Cant get video looking right after clean install

[Zarxrax]

I guess I couldn't leave well enough alone, and decided to format my disk and install Xp service pack 2. After getting all my video card drivers and everything installed, I tried playing some stuff and it looked like complete crap. Brightness was low, saturation was way too much, and it was really blurry. I fiddled around in my video card settings for a while and discovered that they had the saturation cranked way up for some reason, so I set that back down to default. It was still really dark and blurry though. So I started messing around with the output settings in Media Player Classic. If I set it to VMR9 it doesnt use the overlay and looks way better, the brightness is correct, and it isn't as blurry (though I still believe its a little blurry). Although now, the color seems washed out, like it lacks contrast or saturation.

I just want to get my video playback to look perfect, just like it does in virtualdub! Why is it so hard for windows to get the colors right?! Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

[Zarxrax]

Ah, stupid me, the video is looking right in VMR9. I failed to take into account that virtualdub converts to RGB before it displays it. If I convert to RGB in ffdshow, my playback looks the same. Huge difference though! I had no idea simply upconverting to RGB made it look so much nicer!

[Zarxrax]

Well I guess I spoke too soon, VMR9 eats up my cpu like theres no tommorrow! I can't play back many of my videos without dropping frames. If I use the overlay, cpu usage drops down to normal, but the video is blurry and dark!

I know before I formatted my pc, my videos looked CORRECT and played with reasonable cpu usage. Could this be my videos drivers? (nvidia)
Or Service Pack 2? Or just failure to set something correctly?

[Zarxrax]

Ok, I think I figured out WHAT is wrong, but I have no idea how to fix it! I am sure that I used to use VMR7 rendering mode in media player classic, and it DIDN'T use overlay. Now, its using overlay though! Does anyone know how I can get it to stop outputting in overlay mode?