WMV9 video looks faded when played in WMP9

[snowcrash]

I took some DV video from my camcorder and encoded two files, one of WMV9 at 2.5Mbps VBR and one of DivX-5.05 at 2.5Mbps. File sizes are the same. When I play these two files in Windows Media Player 9, I can see an obvious difference between the two. The colors are faded in the WMV9 video.

However, when I play both of them in Zoomplayer, I cannot notice any difference between the two. So I'm suspecting that the fading is being caused by some postprocessing going on in WMP9. I've been playing with the options and I can't find the culprit. Anyone know what's causing this? Thanks.

[superdump]

I believe it is likely to be the rendering method used. Sometimes Video Mixing Renderer 9 brightens the colours of some videos whereas the Overlay Mixer seems to darken them. I'm not sure if there is a way around this other than by altering the luminance/gamma via some sort of renderer options.

[Sirber]

At 2.5Mbps, which one look he best? :D

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi snowcrash,

Which applications did you use to capture and encode your WMV9 and DivX files. And what system are you using PAL or NTSC?

I've only ever seen the washed out colour problem you describe if you use the WinMedia9 encoder to capture. And if the source is NTSC!

Cheers

[snowcrash]

I captured with Movie Maker 2, encoded the WMV with Windows Media Encoder 9 and the DivX with Dr. DivX. I would have used Gordian Knot for the DivX but it won't open the Type I DV-AVI file. The video is NTSC, btw.

Anyway, I don't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me last night or what, but I went back and compared the files again and I'm seeing the difference in color saturation no matter which media player I use. The DivX encode really looks much better because of this. This is really disappointing because I've already encoded a lot of my home videos with WMV. I never thought it would have been so inferior in quality to DivX, especially at the high bit rates that I use.

I tried encoding the clips again but still getting the same result. Maybe you guys could take a look at these 10 second clips and tell me what you think:

http://members.cox.net/tek12/Test97WMV9.wmv
http://members.cox.net/tek12/Test97DivX.avi

(right-click and save target)

Thanks.

[snowcrash]

Argh. I just restarted my system and now I'm back to where I was yesterday. Playing the files in WMP, the difference is obvious. Playing them with Zoomplayer, I don't see any difference in color at all. The motion of the hula hoop does look slightly better in the DivX encode, but other than that minor difference they look about the same.

Also i tried them in WMP 6.4 and they look about the same. But the faded out look of the WMV clip when played in WMP 9 is so obvious and looks so bad. Very strange.

This is driving me crazy. Would you guys PLEASE download those clips and tell me how they look on your systems? Thank you.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi snowcrash

I'm in the process of downloading your clips. And will report my findings soon!

Don't panic!

Cheers

EDIT

OK. I played back both files via WMP9, MPC 6.4 and DivX Player 2.5. And..... drum roll please..... they all looked pretty much the same in each player.

I see no large differences regarding colour saturation between the two encodes!!!!!

[snowcrash]

Thanks for testing that. It's definately a problem with WMP9 or with something else on my system. I tried it on a clean Windows XP install that I had on another partition and playing the clips in WMP9 I didn't see the difference. If I can't figure out what's causing it I'll just reinstall WIndows.