DVD Video playback dark and grainy, regular screen etc fine!

I dont' understand this. I am having problems with video playback on my comp. I have two dvd drives, a LiteOn DVD reader and a new Samsung DVDRW w/Lightscribe. I have had no problems in the past, but now my movies look really poor. I tried the disks in my laptop and they played fine. What is the prob? I've used Windows Media Player, Nero Showtime and PowerDVD and all three had the same playback issues. I have a Athlon 64 3400, 6800GT and I've even updated the video drivers just in case. Any ideas???

I ran the display optimization wizard and nothing changed. My desktop, and internet and everything else looks normal and fine. It's only when I play DVD's on my computer when I get the problems.

That's what I did.... Still no improvement. I tried the defaults and sliding the sliders but no help.... I'm dumbfounded.

Ok.... I think I got it. Although this sucks..... I took an old ATI 9200 SE and put it in the AGP slot, and it plays movies great. I also tried an old Nvidia MX4000 in a PCI slot and it played movies great as well....... My father in law has the same Leadtek Winfast 6800GT and he has never used it except to fart around with screensavers. I'm going to get his tomorrow and see if it works. If so, this is the second 6800 GT that I would have crap out on me in less than 1 1/2 years. Also, my father in laws was returned when it came and it was broken out of the box. Hopefully this setup will get me through until next spring/summer when I can build new. I'm totally ready for DX10 and a new multi core processor.

guys ... i found this thread while searching for dvd playback grainy on google, and i need to reactivate this thread. i'm experiencing similar symptoms with my new machine. with my old hp laptop and computers before that (all non 1920x1200 resolution) ... i could play my dvds on my pc without anything being grainy or pixelated! however now, with my quadcore q6600 machine, with nvidia card (GeForce 8800 GTS 512), 4 gigs of ram, and vista 64 bit OS i get the grainy pixelated playback from my pc. i've been using the same software to view movies, which is cyberpower dvd (got cyberpower dvd 7) and the playback is awfully grainy.

i am up-to-date on my video card drivers, so i don't think that is the case. is it something with the resolution i am watching my dvd in? another thing ... i backup my dvds so that they stay in good shape over time, but honestly the grainy pixelated images turn up in my .iso files (burn copies) as well ... this has never happened before, and its starting to frustrate me.

any help or answers? thanks!

Worked for me.

Some time after installing nvidia 169.25, my video went black, too. Unclicking the "Use the NVIDIA Control Panel color settings" box worked best. If you move the sliders, you have to press "APPLY" after every change or it does nothing.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

Man you nailed it, in the "Video and Television Settings" the contrast and brightness were turned all the way down to zero. I put them at 50% (middle) and boom video looks great to me. THANK YOU for the suggestion.