videos of all formats to display properly.

On machine #1 -- video files play fine.

Machine #2, -- the files play, but they are very washed-out looking. This goes for DVDs as well. But ordinary image files (jpg, tif, &c) are just fine. Video files used to display correctly, but no longer do. There are several pieces of software I installed that might have impacted playback. I deleted Roxio 6 and installed Roxio 7. I installed Videowave. I installed Media Coder.

Both machines are similar in hardware and software, though not identical. Both have advanced video cards (with at least 64 mb RAM) -- actually #2's video is a bit better, and runs at 1280x960 true color. Both are Pentium IVs running W2K SP4+.

Video on #2 _used to_ work okay. Not sure exactly what happened to screw it up.

My theory is #2 is missing a codec, or a needed codec has become corrupted, or the colorspace setting is wrong. I'm at a loss how to trouble shoot this. I've loaded a couple (free) codec packs from Doom9 that sound like they'd be comprehensive. Any thoughts on how I can determine what the problem is, and how to fix it?

thanks

[CWR03]

More than likely it's a video driver issue if you're running an nVidia card. There was one particular version (I believe it was 81.92) that would cause the video overlay to be washed out. You should be able to correct it manually, but it tends to revert back on each reboot, but the latest driver should solve the issue for good.

[KErichsen]

Yes, that makes sense. I did also change graphic adapters during this period. The new card is an MSI MS-StarForce GeForce FX 5200, and you're right, it uses an NVIDIA driver.

Which I updated during this process, suspecting a driver problem. According to the W2k hardware manager, I am using using dirver version 7.7.7.2. The file I downloaded was NVIDIAv7212.zip
dated 7/19/06.

Having said that, can you recommend a different driver? Or if I stick with this driver, can you hint at what I ought to tweak?

thanks again for your help

[Blue_MiSfit]

From the name of the driver file it sounds like you got it from the video card manufacturer's website. This isn't a good idea because the manufacturer drivers are frequently out of date.

Just use nvidia's official "forceware" drivers, available at www.nvidia.com

They are the "definitive" drivers for nvidia based video cards.

~MiSfit

[CWR03]

I am using using dirver version 7.7.7.2.
That was definitely the problematic version. I searched back on this forum and found other posts when others were having the same issue right after that version was released.

You may not want to use the latest version as it can cause a screen flicker when you click or right-click on a file. The last stable version I've used is what I'm using now: 84.21.

[KErichsen]

Bingo.

Problem solved by downloading and installing the latest Geforce driver from the Nvidia website, exactly as you suggest. The curent driver is 9.1.4.7, which seems to work just fine.

Thanks so much for your help!