Well here's a fun waste of a couple hours: I suddenly noticed the video levels were wrong playing mp4's with Windows Media Player.
I checked my laptop and found no troubles there, so I started thinking what did I change on my desktop. The answer was my video card--the old one died.
My new card is an AMD model, and in the 'hydravision command center' there is a setting to seize control of the player and enforce 0-255 or 16-235 levels. Neither setting worked, though, and neither did leaving the player on its own. The levels were wrong no matter the setting (though they did shift).
Finally...I found a setting in another screen called 'dynamic contrast'. That was on by default. Turn that off, and finally WMP is back to normal. Sheesh! Thanks a lot, AMD.
FYI, the VLC player showed normal levels regardless of these settings. Maybe Hydravision doesn't recognize it as a player and doesn't try to seize control of it?
Anyhow, if you're experiencing something similar, turn off dynamic contrast.
I checked my laptop and found no troubles there, so I started thinking what did I change on my desktop. The answer was my video card--the old one died.
My new card is an AMD model, and in the 'hydravision command center' there is a setting to seize control of the player and enforce 0-255 or 16-235 levels. Neither setting worked, though, and neither did leaving the player on its own. The levels were wrong no matter the setting (though they did shift).
Finally...I found a setting in another screen called 'dynamic contrast'. That was on by default. Turn that off, and finally WMP is back to normal. Sheesh! Thanks a lot, AMD.
FYI, the VLC player showed normal levels regardless of these settings. Maybe Hydravision doesn't recognize it as a player and doesn't try to seize control of it?
Anyhow, if you're experiencing something similar, turn off dynamic contrast.