Problem solved. Seems the title of Shakespeare's play would be pretty applicable here. A lot of noting for nothing.
When I 1st tested these video clips in the 5 software video players (left out WMP above) I use most of the time, in the back of my mind I was thinking about some point in the past when most were configured with different renderers. Can't believe I failed to actually check that, did the tests, and never looked back 'till now.
Turns out the renderers for 3 out of 5 are now set to 'System Default' or 'Select Automatically'. Potplayer has my default ever since I discovered it and found I could customize the interface via compressed XML files. When I started working on this today, it hit me you wrote you have Haali configured in MPC-HC raffriff42. I was realized I was fuzzy about just how carefully I'd checked the renderers.
I found Potplayer set to 'Select Automatically', I changed that to Haali and
bam... the right color balance.
Oddly tho', I switched to each of those renderers and none gave me that overly red hue. So I don't know what renderer Potplayer was using.
Rereading my initial post, I was reminded of a test teachers gave my class in high school. It was 2-3 pages of questions and instructions for things to do. The 1st item said to read through the entire test before doing anything. The last said not to do anything. It took 10-15 minutes for most of us to catch on, and that pretty much because of a gradual rise in muffled laughter.
Where's the animated GIF emoticon with the head banging against the wall?
This
was the 1st time I've seen this with a MeGUI rip tho'. Not working directly with video on a day to day basis, I'm obviously
way behind the curve around here.