Help! Washed Out Picture When Watching Video

[SJMaye]

Don’t want to thread hijack.  If I need to start a new thread let me know.  Ijust “upgraded” from an nVidia 8600GT to the ATI HD5670. At first I was impressed with how it plugged in and just worked compared to the pixel tweaking I had to do with the 8600, but I am suffering with the same problems as the OP here.  Washed out picture with VIDEO ONLY.  All other graphics and menus look great, but video is sort of washed out and muddy.  On the 8600GT I could select Full dynamic range and fix it, but this does not do the same for the 5670.  FWIW I am connected via HDMI.

I have read this through and have selected and deselected many settings.  Just not looking too good.

[Naylia]

I split this because I believe you’re not the only one to experience this issue so it may be useful to have the problem solving documented where people can find it.

Does this happen using all software applications? Are you using anything where you can choose a different renderer (Overlay, VMR9, EVR)? Have you tried ddifferent driver versions? I thought I saw someone mention that Cat 10.5 was the last really good release for HTPC use.

[jrandeck]

I can’t say I’ve seen anything like this, but one issue I ran into when upgrading a video card a couple years ago is that if you have an older motherboard you may need a BIOS update to support newer graphics cards, so check your motherboard’s compatibility list.

In my case, video that had hardware accelerated decoding would cause the player to crash.  (I was moving from and nVidia 6600 to an ATI 4670 FWIW.)

I haven’t seen motherboard compatibility discussed much with relation to graphics cards, so it might just be an issue with my particular VIA chipset.

[phoneguyinpgh]

Go to the ATI CC panel.  There is an area to tweek the settings for Video playback.  These don’t effect the desktop settings at all they are strictly for video playback (ie WMP).  I would always use a DVD of The Incredibles because it has a basic THX optimizer in the bonus section, ran WMC7 in windowed mode so I could see the video and tweek the settings.  There is a Gamma setting that might be causing your video to be washed out, I’d check that.  But the video settings in ATI CC is what you want to be looking at.

[SJMaye]

[quote=”phoneguyinpgh”]
Go to the ATI CC panel.  There is an area to tweek the settings for Video playback.  These don’t effect the desktop settings at all they are strictly for video playback (ie WMP).  I would always use a DVD of The Incredibles because it has a basic THX optimizer in the bonus section, ran WMC7 in windowed mode so I could see the video and tweek the settings.  There is a Gamma setting that might be causing your video to be washed out, I’d check that.  But the video settings in ATI CC is what you want to be looking at.
[/quote]
Sorry for the delayed reply.  Seems I did not get emails on your replies and my age had me forget 🙁

I have messed around with CCC and know the Video section well.  It seemed strange at first to think that video content could be totally independent of the graphics and such.  I notice that most when watching the local news.  All the graphics with the weather are vivid colors, but when they switch to a video image of the live people the colors look washed out.

I will try tweaking the settings under video.  I hate to do this due to my red/green color deficiency.  I know when something is right, but don’t ask me to tweak it there.  To save me some trouble can you tell me what settings under VIDEO I don’t want to touch?  I know you said to look at Gamma, but are there ones that should have nothing to do with it?

[Chasseur]

What resolution are you using? Also, In CCC, what is the pixel format? RGB or YCbCr? Make sure you are using YCbCr.
My picture was washed out too, because I was using RGB. Also, with my samsung tv, YCbCr is only available with HDMI1 input, not HDMI2.

[SJMaye]

[quote=”Chasseur”]
What resolution are you using? Also, In CCC, what is the pixel format? RGB or YCbCr? Make sure you are using YCbCr.
My picture was washed out too, because I was using RGB. Also, with my samsung tv, YCbCr is only available with HDMI1 input, not HDMI2.
[/quote]

CCCis set for FULL RGB.  I was on HDMI2, but switched to HDMI1.  Where should I now be able to switch to YCbCr? On the TV settings or in CCC?

[Chasseur]

you should see it in CCC, not your tv.
what is your resolution? YCbCr might be available only on some resolutions, depending of your tv. Try setting a standard HDTV resolution, like 720p or 1080.

There are 2 places in CCC: where you set Full RGB or Limited RGB, and where you set RGB or YCbCr.

[SJMaye]

[quote=”Chasseur”]
you should see it in CCC, not your tv.
what is your resolution? YCbCr might be available only on some resolutions, depending of your tv. Try setting a standard HDTV resolution, like 720p or 1080.

There are 2 places in CCC: where you set Full RGB or Limited RGB, and where you set RGB or YCbCr.
[/quote]

Don’t know why, but I think it looks tons better ! 🙂  I do not have two HDMI ports.  Only 1 HDMI and one DVI.  Outside CCC I switched the resolution to the native 720P .  Then in CCC I note the pixel formate now set to YCbCr 4:4:4.  It looks much better.  Sad to say I don’t know why.

Thanks for the help, though!

[Chasseur]

Well it’s kind of normal. The colorspace is different between PC mode and Consumer electronic devices.

RGB is computer mode. In that mode, the video card sends the image like if it’s connected to a computer monitor. When switching to YCbCr, the video card sends the image like if it’s connected to a TV, in the same way as a blu-ray player would do.

When selecting 720P, we assume you want YCbCr pixel format.

[SJMaye]

Thanks for all the help.

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

BTW… wanted to chime in and thank you guys, as well.  I had been fighting the same issue for over a month and forgot about that setting.  Turns out that CCC resets the pixel format when you upgrade your drivers and it apparently doesn’t save that particular setting to the profile.  In turn, I went in and named the profile using the correct pixel format, so I wouldn’t forget next time.  Also, I’d like to gripe about how difficult it is to even get to these settings!

[phoneguyinpgh]

I agree…  The CCC should retain your current setting when you upgrade the drivers.  It bites me every time and you spend 5 min trying to tweek back to the way you want it.

[mikinho]

I personally think it should be an optional choice during the install.  My reason is that that driver updates in an ideal world will improvefix settings so your custom settings will most likely no longer be accurate.

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

[quote=”Mikinho”]
I personally think it should be an optional choice during the install.  My reason is that that driver updates in an ideal world will improvefix settings so your custom settings will most likely no longer be accurate.
[/quote]

If you’re talking about the drivers changing your card’s settings so that playback or gaming is optimized, I’m with you, especially with how good ATI has proven to be at tweaking their settings for particular cards and disabling features which will negatively impact performance.  However, position of the screen, pixel format, along with numerous other options aren’t going to be “fixed” or improved, so there’s no reason to reset those.

[Author]

Posts