About setting brightness

I've done quite a lot of research around the page but couldn't find anything to fix my lil problem. I didn't have any of these the other day, but somehow, after installing some new codec and the newest divx codec, my world crumbled. Well, I uninstalled the troublesome codec but got more problems now.

So, if I don't use overlay at all, my video gets behind audio. If I use overlay mode 1, the video makes short stops once in few seconds as the audio goes on. Okay, managed to play it like I used to with overlay mode 2. But my screen is too dark, even with screen's own settings at brightest. I try to modify brightness settings through preferences -> divx, like I used to, but it doesn't do anything, just returns back to zero once I return to video. Well, next I tried using the HW color controls and managed to get a nice brightness, but now that I have modified those, my video starts slowing down again. If I set HW color setting brightness back to default, video goes back to normal. It seems to want me to decide between dark or out of synch video. Would be nice to get my player back to normal, since I like it. ;o;

I'm using the newest avaible version, 0.86 Build 501 and have the newest divx codec.

[Quietseb]

I would try changing the overlay settings in your video adapter driver:
- play a movie in overlay mode
- go to the display properties-->settings-->advanced dialog box; find the overlay tab o whatever of your video adapter driver and change the settings here.

However this will change the overlay brightness/contrast/gamma (...) settings for every application using overlay... [and in fact i'm not sure that's really different from what the HW color controls do]

[adicoto]

There is a difference. HW controls uses videocard drivers to control brightness and divx settings uses the decoder functions. Second ones uses the main CPU a lot more. So, if you have a slower CPU (500-750 MHz) try using video drivers.

[Quietseb]

Originally Posted by adicoto

HW controls uses videocard drivers to control brightness

well I was talking about a difference about the video card driver settings and the HW controls settings ;)
in fact I was wondering whether HW meant HardWare or not ;)

[Kyuu]

Me being a born yesterday with computers, of course changing the overlay settings in my video adapter driver proves to be a slightly tough challenge for me. So um.. if you can still stand me for a while, I might require some guidance on how to try out the thing Quietseb suggested ^^;;

[Quietseb]

from what adicoto says, it may be the same as the HW color controls but anyway it's not a bad thing to know where these settings stand ;)

to open the display settings dialog box, right-click on the desktop and select properties.
then to access the video card settings: go to the settings tab and click on the advanced button

after that, accessing specific settings depends on your video card manufacturer.
- for my ATI card, I've got the generic ATI driver/control panel: there are several tabs that were added to the standard video settings tabs. one of them is labeled overlay
- for my nvidia based cards, I've got the generic nvidia driver (detonator). it has only one tab but when you go on this tab another menu appears on the left of it; one of the items of this menu should be labeled overlay (I guess... the systems on which I have nvidia cards are in french..)
- for other cards, I can't tell

If no application uses overlay when you want to access the overlay settings, they may be disabled. that's why I said you should play a movie when changing overlay settings

[Kyuu]

Ah, yes of course! I forgot to play the movie before accessing some of those setting before. Now the brightness is perfect and the video doesn't slow down.
Thanks a lot, I've learned usefull stuff and recovered my bsplayer. Kyuu is gratefull =^-^=