I have had differences like this with different players and even different versions of the same player, like Power DVD8 and P DVD11.
DVD 8 looked washed out and DVD11 looked like what you described, too much black or too dark if you like.

Not sure why it's like this, but I raised the brightness a bit and turned down the contrast. On my projector there are endless adjustments for this. For your computer, you should be able to let your NVIDIA control panel take over and adjust it there.

I don't think Windows has any adjustment for contrast, just gamma, brightness and tint.

Quote: Hi,
Trying out PDVD12...at the moment the black levels are quite raised during BR playback. TMT5 and MPC are fine, so it must be an issue with PDVD.
Any ideas? I like the software, but can't use it with the current black levels like they are.
Vista 32
nVidia 520GT
Quadcore 2.4
4GB RAM

Hi
What do you mean by "black level are raised" - is the image too bright (and blacks seem gray) or is it the contrary, and you don't have enough contrast in dark scenes?
Which version of the nVidia drivers are you using?

In any case, you can try and change the color space in the nVidia control panel from 16-235 to 0-255, and see whether it solves your problem (also check with the other players if they're still behaving normally).

Hi,

Total Media Theater 5 and Media Player Classic Home Cinema are fine as I mentioned, it's just PDVD where the blacks are not black, they're gray.

Ie the blacks are not 0 IRE they look like they're about 8-10

Really? No one from Cyberlink?

So you don't want my $100?

what exactly you mean by " black level are raised ". If anything related to brightness and contrast. !! Love Cyber-Link !!

Quote: Hi,

Total Media Theater 5 and Media Player Classic Home Cinema are fine as I mentioned, it's just PDVD where the blacks are not black, they're gray.

Ie the blacks are not 0 IRE they look like they're about 8-10

I had this problem a long time ago, and it did happen with some players but not all. And then, after messing around, I went through the opposite: every player were playing fine, but TMT was playing lowered blacks. But that was solved as far as I can tell, and I've never seen that since a long time.

Maybe it's because you're on Vista - you could still try to play with the levels in nVidia panel, set the dynamic range to full. Did you try that?

Levels are set at 0-255

It's simply black is not black, but grey. Black should be 0 on a waveform monitor with white at 100 for example. This looks like the blacks are about 5-10.

Thanks for all of your input. The lack of input by anyone from Cyberlink during the trial of their software is, well, not a great sign.

Quote: Levels are set at 0-255

It's simply black is not black, but grey. Black should be 0 on a waveform monitor with white at 100 for example. This looks like the blacks are about 5-10.

Thanks for all of your input. The lack of input by anyone from Cyberlink during the trial of their software is, well, not a great sign.

Yes, black levels have been my nightmare for a long time, having consistent black levels on all applications was quite impossible. But I've never experienced this kind of problem since a long time, that's why I was a bit surprised. Again, maybe it's a problem that does not happen anymore on W7, but still on Vista?

About your second point, this is a users forum, so usually Cyberlink guys would not answer here. For that, there is the customer support (but that works only I guess if you have purchased the product).

I have the same problem on my PC with PowerDVD 12 using both a Radeon HD 5770 and the Radeon HD 6770 that I purchased to replace it. This is very clearly visible for me on the Coraline 3D Blu-ray - the Universal logo at the start has a very grey background, not a black one. The copy of PowerDVD 7.3 that came with my Blu-ray drive displays the black correctly, as does WinDVD and TMT.

I have just checked the black levels again by playing a Blu-ray disc with a black matte around the picture. I stepped the video brightness setting in Catalyst Control Center down until the black of the frame matte was the same as the black of PowerDVD's window border - the brightness setting at this point was -16, which implies to me that PowerDVD is indeed outputting in the reduced 16-235 range rather than 0-255.

I tried adjusting the video card's pixel format setting (the monitor is connected over HDMI) - I usually run it in "full RGB" mode but it looks even worse (greyer) in "reduced RGB" mode.

I too am having a similar issue.

I would make sure that hardware acceleartion is turned off and all the theater color otions aren't being used.

That being said, My 2D movies work with hardware acceleartion, black levels are the same as MPC and TMT5.

3D is a different story. I guess it doesn't use hardware acceleration and the same video are way brighter than they are suppose to be, as someone suggested outputting at 16-235 instead of respecting the AMD color controls. TMT5 respects the color controls in 3D as expected. My understanding is hardware acceleration isn't used for 3D in either product so it seems like a clear cut bug to me.

I have verified this using the Spears & Munsil High definition benchmark. There is no question.

-James

Ooops, I meant to say make sure hardware acceleration is ON. But this only fixes the issue for me in 2D. 3D still messed up.

Yup this same thing happens and it makes everything look so washed out. I' just watch a couple movies in bluray and there's no way I can fix this. This must of happened with the latest update?

Please fix soon cyberlink.

There needs to be more responses on this forum with administrators. It's been a whole day and no response.

My blu-rays are all washed out looking now. Blah. I'm tired of wasting my money on cyberlink every year. As I can see I'm not the only one having this issue. What the heck happened?

Cyberlink I love your innovative technology but please do your customers a favor and fix these problems.

The latest updated seems to have fixed the issue for me.

Hmm?

Can anyone confirm if you turn off window aero and see if it changes?

And then turn it back on and please test

I have this happening as well. And it doesn't happen in all movies. It mostly only seems to happen when I'm playing a blu-ray 3d movie but not actually running in 3d mode. I have my desktop set to black and when i run the program in windowed mode the difference is really noticeable. Inside the PowerDVD 12 window the video blacks look 16 value gray. I can't adjust my TV settings or my video driver's video settings because they're already perfect when playing non-3d blu-ray discs.

This has to be a PowerDVD problem. It didn't happen in PowerDVD 11 either. This started when I upgraded to 12.

I tried the "Disable Aero" recommendation. It didn't seem to help.

I ended up resolving the issue by forcing "Dynamic Range" to "Full (0 - 255)" in Catalyst Control Center (Video->Advanced Video Color). This shouldn't affect other software that is already outputting full range colour.