firyace

Hi
I have recently build a small form factor PC as a multimedia center for my TV.
So everything went fine except one, my mom keeps on complaining that all of the videos, including retail DVD discs, are slightly redder than it is played on a dvd player or another computer. I have tried using the color correction that came with the nvidia drivers, both the overlay settings and desktop, but it is really hard to get the correct color by changing the color curve.
So the next program that I have used is powerstrip. Powerstrip can let me change the gamma and contrast for the red color on its own, but the problem is that it only changes the color of the desktop, it does not affect the playback of videos whatsoever

So what programs can I calibrate the picture quality of video playback?

Thanks!

On a side note: Beware of the Gigabyte GA-K8N51PVMT-9 motherboard, it got a common post problem. It took me alot of time to fix this problem and it sucks if you build this for lan parties (good thing I got a better one to do this job)

mkk

Using the FFDShow decoding filter would give you lots of settings, including several color adjustments.

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pr0digal jenius

what video card do you have? I know nVidia has an icnredibly accurate color tweaking system, and ATi's was pretty good last i checked as well.

Also, the medi software itself, be it media player, windvd, or whatever, likely can do a bit as well, including a preset for a TV screen most likely

firyace

Oh I finally know what happened!
Even though it doesn't make much sense, but when I change the resolution into 1024x768 instead of 800x600 (which is way better for the eyes on the big screen) the videos are played in their correct colors and are alot crisper

Anyhow thanks for the help guys.



Yeah nVidia has a very accurate color tweaking system as I have mentioned before in my first post, but changing the color curve is really hard under the color correction settings. As of Ati, I don't know, I never tried it with my other computer (the color is mostly perfect when video cards are operated under monitor conditions)

pr0digal jenius

hmm....probably has to do with converting square pixels from a computer signal to the TV signal, which will be either PAL or NTSC[most likely NTSC]

dunno what to tell youf or how to fix it for the different resolutions tho

firyace

Yeah, it is pretty weird considering that the desktop and PC gaming looks just about right whether it is on 800x600 or 1024x768

swimtech

My guess is that the computer output to your tv is providing a more highly saturated color signal than your cable or your standard dvd player - the overall color level of the signal from your computer is probably higher. When this happens (with most TVs) the red will tend to predominate because it is the color that your eyes pick up more easily than blues or greens. Therefore, reds will tend to look overdriven (bloom or sheen - shiny, even blurry in some cases) when the overall color level is set too high for that set to handle accurately.

Yes, and trying to turn down the overall color level (not just the red, blue, or green) can be a bit difficult in drivers. I don't have an Nvidia card to tell you how to tweak the overall level down unfortunately - but hope a little of this theory helps. And, as PJ said, there may be some color phase inaccuracies being introduced by the conversion of the VGA type computer monitor signal to composite or SVideo for TV display...

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