When using VMR9 under certain system configuration, you may notice that your image doesn't look quite right. Blacks appear as drak greys and whites appear bright greys. Basically, you're not getting the full contrast range.

The cause of this problem lies with problematic display drivers not being able to convert the color range used in compressed formats (YUV) into the color range used by PC monitors/LCD/Plasma TVs (RGB).

There are several workarounds. Here is what NVIDIA had to say:


Supposedly, ATI fixed this problem with their drivers in Catalyst v7.1

However, as you may know, the NVIDIA 9x.xx series of drivers have quite a few outstanding bugs, so another alternative is to use a video decoder based workaround.

For example, if you're using FFDShow to decode your content, in the FFDShow configuration dialog (under Output), you can specify the output formats. By limiting the output format to RGB32 (and unchecking everything else) the problem is fixed. The downside is additional CPU usage (about 2-10% on modern CPUs) and the loss of hardware color calibration.

For DVD, DScaler can also output to RGB32.

Why would you want to map Vmr9 levels to Overlay?
I've been using Catalyst 6.5 for a while now because of that problem, Vmr9->Overlay. I just installed Catalyst 7.1 and now Vmr9 levels are being shown correctly(16-235) using YV12 output. If I switch to using YUY2 Vmr9 levels are mapped to Overlay.

Sapphire X800gt Catalyst 7.1

The Nvidia 93.71 driver doesn't have the level bug anymore. The inclusion of the registryhack in the release notes was a mistake.

No, I'm using the latest nvidia driver for XP: 97.92 and the problem still exists. You can see it clearly if you compare the colors between VMR9 and Haali Renderer. VMR9 is washed out.

The trick above still works, but you have to use 0x3, not 0x1. After using the 0x3 trick, color quality of VMR9 became equal to Haali's Renderer on my system.

I can now confirm that the washed out colors in VMR9 bug still exists under Vista with the latest nvidia drivers (100.59).

What's worse, VMRCCCSStatus trick doesn't work. So far under Vista, I've not found a way to correct this problem other than using Haali's Renderer. So if you're wondering whether to upgrade to Vista or not, I advise you to hold on to XP for a while at least.

The VMRCCCSStatus trick didn't work for me either (using 93.71 here), until I swapped what the release notes said and it worked! I had to use 0x3 for 0-255 instead of what the notes said, 0x1. Now VMR9 + PureVideo is finally possible.

That's right. 0x3 works and 0x1 doesn't. That's for XP though. Under Vista, nothing works.

I got tired of having to update my registry manually each time I installed a new driver for my Nvidia card, so I wrote a simple autohotkey script to do it for me. It simply finds the correct GUID in the registry, and adds the key.



Hope this simplifies things & makes it easier for someone

Thank you dirhael. Works like a charm!

I'm a AutoHotkey fan myself. Could you post the source sometime?

Happy to hear it worked for you The source? Sure, here you go:

this issue is also present in current nvidia vista drivers

Dirhael's script for fixing it worked fine on vista as well, and being as overlay doesn't work on vista at least with my nvidia card (gives a scrambled screen) i'm glad this workaround still works

Good one Dirhael.

Is this fix only for DVI or for any display?
After applying the registry entry the video is still the same washed out colour.
Any Ideas?

Little off topic: Is it possible to move vmr 9 video across displays like with overlay?

-Windows XP SP2
-Nvidia 93.71

vrm 9 unlike overlay should show up on all of your screens at once if you clone it or like overlay if you sent it to the other screen

i've only tried it with dvi, and i noticed the difference immediately

you can also have ffdshow convert your color range from 15-235 to 0-255 if you set it that way in the levels control and use it as your decoder or post processor

I got it working by forcing output to RGB32 using ffdshow. I'm not sure if this defies the purpose of the fix, but it works.

The moving to different dispay I was referring to was with dual view.
When I am playing on my primary I can move to secondary and it still plays (Overlay).

With VMR 9 when I move to secondary it gets that green screen and CPU 100%.
This, however only happens when using ffdshow. Using Xvid to decode works perfectly.

-Hawk

I really don't understand it. The level bug is solved for me in v93.71, using VMR9 and a display calibrated for the 16-235 range. Why others still experience the bug beats me. I don't use the registry hack or ffdshow, just plain defaults.... ?????

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in applying that fix you would be crushin BTB and WTW information right ? (Blacker than black/Whiter than white)

This shouldn't be done, you should always have the full range and calibrate your DISPLAY to only show 16-235.
So the reason that the colors look "wrong" on your pc is because the source material is assuming you are watching it on a 16-235 calibrated display ( and not on a 0-255 range calibrated display as your PC ) which would make everything look washed out.

Clipping or expanding 0-255 levels is bad!
There is information there (mostly in WTW) that some people would want to keep by calibrating your display to show a little above 235 for example.

Danx if you meant me then

as i understand it, if I had content that was designed for pc color levels that would be the case, but everything i watch uses tv levels, so displaying that on a pc level (0-255) means something that's black as it would be on a tv is going to be a bit gray and vice versa with white, what i'm doing is just expanding 15-235 into 0-255. i've compared it quite a bit to see if i was losing detail and using this level i have yet to see any lost, yet if i go even slightly higher then detail in blacks starts to vanish (every type of tv level calibration disc i've run has had me make blacker then black and whiter then white invisible compared to black and white so i can't see how anything in that area would be intended to be viewed unless i was misunderstanding the instructions)

Dan, I'd be grateful if you could give a few tips on how we can do that. Could you post a few links on how we can achieve that?

To start with one must know if you are trying to calibrate levels for watching videos etc. on your PC display (CRT/LCD) or on a TV ( CRT/LCD/PLASMA etc.)

Since these are two very different takes on getting the "right" image.

If you're for example as me are using a htpc to drive a TV, you should either decide if the expanded level range on Overlay mixer bothers you enough to go VMR9 or not.

Expanded leves crush WTW/BTB information. (wtw is short for "whiter then white" and btb is short for "blacker then black )
But overlay is very fast and even though it crushes wtw/btb I prefer it to the very buggy vmr9.

If you go vmr9 with "TV" you SHOULD have the "washed out colors" effect.
This is infact not a bug or some error in brightness, vmr9 is simply displaying the full range but it's assuming you have a display calibrated to "VIDEO LEVEL" !

Video levels assume you have black at 16 and white at 235 ( + wtw/btb information for headroom ).
So when displaying this "greished washed out image on your "TV" you should use a calibration disk to adjust the settings on your TV!! so that it doesn't display anything below 16 or above 235 ( actually a little above 235 is ok since there is little more image information in wtw ) in doing this the image will look just as it was ment to.
No longer "washed out"

Now if you're watching all your videos etc. on your PC display/computer than you can use all the tricks and fiddle with all filters etc. to get the correct range on your PC
Or just use Overlay since it always expands video levels to pc levels resulting in "correct" blacks and whites on your PC screen. ( But in doing so know that you "may" loose some "small" bit of vide informtation that was stored in the range that was below blac ( 16 ) or above peak white ( 235 ).

Most of those "fixes" and reg entries are made to expand the levels in vmr9 to show a "correct" image on a PC screen ( no washed out image ). but that "washed out" image is actually the correct one speaking in video levels ! ( it just doesn't look right because it needs your display to be calibrated to video levels )

Hope this clears it up a bit


>aydc

You need an calibration disk that displays patterns between 0-255.
Such disks are AVIA,GetGray etc. you could also use the THX calibration found on several DVD's, where you adjust you brightness so that you can only see 6 ( or was it 7? ) dark squares. ( instructions are provided )
Also you should have some testpatterns that help you adjust white level ( contrast ).
Basically you adjust your contrast/brightness on your display untill the picture only displays video levels.


Links:

Basic HTPC calibration guide
Brightness / Contrast calibration

Calibration disks:

AVIA's site
GetGray
DigitalVideoEssentials

Quick summary of fixes...

1) In ffdshow set the levels filter so that 16-235 expands to 0-255
2) In ffdshow set the output to RGB32
3) Use the Nvidia registry fix
4) Calibrate your display.

#4 is the best way to go, unless you use your display for non-movie work (e.g. it's a monitor as well and you do regular Windows stuff on it).

#2 supplies the next best output quality since ffdshow does better quality conversion than the Nvidia registry fix (if the HQ conversion box is checked in ffdshow output)

#3 is the only other way to get Purevideo/Hardware-Acceleration to work with VMR9 and not having a washed out image, the first way being #4. Enabling any filter (or enabling RGB32) will disable ALL hardware acceleration and thus you won't be able to use those amazing Purevideo deinterlacing capabilities.

#1 is another way, but why would anybody use this if you have the above 3 ways available which are better?

I found the avi file on AVSForum (I think).

...If you see 0 grey vertical bars in the bottom right, you're losing info (I've seen it happen when using Overlay)
...If you see 3 grey vertical bars in the bottom right, you're getting the VMR9 washed out image
...If you see 1 grey vertical bar in the bottom right, you're OK

Spoon could you post or link to AVI file so we can check if everything is ok ?
thanks
Emanuele

Coulda sworn I attached the file, maybe the forum doesn't like .avi files, lemme try zipping it.

Click to view attachment

Just a note, Haali's Video Renderer (which can not only be selected as a custom video renderer) doesn't suffer from the range issue and offers better image quality (bicubic scaling in Direct3D).

This is what i'm currently using (under vista). I even tested and the haali renderer worked on my older NVIDIA GT4200 on Windows XP.

I just tried it myself, works nicely, but it doesn't allow any hardware acceleration so I lose those amazing PureVideo deintercaling capabilities that are done in hardware. I haven't found a better deinterlacer than PureVideo...back to VMR9 for me.


Doesn't the Haali Renderer use PS3.0 to set itself apart which is only available in Geforce 6xxx and newer? Why not just stick with VMR7/9 if PS3.0 isn't supported?

Haali Renderer has an adjustable Sharpness setting, which works really well and can turn a LD movie into a pseudo-HD one.

Thank you Dan, I get the logic now. However, I prefer watching 0-255 video on a 0-255 display, with no quality loss.

Spoon:
I thought so too, but I tried it on an nvidia 4200 and it worked... perhaps he supported several PS modes in there. I think Avery Lee (author of VirtualDub) discussed how to do various scaling routing using different Pixel Shader modes on his blog.

Guys,
I tried Haali's Renderer but the only thing I got was black picture with sound

I see the renderer in the Filters List but even changing it's settings has no effect. I've tested it in GraphEdit too without success.
I'm using Forceware 93.71 drivers for my GF6600 and I'm 100% sure I've seen it working on my PC. But I think it was a couple of months ago with my old (almost 3 years old) Windows XP which I reinstalled recently.
What could have I done wrong to make Halli's renderer not work?
I've also noticed that I get jerky playback of 1080i content when using NVidia's PureVideo MPEG2 Decoder with VMR9 PixelAdaptive Deinterlacing. Does this help you make a guess what's wrong with my configuration?

Hey guys. I'm so glad I finally found someone discussing this issue that has been annoying me. I used to have everything alright on XP but now on Vista the scaling is all broken again. I tried to download Dan's registry fix but my Anti-Virus detects a trojan on it, so it won't allow me to use it.

Anyway, by looking at the procedure described by NVIDIA and on Dan's source code, the GUID is taken from a entry on
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\VIDEO key \Device\Video0
but there is no GUID there. The \Device\Video0 points to another registry key
HK_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Services\VgaSave\Device0
and I don't have permission to modify or create anything there because the TrustedInstaller user is the owner of this entry (so I can't take ownership either).

I am asking for the registry fix because I like PureVideo, like Spooon69. And this is what it looks like with PureVideo.
http://rash.apanela.com/images/nv_color.png

As you can see, on a 2.35:1 movie there is the black bar inserted by the player and the grey bar that is present on the video stream itself and which was supposed to be black. Just awful. I believe there is no other way to fix this unless using the registry tweak, am I right?

I would be glad if someone could help me. Vista Ultimate, ForceWare 158.24, GeForce 6800GT.

I looked up the virus issue and it indeed is detected as a trojan (Win32.Autoit.ae) but a little research shows it is a false alarm. It commonly comes up on some of the lesser but commonly used AV programs like AVG, Avast, and Ikarus and others when scanning AutoHotkey scripts. If whatever program you are running has an ignore option it will be safe to use.

OK, thanks General.

Hi there,

Was I glad too to find this threadl. I'm using ZP 5.5 Alpha on Vista (works perfectly) I have the same issue with blacks being grays / picture washed out. I tried to apply the registry hack, but just like Ranusto wrote in his post, the Video0 key has no GUID in it in my Vista, so I cant proceed. There's a GUID in video1 key, but I dont want to start messing with things when already step 1 is wrong. Any suggestions please?

Meanwhile I changed to Haali's renderer, and the colorspace problem doesnt happen there (but no PureVideo) however - on some video files the aspect ratio gets screwed and instead of full 16:9 the picture gets squeezed into 3:4 - doesn't happen on all files but on some so I can't really use it (unless someone can explain how to get over that).

I'm not using FFDSHOW so the RBG conversion can't help me.

Thanks in advance, I'm eager to get real blacks again / no wash out picture again!

Btw as I'm sure everyone else here things - ZP is awesome!

Shahar

Just a note of clarification, I asked haali what are the requirement for the video renderer and he said it's a graphic card supporting Direct3D Pixelshader 1.1 (DirectX 8.0).

For NVIDIA (wikipedia link) cards this means every card from the Geforce 3 series onwards, excluding the MX series of cards.
For ATI/AMD (wikipedia link) cards this means every card from the Radeon 8500 onwards.

I'm not sure if this is the problem I'm having since I tried the fix and noted no difference, therefore, I apologize if this is the wrong place to post this.

I have a 30'' CRT HDTV which I'm using with DVI-out. When viewing it seems that the image has too much contrast or brightness. For example, while watching anime, faces look pale, pale white and don't have their regular pink color. However, when I right-click to bring up zoom's context menu, the colors show the way they are supposed to. This problem only occurs while using full-screen mode and does not happen in windowed. I've been told elsewhere that this might have something to do with my graphic card color settings being different for overlay as opposed to desktop color settings but I don't believe that is the case since I'm using the default settings for the 93.71 Nvidia driver. This does not happen on my other computer using an LCD screen so I thought the problem was just on the CRT. But if right-clicking fixes it on the CRT, I assume there should be a way to correct this permanently since there's viewing stuff with the context-menu up is . I've tried changing settings on the computer's color, the TV settings, the fix mentioned here, tweaking ffdshow settings, and nothing has worked. Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this? I've never seen this mentioned anywhere before.

I, too, couldn't get rid of the annoying nVIDIA driver problem (Win98, driver versions 6x.xx to 8x.xx, VMRCCCSStatus registry value), so I resorted to ffdshow.

Forcing ffdshow to output RGB (and using "high quality YV12 to RGB") does indeed solve the problem, and also upscales chroma better than you would otherwise get with VMR9 (at least on the nVIDIAs I tried). But it also uses more CPU. A less CPU intensive solution (although one that doesn't include bilinear chroma upscaling) is enabling AviSynth in the ffdshow configuration and adding the following the script:

ColorYUV(levels="TV->PC")

Too bad nVIDIA couldn't be bothered fixing this issue.

ramsuskahr: Are you sure it's not about driver overlay settings? These might be set in more than one configuration page; for me there's "Color Correction" and "Video Overlay Settings". Even if it's at the default, you can try tweaking it. nVIDIA's default are not neutral in many driver versions.

If Dirhael is still around, or someone else knows how to, could the VMR9 fixer be updated to give a choice of what levels to use? Sometimes I need TV levels, and other times I need PC levels.

Is there any way to fix this issue in VISTA with an NVidia card yet ?
Which NVIDIA registry key must I edit in Vista ?

Using ffdshow or recalibrating the display definately are not an option for
me (not at all), so i'm stuck with the registry editing thing...

Also, on a sidenote, has ATI really fixed this problem yet ?
(then maybe, my next card will be an ATI, as im getting more and
more dissatisfied with NV's drivers )

Thx,
Raynor

The fix is to calibrate your display for Video levels. This is the correct way to do this.

Expanding Video levels to PC levels is WRONG. You lose BTB and WTW, and the expansion can cause banding.

I believe the ATi drivers are expanding the levels at the moment, they should NOT do that. Worst case they should give an option for it. Best case they should leave the levels alone.


Everyone has the "Fix" backwards.


Now what confuses me is what happens when you play with the VMR9 colour controls in Zoom Player - what happens to the levels then?

Im using catalyst 7.7 and the levels are 16-235. I Dont know whats wrong with ATI but they keep changing it to pc levels then back to tv levels... Its getting annoying, why cant they just leave it at tv levels 16-235 or like you said, have an option for it.

But was it not said above that calibrating the display is ONLY an option
if you DO NOT use it as regular Windows desktop display (i.e. for working at the PC) ?

If I recalibrate my display for Video use then the Windows Desktop and all Applications
will look wrong, won't they ? That won't be a viable option.
... Or is using the player's color / brightness controls enough ?

Anyway, as for my original question:

Does the Nvidia registry fix still work in Vista (someone above said yes, another said no )
if not, what are the necessary changes (e.g. different registry keys) to make it work
(if at all possible) ?

Thank you in advance
raynor

Hey does anyone have an issue with Haali Video Renderer not display an image when they first start a video? Some of my videos work fine, but others will only output sound and no image upon startup, but as soon as I fullscreen it, the image plays out fine, but then when I leave fullscreen and go back to the original size, the image just freezes. Any ideas?

Edit: I think I've discovered that video files with smaller resolutions suffer from this problem, but larger resolution files (ie 1280X720) don't, hope this new information helps.

Alexel:
Reset ZP to it's default configuration and then set the minimal number of changes to have haali working as the video renderer and see if the problem is still there, perhaps some other setting you've applied is causing this.

raynor:
The haali video renderer doesn't suffer from this issue. Perhaps you should give it a shot.

Haali Video Renderer doesn't work with ZP + DVDs yet, does it? I haven't tried the 5.5 beta.

Spooon69:
I don't think so, at least not under vista. Nothing we can do about it, it's in haali's hands.

*BUMP*

Come on guys, someone else must surely have tried the registry fix using
Windows Vista ?

For me this issue is a "killer bug", so if there is no possibility for a fix
on the driver-level (e.g. using the registry fix, which works
fine for me under XP, or with NVidia "really" fixing it within the driver),
I cannot upgrade to Vista - which I don't have to do now, but which I
would like to do within the next one or two years.

No, using Haali's renderer (as fine as it is) is not a proper, universal solution,
neither is toying around with color controls, nor is recalibrating the display
(if you use it for desktop work as well). The registry fix was (and is) the only
correct, "universal" fix. Yes, it is awkward to use and apply, and it's a shame
that NV doesnt fix it "by default", but at least it works fine (in XP).

I can't understand why this issue isn't causing more of a stirup, and
serious user protests.... Maybe, because 99% of users are
blind (!), stupid and only interested in +-1 FPS in their childish games.
At least that's my theory.

Desperate greetings,
raynor

PS: I would even consider switching to ATI because of this, what is the
current situation concerning this issue using Vista and the current ATI drivers
(which are version 7.10 at the time of this posting) ?

I don't think EVR in Vista exhibits this problem, can anybody confirm? So the whole registry fix for VMR9 in Vista issue shouldn't matter if it's true.

@Raynor: No, it does not have any effect in Vista.

@Spooon69: Actually, yes. EVR has the same problem. In fact, I'd say that it's even worse because even if you set the video to output RGB32 (using ffdshow), the borders not covered by the video will still be gray instead of black when playing fullscreen. This does not happen (for me at least) using any other renderer.

raynor:
as far as I recall, ATI cards have the same issue.

Using Haali is a valid solution (other than losing color-control support). This isn't a hardware issue that needs to be bypassed by a driver fix. Haali just wrote a better implementation.

Yes, of course its not a hardware issue. But it's a longstanding driver bug that
finally needs to be addressed by a driver fix.

And if ATI has the same problems, oh lord, what a shame that neither
NV nor ATI can (or want, to be more exact) get this fixed. It seems like
a conspiracy to me

Best wishes,
Raynor