All media (pics/vids) appear very dark in WindowsXP?

[coffeecup-sf]

Running Windows XP, SP2 I believe. One time I was capturing some video from my DV camera and bamm, the imported video was REAL dark. Ever since that point, all of the pictures (i.e. jpeg) and video files (ANY format) run much darker than before and thus definately abnormal brightness.
This also means that all PREVIOUSLY captured videos and pictures on my computer have now become much darker when run/viewed. To give an example, basically light or bright sections of images appear fine or about normal, but any portion of a pic/vid screen that was previously of lower color is now very low in brightness and anything that was previously "dark but still visible" is now pitch black -- especially true of faces when not using a flash, evening or indoor shots, etc..
This problem CAN be sometimes slightly improved if I run WMPlayer, by altering "enhancements". However adjusting the bright/contrast, while making it more visible, also makes the screen look like a milk or white film is over the screen, once again not too good. However SOME media video files cannot be adjusted. Also this has happened to all jpeg type pictures throughout my system (but haven't been able to adjust bright).

Note that this has not at all happened to: video games, normal windows environment, nor desktop, etc. This appears to be only media files under "play" or "view", thus perhaps not video card related.

I am quite sure this is WinXP or OS related and not with the camera, because when I view the video AND snapshot pictures on my camera (vid mode, snapshot view mode) they still appear perfect. Furthermore when I "preview" the imported videos or pictures on WinXP they also look perfect as they should, but when I "play" or do full view of them, hence the major darkness -- so in otherwords the files haven't been altered, but the view/play modes have. I searched throughout WinXP for options to revert to media default brightness, but couldn't find any.

Any help GREATLY appreciated!


By the way my video camera is: JVC GR-DVM75.

[lordsmurf]

Overlay settings.

[coffeecup-sf]

hmmm I'll tinker around with it when I get home. I use PC cafes. Don't know where overlay settings is but I'll click around... it's not graphics card drivers is it?

[edDV]

Overlay settings are a function of your video display card and usually found under

control panel - display - settings - advanced - overlay

It should be understood that these settings are arbirary and should not be used to judge the quality levels of your video. There are additional problems using a computer monitor to evaluate video related to progressive display, phosphors and gamma. If you are viewing video directly on a computer monitor (not using overlay), proper video levels will appear dark on the computer. If you adjust levels to look good on the computer, they will be too bright on the TV.

The true test is playing the DV video back out the camcorder (or other DV transcoder like a Canopus ADVC) to a TV monitor calibrated to the correct color bar reference.

Proper calibration is not usually supported in consumer level editing and authoring programs so one must either render a sample DV-AVI file and play it back through the camcorder, or burn test DVD-RW and play back through a DVD player to a TV that has been calibrated to a test slide like the THX package found on many commercial DVDs.

http://www.thx.com/mod/products/dvd/optimizerIntro.html

Higher end editing programs like Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas support direct video monitoring through the IEEE-1394 port to a TV Monitor connected to the camcorder. Calibration test slides such as the SMPTE color bar is provided for system calibration.

Since you are in a PAL country, levels are consistant between analog PAL, DV PAL and DVD PAL MPeg2 so you are lucky.

In North America, DV NTSC and DVD NTSC MPeg2 reference black to 0 IRE (digital 16) and white to 100 IRE (digital 235) the same as PAL but analog NTSC has black at 7.5 IRE. This needs to be taken into account for both capture and monitoring.

http://www.indianapolisfilm.net/article.php?story=20040117004721902
http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm

Note that in NTSC systems, DV monitoring requires the TV to be adjusted to 0 IRE black (using brightness control) where for normal NTSC TV, VCR and DVD playback, black should be adjusted to 7.5IRE.

In all cases of monitor adjustment, the brightness control is first used to set proper black level, then gain or "picture" is used to set white. In my experience, about 80% of "color" display problems are related to improperly set black level.

[coffeecup-sf]

thanks for all the information edDV and all!! I'll let you know if I get down the line with any problems after transfering from comp to DVD with brightness probs.

For now I just did with advanced settings and went to overlay -- that's graphics card related apparently. Mine had Nvidia drivers installed into the settings and I had to manually adjust brightness & contrast. Unfortunate thing is that still as yet the slight "milk screen" does pervade after altering brt/cont, slightly but with an effect. Funny thing is when I use windows "preview" on the left hand bar, the picture clip of the video is super perfect like it originally was -- perfect brightness and clarity. For now it seems play is however doomed to less than perfection, but at least faces aren't tar black anymore like they were for the last few weeks.