Power DVD : picture hidden behind black screen???

[HBM]

Hello everybody,
I've been using the Power DVD player for years, last night I put in a DVD that I've watched many times and I noticed there is a black screen in front of the video picture. The picture is there and the sound is normal theres just this black box the same shape as the screen blocking the picture. I downloaded the newest version (7) of PowerDVD but it does the same thing. The videos play fine in my window media player.
Any help would be appreciatted.
HBM

[edDV]

Probably the overlay is assigned to a different monitor. Check the display properties advanced settings.

[Bjs]

Welcome HBM

Determine when it worked last , and think if anything has been installed since then .

Codecs to be watched for are ffdshow , and ffmpeg , if these are installed , they may get in the way of programs that worked fine beforehand , remove them and reboot the system , and try again .

Directx9b included a fix for ms screwup with capture devices involving a midi security patch ... just thinking sp2 issue might exist as its not part of system specs .

Windows messenger ... windows explorer > tools > view > check "do not cache thumbnails" > apply > ok .
Control panel > admin tools > services > messenger , stop service then disable it .

Reboot pc and see what happens .

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Default decoder may have had filter merits changed , in favor of another installed on system .

Filmerit > click padlock , agree .
Gspot , load a small vob , click m/s down below ... it will point out the video decoder used .

Powerdvd use's : Audio decoder , claud.ax , video decoder , clvsd.ax
Set merits to preferred , write down original value first as backup .
Reboot and try again .

DScaler v0.06 and up support CSS Decryption
http://www.dscaler.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=8115 for latest download link .

Only thing you can do in display properties is cut back hardware acceleration or disable it , which could allow video to show , but be choppy in playback ... its only meant for troubleshooting process ... in some cases , reverting video drivers back to a previous version package may resolve issues .

Powerdvd should have options to use hardware decode acceleration , or disable it ... windvd also includes hardware color acceleration .

There might be an off chance the disc involved is of a different region , or region free ... this could cause issues later when the correct region is played ... the software locks up ... not simple to fix .