Why video plays differently in different players?

[vid83]

Just got a camcorder and I've played it on Windows Media Player, QuickTime, RealPlayer, and my video editor.

In each of these, the video played back slightly different. The video looked the best in Windows Media (colors were great and video played smoothly). But in players such as QuickTime, RealPlayer, and my video editor, the video played back a little choppy in a test video I did where I panned up and down. In QuickTime and RealPlayer, the colors weren't as colorful as in Windows Media.

Why do the videos play back differently in different players?

[Brad]

Different renderers, postprocessing, etc. Windows Media would be the most likely to use hardware acceleration while the others may not.

[jagabo]

Also, WMP will use the graphics card's processing amplifier to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation and hue -- just like you can use similar controls on your TV to boost contrast, saturation, etc.) Quicktime doesn't use those features, and video editors usually don't (I don't know about Realplayer). Quicktime is known to screw up the conversion of YUV to RGB for display. It should never be used and should be banished from your computer. Most media players also have their own proc amp controls. Of course, just because the picture "looks better" with WMP doesn't mean it's an accurate depiction of what the the file actually contains.