All media players auto zoom the movie picture

[gll99]

I am not usually easily stumped but this is a real puzzle for me?

When I play an avi, wmv or mpg with window media player 7.01 or 9 or Windvd4 (just to name a few players) the picture is zoomed in about 2x.
Whether I capture the clip or download it doesn't matter.
I have tried all the options (stretch to window, zoom 100% etc...). Pulling the window with the mouse only enlarges the window but its still zoomed.

I am running window98se with wdm drivers for my capture card but I don't think that matters since it affects downloaded files also. My video card is an Geforce2 mx400 64 mb with the boxed drivers installed.

I first noticed it when titles and startup credits were cut off at the sides and bottom I thought the problem was with my captures but sometimes when I switched to full screen and back to window mode they appeared complete. So I loaded the movie(s) in virtualdub and clicked preview and the movies are complete with all the credits showing (no zoom).

Why are all my players zooming.

PS... Zoom player does the same thing. It does not let me see the whole video area either so its not an option.

I checked my video display card options and can find nothing wrong there.
My view screen in every other app appears normal. This only happens when I play media files whether in a window or full screen.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

[Prospero424]

Well, I have a couple of suggestions. First of all, have you tried the DivX Player? (comes with the official DivX 5 codec), I've found that alot of times it seems to be immune to alot of problems that plague all of the other players. Naturally this won't solve your problem because it only plays DivX files, but it will give us a better idea of where the problem may lie. Let me know if this works.

I suspect that the problem lies in the Directplay component of Windows, somehow it has been altered in a way that caused this problem. I would suggest that you re-install the latest version of DirectX, which (correct me if I'm wrong here somebody) contains the Directplay components.

A last-ditch thing you could try is downloading a different copy (doesn't have to be a different version, although that wouldn't hurt to try either, just a different copy) of your Video drivers. I would do this anyway since I have a feeling they might be out of date if they came in the box.

www.nvidia.com


Let me know,

Prospero

EDIT: Sorry, I mean DirectSHOW, not Directplay

[mikk]

something is set to zoom video overlays. try looking on the video tab of in the multimedia part of control panel.

could also be your video drivers set to zoom... for your gf2 you will only be able to change the setting while video is playing

[gll99]

Thanks for the help Prospero424 and mikk.

I was looking in the wrong places out of frustration.

As you suggested, I hit the jackpot by downloading the new video card drivers and resetting the card to its defaults.

I don't know if it was the new drivers that solved it or if the old drivers were corrupted by an app I loaded recently but everything is fine again.
I had recently installed a number of directshow programs and also some tv-out related apps. One of them may have tweaked some hidden feature. At least now I know how to correct it if it happens again.

Appreciate your help.