Anything black turns transparent when video is playing

[poehitman]

I can't figure this one out. At first I thought it it was the video player, because I noticed that there was a transparency setting on it. But that setting is disabled. But the problem is that when a video is playing, and there is something on top of the video window, anything in that window that is black turns transparent and the video screen shows through (even when the video screen is minimized). Any black text on windows menus, my background to mIRC that is black (when I changed the background to white, it was no longer transparent. It's only stuff that is black. I've tried uninstalling, rebooting, and re-installing the media player, to no effect. I've also tried enabling, then disabling the transparency function in VLC. Also no effect. And it's not SP2 that did it, because it was doing this fresh from the initial install of Windows. I've used VLC Media Player for a couple years and I've never had this problem. It was only when I wiped my computer and reinstalled Windows that this started. And I used the same file to install it that

Right now, I'm stumped.

Running Windows XP Home Edition - Service Pack 2

[VLC_help]

Overlay. Disable overlay video output from VLC and problem should vanish.

[poehitman]

That solved the transparency problem but it created a new one. When I deselected it, the color of the video became screwed up. It looks like all the red is gone from the video, like if you left a picture in the sun for a long time.

[VLC_help]

You started VLC again after deselecting it?
If it doesn't help change output module.

[poehitman]

I switched it to the DirectX video output, no change. And yes, I save changes restart it after every change made.

[VLC_help]

Have you tried OpenGL mode?

[ChowMein]

Overlay is the normal way of doing things. This is how it works:

I just hit print screen while a video was playing. When I looked at the clipboard viewer, I saw black where the video had been playing. Then I unchecked overlay and and stated the video again and hit print screen again. When I looked at the ClipBook Viewer again, this time I saw a screen shot of the video I had been playing.

In the first instance the VideoLAN window was really displaying black, but anything black displayed the image. In the second instance the VideoLAN window was displaying the image.

The reason for this is that with overlay the image comes from a different part of memory than the rest of the desktop.

What I am saying is what you describe as a problem is the normal way of viewing AV materials on a computer. It is the preferred method.

I just discovered something I need to share with you in a separate post.

Stephen

[ChowMein]

With 'Overlay video output' enabled on my computer, the VLC window is not true black, but RGB 001. The video displays on anything RGB 001, not black. I went into paint, filled with black, and did not see any video, then I double checked the color with pixie, edited the color in Paint to RGB 001, and filled with that color, then I saw the video over the newly painted surface.

I don't see any way to change the key color, so I don't know why your key color is true black.

[poehitman]

The only change I made was a different video card. My good video card failed and I have to use a crappy backup video card until I get a new one. I went from one that had 128MB of DDR RAM (Chaintech TI4200 GeForce4) to one that only has 16MB of RAM (3DFX Interactive Banshee).

The problem is that if I have to pause the video and do something else, it makes the menus extremely difficult to read. I've never had this problem before, so I don't know how to fix it.

[clone53421]

The exact shade of the key colour depends on whether you are in a 16-bit or 24-bit colour mode. That's why some people are noticing the issue with black text going transparent. For me, the key colour is black in 24-bit colour and not quite black in 16-bit colour. (You might have to exit VLC and restart it after switching colour modes.)

For those having this problem, try changing your colour depth and see if it stops.

Personally, I wish they would allow us "advanced users" to change the key colour for the video overlay...