TalkingSoft.com Forums: Only Black & White Image - TalkingSoft.com Forums

Since a couple of weeks I'm experiencing very annoying video problems for which I have yet to find a solution. Every single time I play a video file, any video file, the image is in black & white. Paussing/stopping the movie might eventually show a single frame in colour, when I re-start/unpause the movie it goes back to Black & White.

This happens with a wide-range of movie-formats and movie-players. The only player which does show the movies in colour is Quicktime. I've downloaded and installed all sorts of codecs, including K-Lite Codec Pack, but the problem remains. When watching streaming-movies, either with Realplayer or Windows Media Player, on occassions the first couple of seconds will show up in colour but inmediately afterwards it will change to Black & White and stay like that.

After re-installing Windows Media Player Classic, another problem occurs: it opens the movie but the first frame (in colour) freezes while the audio continues. When opening the same file with the original Windows Media Player, the same problem happens but the first frame (the frozen one) is in Black & White.

My PC runs Windows Me (I know, it $uck$).

Could someone please help me?

Hi,

did you ever check your codecs with G-Spot?

This will show you, what codecs are neccessary for playing the movies.

If this is no solution, send a message again.

I've just managed to partially resolve my problems. K-Lite comes with a configuration-tool called Ligos MPEG-2. When I choose the option Play MPEG-2 Only, Media Player Classic correctly shows AVI, WMV and MPEG movies.

The problems persists in Windows Media Player when it comes to WMV files (decoded with Windows Media Video V7), MPG and MPEG files (both decoded with MPEG Video Decoder). For some AVI files, Windows Media Player uses the DivX Decoder Filter and the video plays normal. For other AVI files however, this player doesn't use any codec at all (at least it doesn't indicate any in File/Properties).

RealPlayer apperantly plays avi files normally; it's other files (RM, RAM, MPG & MPEG) it only shows in Black & White.

I do hope that with the info above, one of you might be able to figure out what the real problem is and, most of all, how I could solve it.

Thanks in advance!

I'm afraid i can't help in this situation. The reason of these symptoms is you installed a lot of players with their codecs (decoders mainly) and these players are really fighting to play your video files but the result is.... neither can.
I really don't want to tell you what player to use but frankly you won't need QT Player, Real Player, Windows Media Player AND Media Player Classic (and i don't know what else) together. Also you mentioned K-Lite Codec Pack...
It'll just get worse and worse when you install more codecs, codec packs. You'll need far less codecs/players and will be able to play almost anything without problems.
If you think about cleaning up your system, read the pinned topic: Guide to using CoDECs or ask your questions here, I've an older OS (win98se) too on this machine.