Video wallpaper too bright...

[Márió]

Hi, I've recorded some game footage that I set as wallpaper, the problem is that it becomes too bright in W.E., I know I can mess around with the color options in W.E., but I can't fine tune it to the video's original colors. I remember not having this problem like half or more years ago, is there a way to disable this W.E. video colors override? because it's extremely annoying. I want my video to look exactly the same as it looks when I play it in VLC or any other program. Thanks!

PS: I don't use custom display colors settings, it's also disabled in my Radeon GPU driver.

[Biohazard]

Please share this log so we can see more details about your hardware: https://help.wallpaperengine.io/debug/scantool.html

In general, Wallpaper Engine is not changing colors in any way if the options on the right are disabled. The video system used by Wallpaper Engine is part of Windows and the graphics driver, so unfortunately that's where the issue is. It's likely not about the "display" color options but rather the "video" color options in the driver.

VLC uses software video decoding which we cannot legally use and wouldn't be very good for a background application due to the permanent CPU load it would cause. That's why it's not affected by the graphics driver since it doesn't use it.

[Márió]

I've sent the logfile.

PS: I don't have Radeon Anti-Lag and screen recording enabled in my GPU driver.

[Biohazard]

Thanks, I received your email but unfortunately there is no file attached to it. Can you please send it again with the log attached?

[butcho]

Originally posted by Biohazard:

That's why it's not affected by the graphics driver since it doesn't use it.

Unless you enable hardware accelerated decoding in the VLC settings. ;-)

[Márió]

My bad, I somehow forgot to attach it, sent it again.

PS: I have the video profile set to default in the driver.

[Biohazard]

Thanks. Please try reinstalling the graphics driver with "clean" settings. I don't know if AMD has a similar option but Nvidia has an option in the install dialog to reset all settings so perhaps AMD has the same option there.

Additionally you could try using the LAV decoder from here: https://help.wallpaperengine.io/videos/lav.html which also has a control panel where you can choose between a bunch of different hardware acceleration methods. After changing the method, you have to fully restart Wallpaper Engine for it to take effect.

In general I don't see anything in the log that could be attributed to this. As long as you don't have the color options in Wallpaper Engine enabled, then Wallpaper Engine will also not cause anything to happen to the video and it's just being played as-is through the video system of Windows and the graphics driver. I believe there was someone else recently who had issues with AMD video colors so perhaps this is a new issue in the driver that just needs to be resolved, it might be worth trying older driver versions. If it turns out that there is a new bug in the driver, then this could at least be reported to AMD.

If you absolutely don't have this issue in other video applications that use hardware acceleration (like Windows Media Player) then it could also be a per-application setting in the driver, but right now we are not aware of what it is specifically so I can't tell you exactly what setting to look out for.

[Márió]

I tried it with windows media player, looks exactly like in W.E. DId some testing in VLC with all the hardware accelerated decoder options, even the disabled option and there was no brightness issue, so now I'm confused. The video footage was recorded using x264 not the AMD advanced media framework in OBS. Maybe that's the problem? because last time I used W.E. in the past the video was recorded using Radeon Relive. Anyway I'm pretty certain at this point that the issue is on my end, sorry I bothered and thanks for looking into my problem!

[Biohazard]

Originally posted by RyoMario90:

The video footage was recorded using x264

This is normally the best choice and should cause the least problems in general on any device or with any software. So this could really be something in the AMD driver that AMD could ultimately fix, it might be worth to try and file a bug report with them or ask them what setting in the driver might cause this.

If you haven't tried LAV from the link I sent earlier, I think it might still be worth a try and then just going through all of the different hardware acceleration systems that are supported and available on your PC. Maybe one of them works, so it may be a viable workaround. After installing LAV you have to close WE and open the LAV video options to switch the hardware acceleration method there.

[Márió]

I've tried LAV, followed the installation instruction step by step, managed to install both x86 and x64 successfully, configured W.E. but it's still bright, it was worth a shot thou, thanks!

[Márió]

So I tested OBS with the AMD encoder, same results, then I recorded with Radeon Relive, same results, this must be a driver issue because I just remembered that something like this happened to me a few years ago after updating the GPU driver, but then everything went brighter as if I turned up the brightness on my monitor.

[Márió]

I'm writing this last post for those who might have the same issue now or in the future. It seems that W.E. uses the Radeon Software's video profile for color settings just like windows media player, but not like VLC. Anyway the fix is simple, just go into your Radeon Software->cogwheel->video, there click on custom and in custom options leave everything " off " just change the custom brightness % to -15, after multiple comparisons -15 brightness looked exactly as in VLC.