Black screen when playing videos

[Relentless355]

When I play a video on my PC all I get is a blank screen. The audio plays, and the time bar moves along just like I'm playing a video, but the screen is completely black. I've tried this with different formats (.avi, .mpeg, etc.) and players (FLC, Windows Classic player, etc.) and it's always the same thing, besides in iTunes where I can play recently converted .mpg4. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[redwudz]

Probably your video overlay settings. One thing you can try: Go to 'Display' in 'Control Panel', Then to 'Settings>Advanced' and look for 'Troubleshoot'. Reduce the slider there to about 1/3 and see it that helps. For more into, go to your video cards' internet site and see what adjustments may be available.

You might also try VLC Media Player. It has some overlay adjustments that may work.

This more common with external displays. Check your display settings also to see if you have a second monitor selected that may be messing up the overlay settings.

There's a lot more to it, but your video card maker should be able to give your more info.

And welcome to our forums.

[Relentless355]

Thank you very much; the first suggestion worked perfectly.

[redwudz]

Just be aware that lowering the 'troubleshooting' slider will usually result in lower video quality. But if it solved your problem for now, good enough.

[Relentless355]

^ Yeah, I realize that. I think I accidentally deleted a codecs or something in one of my recent great spyware purges.

[Relentless355]

Using VLC seemed to solve the problem. I also updated drivers.

[lev_six]

I had the problem where my DVDs played and all I got was a black screen. I would get the audio and the timer would tick away as it should.

I installed VLC media player as suggested and I can play DVDs on it.

My question is, how come I can't still play them on Media Player (windows) and Realplayer, etc? I had been using those programs for over 4 years and this never occurred. Suddenly I put it in and it happened.

Is there a way to remedy this? How could it work in VLC and not in my other programs? I am not sure what else to try to fix my other programs.

thanks. Any help would be great.

[Abond]

If you can play it with VLC and not with another player usual suspect is missing codec. VLC comes with its own codecs. You can try to install a mpeg2 codec.

[mats.hogberg]

Could also be some overlay problem.

/Mats