Hey, I've noticed in windows media player that while watching videos they seem to quickly sharpen and blur very slightly and almost constantly. It's most noticeable on the edge of things...i.e. a persons face, particularly in dark scenes. It's like some sort of on the fly auto-adjustment is always happening. I've only noticed this lately, and since I've noticed it, it's become one of those things I can't stop paying attention to! Perhaps media player has always done it and I've never noticed? Is this a WMP thing, or perhaps to do with Xvids, or codecs? My gf can't seen what I'm talking about, and nor can several of my friends, but I am lucky enough to have better than 6/6 vision (that's better 20/20 to our US friends), so perhaps it's my eyes? Thanks!
Is it something like a guy going from stubble to no stubble to stubble and back? I've had that issue before with a particular video file. Something to do with the way it was encoded. Just had it replaced and all was good. But just incase, you might want to test out the file with another player to rule out that wmp is messing around with the output. Maybe VLC? Or media player classic? Does that count as a different player?
What you're describing just sounds like the nature of video compression codecs, especially videos encoded at low bitrates unless it's an issue specific to WMP. If you're looking at trying an alternative to isolate the problem you'd be better trying VLC over MPC as the former avoids directshow filters altogether and uses its own copy of FFmpeg for video decoding.
Not noticed it in WMP but years ago I downloaded a HD programme on Iplayer which played in their desktop app and it did that, it looked awful. The stream looked great but I didn't have a fast enough connection.
Minimal - is this issue prevalent regardless of video format? For example, does it happen whilst watching a Blu-ray?
I couldn't tell you which formats it affects, I'll try running a few things and see what happens. The fact is it's hardly noticeable and so most of the time I don't notice it, but every now and again it drives me mad! Will experiment with some different vids and see what I can find. Also I used to use to use MPC religiously, but since the move to windows 7, WMP seems to be much better - is it generally worth a move of player like it used to be on previous windows versions?
I was a big fan, but these days I try and install as little software as possible. Since Win7 WMP plays everything again, so I havn't bothered with additional software....I'm a neat freak!
I only use VLC and swear by it. Music wise use media monkey gold. I am not a big fan anymore of Windows media player. They are to slow with the updates and you always have to source somewhere else for the codecs and I never have this hassle with VLC sent from HTC Sensation
Down to personal preference but I still think it's a pile of horrible bloated poo -- don't suppose it matters so much in these days of hardware abundance but I still like my system and programs as lean as possible. Really? Is there a specific codec pack that provides better decoding? I'd be interested to try it.
I just go for the least amount of installed software, so as WMP is seemingly undeleteable it wins out. The community codec pack CCCL? or similar? is supposed to be very good. But again I've found since Win7 I rarely have to bother with codecs anymore.