Why are the black levels so off on my DVD playback? (1 Viewer)

[koach]

When I first installed MediaPortal, I set it up to use TheaterTek without looking at the defauly player. Well, I got tired of the quirks in TT, so I'm trying the built in player now. I'm very happy with the PQ, except for one problem. My blacks are gray and very washed out.

The issue is not black levels on my TV, rather just for the movie. Let me explain how I know this. When a play a movie in 2.35:1, like Star Wars Episode 3, on my 16:9 HDTV, there are black bars at the top and bottom, because it's anamorphic. As you probably know, those black bars are a part of the movie, it's not like it's the absence of a signal. I really noticed how bad it was when I accidentally selected an aspect ratio that caused the picture to be compressed from the top and bottom in, which created additional black bars on the top and bottom. Those black bars are the absence of a signal, and not part of the black abrs displayed from the DVD. On my TV, those new black bars and nice and black, like they should be. but the bars in the movie are noticeably brighter, and look gray. This gives the picture overal a washed out look.

I don't see any way to adjust brightness, contrast, or anything in the default player, so I don't know how to fix this. I'm using the Nvidia codec with ffdshow, but I see it without ffdshow, and with the other codec choices as well.

What am I doing wrong, and how can I fix it? I'll try and get a picture tonight if you guys need it for clarification.

Thanks.

 

[ziphnor]

These kinds of problems are normally caused by the fact that TV's think that each color component should be in the range 16-235 ( 16 being black, and 235 being white) while computers insist that 0 is black and 255 is white.

I must say im quite confused about this myself, i suffer from black crush, that is loss of black details when using DVI->HDMI. If i use VGA i get something similar to what you are seeing, which can be fixed using a calibration image/DVD and adjusting brightness on the display.

Try to read this:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=523614

Btw, how are you connecting to your TV?

 

[koach]

These kinds of problems are normally caused by the fact that TV's think that each color component should be in the range 16-235 ( 16 being black, and 235 being white) while computers insist that 0 is black and 255 is white.

I must say im quite confused about this myself, i suffer from black crush, that is loss of black details when using DVI->HDMI. If i use VGA i get something similar to what you are seeing, which can be fixed using a calibration image/DVD and adjusting brightness on the display.

Try to read this:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=523614

Btw, how are you connecting to your TV?

I should point out that I am not having this problem when using ZoomPlayer, TheaterTek, or Media Player classic. It only happens with MediaPortal.

It's hooked up to my TV via component.

I can change the range in an ffdshow level filter to 16-235, but that is going to increase my cpu usage i bet. And that seems more like a bandaid rather than fixing the issue in MP.

 

[ziphnor]

I bet Media Player classic uses Overlay for playback, what is Zoom Player set up to do?

If you can test it outside MediaPortal with a player using VMR9.

Btw, i assume TV viewing is also affected?

 

[koach]

I bet Media Player classic uses Overlay for playback, what is Zoom Player set up to do?

If you can test it outside MediaPortal with a player using VMR9.

Btw, i assume TV viewing is also affected?

I have tried overlay, VMR9, and VMR7 in every program I have. The only program with a problem is MediaPortal. I specifically tested TheaterTek and Zoomplayer last night using VMR9.

I don't have a TV tuner in my HTPC, so I can't say if that is the case.

 

[koach]

So i added an ffdshow levels filter, and set the input to 16 - 235, full range. This fixed the issue. So this is apparantly a bug in MediaPortal. An ffdshow filter does fix it, but at the cost of a bit of cpu power.

 

[jawbroken]

Since MediaPortal simply sets up a directshow graph with the filters you have specified in it, it seems like this is probably not a MediaPortal issue but an issue with the the filters you are using.

 

[ElvisMcDuck]

I have seen a lot of posts like this, and I am also having the same problem.
I am using WinDVD which gives a brilliant look, but trying to use the WinDVD codecs in mediaportal gives that washed out look.

It has been like this since my first meeting with Mediaportal (about a year ago)
And through that year I guess I've seen 2 or 3 posts every month, describing the same problem. (Washed out look, like looking through a thin filter....)

Every single thread ends out with someone stating this is a codec problem, or someone saying "I have this working great, its just a matter of tweaking"

Last week was the first time I heard about those differences in tv/pc colourpalette. And I think your "bandaid", koach, sounds very interesting.
Any chance of getting a descripition on how to do that?

With all the great work that has been done to the code lately, I hope this is getting closer to the top of what is up for a fix next.

 

[roosterx]

I wonder why Mp doesn't have builtin brightness/contrast/colour controls like some other htpc sw does have, would have been a lot easier for the end users(like me).

Maybe this is difficult?

I notice ElvisMcDuck says - 'Washed out look, like looking through a thin filter....', the thing is i would like to know about this thin filter thing - i've noticed on my x1600 pro card(can't say i had that much of a filter effect on my old 9600 card) that especially myTv has a lot of this - almost like ghost effekt, or a filter of some kind, quite difficult to explain.. is this the thing you ElvisMcDuck are thinking of?
In that case is there a known solution to this?

 

[jawbroken]

MediaPortal does have brightness and contrast settings, they are on the OSD when watching TV for example, the problem is, I believe, that people use a lot of different codecs that each have their own brightness and contrast settings, so it is hard to do something that works for all of them.