Hi jidelite,

I didn't use Power DVD 8....only 9 & 10. The only color profiles that I could find were in SETTINGS> VIDEO>COLOR PROFILE.

There were four preset color profiles: see screen shot
1. Original
2. Vivid
3. Bright
4. Theatre
No selection for creating a custom profile that I could find. Maybe someone else will chime in and we both might learn something.

I have an ATI Radeon card and in the Catalist Control Center I do have the ability to create custom color profiles that I could apply. (see screen shot) Do you have anything similar that you might use?

Just out of curiousity what type of changes are you looking to make? What did you do in Power DVD 8?

Regards,

Kevin
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Quote: Hi jidelite,

I didn't use Power DVD 8....only 9 & 10. The only color profiles that I could find were in SETTINGS> VIDEO>COLOR PROFILE.

There were four preset color profiles: see screen shot
1. Original
2. Vivid
3. Bright
4. Theatre
No selection for creating a custom profile that I could find. Maybe someone else will chime in and we both might learn something.

I have an ATI Radeon card and in the Catalist Control Center I do have the ability to create custom color profiles that I could apply. (see screen shot) Do you have anything similar that you might use?

Just out of curiousity what type of changes are you looking to make? What did you do in Power DVD 8?

Regards,

Kevin

Cap'n Kevin, Not sure about the ATI cards but the Nvidia control panel has the ability to allow the player to adj picture controls like Brightness, Saturation etc. In PDVD when the movie is playing, if you hit the Advanced button you will see a COLOR tab - this should allow you to change settings like Brightness and Contrast as well as allow you to create your own color profile name. I like to tweak these settings per player and not globally. I'm trying to find out if this is a bug in PDVD 10 or by design - PDVD 8 allowed me to make these changes.

jidelite

Hi jidelite,

I have an NVidia card and I'm able to access the video color controls okay with PowerDVD 10 Ultra. But there are a few caveates...

First, the color controls are only available for videos of DVD or lower quality (at least that's the way it is on my system). They are not available for high definition videos like the movies on most blu-ray discs. This is because the high-definition video requires "hardware acceleration" from your video card.

Second, the video controls are not available when "hardware acceleration" is turned on. To turn off hardware acceleration, press Ctrl+C to launch the Settings dialog of PowerDVD 10 and click on "Video" in the list on the left. Then uncheck "Hardware acceleration".

Once hardware acceleration is turned off, you can control the sharpness and brightnes by clicking on their checkboxes and using the sliders. To get to the color controls, click on the "Advanced..." button near the bottom. Then select the "Color" tab when the "Advanced Video Properties" dialog appears. (The "Color" tab is only available when hardware acceleration is turned off.

Finally, if you want to control the color while hardware acceleration is on, you'll have to use the NVidia driver. This is done from the NVidia Control Panel. From the "Select a Task..." sidebar along the left side of the NVidia Control Panel, select "Adjust video color settings" near the bottom under "Video". Then select "With the NVIDIA settings" option and the color controls will become active. Click on the "Apply" button to accept the changes. Note: These controls only affect video playback---they do not affect Windows' normal desktop color settings. For example, if you want to adjust the Windows colors for an application like Adobe Photoshop, then you must use the "Adjust desktop color settings" under "Display".

Hope that helps...

Kind regards, David

David, Thanks for responding - do you have the full retail version or the update? Now here is what happens on my Win7 system with my GT220 card:

My old PDVD 8 ultra had access to color controls with all my Blu-ray disks (I really don't view DVD anymore and if I did I'd use another player) and the "hardware acceleration" has alway been turned on. In fact, I tried to uncheck it once a movie stops but it automatically gets checked and greyed out once I start playing a Blu-ray movie (like you said) - again this is with PDVD 8 (I did not bother with purchasing PDVD 9). With PDVD 10, hardware acceleration is automatically turn on and there is a COLOR Tab even with HA on - the controls are just greyed out. In the NVidia Control Panel, I alway have 'With Player' ticked and this is suppose to allow for player adjustments. So now I'm trying to understand if PDVD 10 took the COLOR tab & new profile definitions away while under the Advanced section or is this a bug with the upgrade.

I know you say with PDVD 10 the color controls don't work with HA on (i.e. playing Blu-ray) and this my be true since I've yet to get it to work but is this a bug or a new requirement? Case in point, when I installed PDVD 10 upgrade it deleted my PDVD 8 version but after PDVD 10 was installed I went back and re-installed PDVD 8 ultra. Same machine, same Nvidia settings - when I play a movie with PDVD 8, I have full access to the COLOR Tab and color controls (Brightness, Contrast, Saturation) and I can create my own color profile all with HA on. Now I stop PDVD 8, start PDVD 10, play the same movie - HA on and greyed out, COLOR tab there but I can't move the color controls (Brightness, Contrast, Saturation) and no box at the bottom for color profiles.

I'm I wrong in 'assuming that these basic features are/should be carried over from one version to the next?

Thanks,
jidelite

Quote: David, Thanks for responding - do you have the full retail version or the update? Now here is what happens on my Win7 system with my GT220 card: ...

I purchased the upgrade. In fact, I took the same upgrade path as you: I went from version 8 Ultra to version 10 Ultra. However, I installed mine differently. I didn't know that an older version was needed in order to install the upgrade so after I downloaded the upgrade installer using the link that came in the email message with my new serial number, I first uninstalled version 8. Then I used the registry cleaner in Norton 360 to clean the Windows registry. Then I updated my NVidia video driver to the latest version. Finally, I installed the PowerDVD 10 Ultra upgrade. Contrary to what CyberLink says about needing an older version for the upgrade, mine installed fine without it. Perhaps this was because my computer was connected to the internet at the time and the installer was able to immediately validate my installation. Regardless, I have no desire to return to version 8 and have no plans to install it again because it dropped frames when playing high-definition video. Version 10 doesn't drop frames.

There are a few more differences between our systems. My enterntainment computer is a few years old and is still running Windows XP Media Center Edition (SP3). However, I never use the Microsoft Media Center any more. My video card is an EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GT with 512 GB of DDR3 memory (not exactly state-of-the-art but more than adequate for blu-ray playback). And I use a multi-display setup with two 1920 x 1200 pixel displays configured independently to create a 3840 x 1200 pixel desktop. The main display is HDCP compliant and is used for all copy-protected video playback. The other is not.

Quote: ... My old PDVD 8 ultra had access to color controls with all my Blu-ray disks (I really don't view DVD anymore and if I did I'd use another player) and the "hardware acceleration" has alway been turned on. In fact, I tried to uncheck it once a movie stops but it automatically gets checked and greyed out once I start playing a Blu-ray movie (like you said) - again this is with PDVD 8 (I did not bother with purchasing PDVD 9). With PDVD 10, hardware acceleration is automatically turn on and there is a COLOR Tab even with HA on - the controls are just greyed out. ...

You're right about the "Color" tab being available when hardware acceleration is on. But in my case it is only when playing a blu-ray disc. When playing a DVD, it does not appear at all when hardware acceleration is turned on. (I still play DVDs because there are lots of movies that are not available on blu-ray. Some may never be. But I never buy a DVD if a blu-ray is available---or will be available in the near future.)

My system has always behaved the way I described in my original post. Even with PowerDVD 8 Ultra, the color controls were disabled whenever hardware acceleration was turned on. The reason the hardware acceleration control is greyed out when playing a blu-ray disc is because it must be on and it won't let you turn it off.

So I can't comment on why you used to be able to access the color controls while hardware acceleration was on with PowerDVD 8 Ultra. It never worked that way for me. So, from my perspective, PowerDVD 10 Ultra works the same as version 8 Ultra with regard to the color controls.

Perhaps the difference you are seeing has something to do with your video card (since we have different models) or our different operating systems (my Windows XP MCE verses your Windows 7).

Quote: ... In the NVidia Control Panel, I alway have 'With Player' ticked and this is suppose to allow for player adjustments. ...

It's never made any difference on my system. Regardless whether the "color adjustments" option of the NVidia driver is set to "With the video player settings" or "With the NVIDIA settings", I have never been able to use PowerDVD Ultra's color settings when hardware acceleration is turned on. As I wrote above, this was true with both version 8 and 10.

In my case, I must set the NVidia driver to "With NVIDIA settings" because my viewing environment has carefully conrolled lighting and is very dark. No stray light ever reaches my displays. This enables me to see more shadow detail and it exposes a flaw in the color space that most PC video cards use. Most use a limited dynamic range that is slightly less than 8-bits per RGB color channel. The full dynamic range would have 0-255 levels. But most video cards supply only 16-235 levels and this is why many Windows PCs do not produce a deep black when playing a video in a dark environment. (The worst example is QuickTime video.) The problem is exacerbated by LCD displays because the liquid crystals don't block 100% of the light and therefore never reach a full black, doubling the problem.

Why is the dynamic range reduced by default? Because most PCs are not used in a dark environment with controlled lighting. With a full dynamic range, the ambient light of the environment will wash out the shadow detail and you would actually see less shadow detail. By limiting the darkest level to 16 instead of 0 (zero), the "brightness" of the shadows is turned up so you can see them in the presence of a modest amount of ambient light. Of course a high ambient light level will still wash out your display---direct sunlight being the worst case.

By setting the NVidia driver to "With NVIDIA settings", I can use the "Advanced" tab of the "Adjust video color settings" page of the NVidia Control Panel to set the dynamic range to "Full (0-255)". The result is a huge improvement for video playback in a dark environment. Blacks are now as black as my displays are capable of making them.

I'm not sure how helpful my comments will be since we seem to have had a different experience with PowerDVD 8 Ultra. But I hope the difference may shed some light on your situation (i.e. we have different video cards and different operating systems).

Kind regards, David

Quote: I purchased the upgrade. In fact, I took the same upgrade path as you: I went from version 8 Ultra to version 10 Ultra.

All this is good info and thanks for trying to help me out.

Quote: There are a few more differences between our systems. My enterntainment computer is a few years old and is still running Windows XP Media Center Edition (SP3). However, I never use the Microsoft Media Center any more. My video card is an EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GT with 512 GB of DDR3 memory (not exactly state-of-the-art but more than adequate for blu-ray playback). And I use a multi-display setup with two 1920 x 1200 pixel displays configured independently to create a 3840 x 1200 pixel desktop. The main display is HDCP compliant and is used for all copy-protected video playback. The other is not.

Actual I have my other HTPC running WinXP SP3 and a 8600GT (which I hardly use now) and I just built this Win7 HTPC from scratch about a month ago. Even with WinXP I've been able to move the color control sliders under PDVD 8 (i.e. Brightness) while watching a Blu-ray movie. The only caveat has been that some Nvidia drivers 'break' the ability of these controls working (the slider may move but nothing happens). Maybe its the multi-display setup that's different - I always run single display but I have 2 displays attached (running different resolutions) but only one display can be viewed at a time.

It's never made any difference on my system. Regardless whether the "color adjustments" option of the NVidia driver is set to "With the video player settings" or "With the NVIDIA settings", I have never been able to use PowerDVD Ultra's color settings when hardware acceleration is turned on. As I wrote above, this was true with both version 8 and 10.

I'm scratching my head on this one cause I know it works for me under PDVD8 WinXP or Win7 - 8600GT or GT200 for Blu-ray (still use TheaterTek for DVDs). Oh well, like I said this is good info and thanks for trying to help...

jidelite

I found a solution that works on my system. Maybe this info will help someone else.

When playing Blu-ray in PowerDVD 10 Ultra, I couldn't find any way to move the color adjustment sliders, so I manually added another Color_Control profile to my Windows registry. It appears in the profile list after Original, Vivid, Bright, and Theater. By trial-and-error, I figured out which bytes control the five PowerDVD sliders, and then I tweaked the brightness and contrast values to give proper black and white levels on my display (your system may need different settings). Here's my REG file and some comments:

REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cyberlink\PowerDVD10\Color_Control] "5"=hex:43,00,75,00,73,00,74,00,\ 6f,00,6d,00,31,00,00,00,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\ 05,00,00,00,b8,ff,ff,ff,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\ 18,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
The first two lines of hex bytes say "Custom1".

The last six 32-bit values are in byte-reversed hex format:

05 00 00 00 = the color profile index number.
B8 FF FF FF = brightness slider setting times eight (-9 * 8 = -72 = FFFFFFB8 hex).
00 00 00 00 = color 2 slider setting times two.
00 00 00 00 = color 1 slider setting times two.
18 00 00 00 = contrast slider setting times four (+6 * 4 = 24 = 00000018 hex).
00 00 00 00 = saturation slider setting times four.

My system has 32-bit WinXP and an ATI 4870 graphics card with a fairly recent "driver only" without Catalyst. I'm running PowerDVD with "hardware acceleration" enabled.

My new Custom1 profile isn't showing up in "Cinema" mode. Don't know why.

By the way, does anyone know how to change PowerDVD's background image/skin? I'd rather have simple gray or black.

Well, after doing more testing with PDVD 10 & Blu-ray movies, I think I'm getting a better picture of what's going on - Cyberlink has definitely changed some functionality around from PDVD 8 but I guess this is always par for the course with them. A previous poster (David) kind of hit the name on the head - this is all about how PDVD 10 reacts when using hardware acceleration. I have both PDVD 8 ultra (2815) and PDVD 10 (1601) installed on the same machine. When I play a Blu-ray movie (i.e BDMV folder structure) I can never uncheck HA but PDVD 8 allows the color control sliders to work, PDVD 10 does not. I never had PDVD 9 so I don't know how that worked but this is clearly a design change - intentional or not! Since the color controls work for PDVD 8 with HA on, I know they can work for PDVD 10 if Cyberlink would just allow it.
I 'was' able to get the color sliders to work with PDVD 10 if I went to the 'VIDEO' tab and played a M2ts file (this even works if you have a M2ts file on your hard drive). Here I'm able to turn HA on/off but the sliders only work with HA off - I can also get the option to create/save my own user color profile.
KLH, I actually updated the registry entry like you did but in a diff way. Since I could change my profile controls with PDVD 8 with HA on, I just did a copy and paste from PDVD8 to PDVD10. However, after playing with PDVD10, you can just play a M2ts file, turn off HA, adj sliders while playing a movie to get proper adjustments and save. Word of warning, at the moment PDVD10 does not acknowledge any of these changes while HA is on while watching a blu-ray movie (via folder structure). By the way, PDVD8 allowed you to change to an image/skin that you created - appearently this feature was taken away with PDVD 10 as well.

Please Cyberlink, give us back the ability to adj color controls with HA on ...

jidelite

Thanks jidelite for the M2TS tip. It works for me too. No need to fiddle with registry bytes.

I found a way to change my PDVD 10 background image/skin to black. Go to this page and scroll down to DMD61's message "Change Skins" with the three thumbnail images:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1235861&page=5