Red streaks in video. Need help finding source of problem

[sharksfan7]

I have a graphics issue I hope I can get some help with. Please forgive the long post. I want to provide as much info as I can.

I recently purchased a Dell XPS 8700 (Windows 8.1 64-bit, Intel i7 3.6GHz, 8GB RAM) and a ViewSonic VA2465smh 24-Inch LED Monitor. I've had it for just over a month now. Running it pretty much as it came except that I put the OS on a Samsung 128GB SSD. I've been noticing some visual artifacts (I think that's what you'd call it) while watching videos. It appears as red streaks or trails around dark portions of the image as it moves. I notice it most around the eyes or mouth of a person in the video. I'm trying to figure out what the most likely source of the problem is.

My first assumption is just a weak graphics card, an NVIDIA GeForce GT 720 1 GB DDR3 that came with the Dell. But before I spend the money on a new card, I'd like to make sure there is not something else I should be looking at.

I've updated the drivers with ones from the GeForce website. That actually made the issue worse than with the older drivers provided by Dell.

I thought maybe it's a codec issue. I have the K-Lite Codec Pack which I used for years on my older computer w/o issues. I've tried tweaking some of the settings in the configuration tools randomly but I'm not sure exactly what to be focusing on. If there's a different codec pack I should to try, please let me know. It does appear that the red streaks show up more when I play video in WMP compared to playing in VLC. But I also noticed them sometimes as I just scroll through my Instagram feed. So no media player/codec involved there.

I've tried tweaking the settings in the NVIDIA Control Panel, adjusting Brightness, Contrast & Gamma settings, without any luck eliminating the streaks.

I've tested both VGA and HDMI connections to my monitor. Issue appears with both. And the overall visual quality using HDMI was worse than with VGA, which kinda surprised me. Thought HDMI would've been better.

I connected my Sony Blu-Ray player directly to the monitor via HDMI to see if it's a problem with the monitor. The issue did not occur with that, even when playing the same video file through the Blu-Ray, so I'm pretty sure the monitor is good.

I'm not a gamer so I'm not familiar with the benchmark tests that are used to test graphics cards. I don't think that I'm doing anything that would be overly taxing for one. Mostly just watching movies or TV shows stored on the computer (mp4, mkv, wmv) or streaming through Netflix. I also stream live sports through apps like MLB.tv, Watch ESPN & NBC Live. I've noticed the red streaks in all of them, although it's not as bad as playing video in WMP.

So does this sound like a hardware problem? Is this GeForce GT 720 just an inadequate card? Or should I be focusing on something else?

Any input & advice is appreciated. Thanks for reading.

 

[CountryBumkin]

The video card that came with the Dell is fine to play DVD and BD movies. BUT that doesn't mean your card is not faulty/broken. I have one computer with an intel i3 (intel HD3000 on-board graphics) that plays 1080p BD movies fine. I think something in your setup is messed up. One of the difficulties setting up a computer for media playback is figuring out what programs to install, what codecs might be needed, and how to get everything to play nicely together.

I'm a JRiver Media Center user. I chose JRiver because they use the "best available" renderer (madVR) and LAV filters and you don't need to know anything to get it working. It self installs. You just need to tell it where the files (media) is. This program costs $50 but you can try it for free for 30 days - and when it installs it doesn't overwrite or touch anything else on your computer - so uninstalling puts you back exactly as you were.

So, as a test, install the trial, and if your movies play correctly, you will know that the hardware is good and something else is messed up. Then you can uninstall it and go back to whatever you were using - or pay the $50 to keep it. JRiver Media Center software

If you'd rather stay with the "all free" solution, I would suggest getting the "Shark007" codec pack Shark007's FREE Codec solutions - Windows 7 codecs - Windows 8 codecs - Windows 10 codecs, and using "MPC-HC" as the player https://mpc-hc.org/.

 

[sharksfan7]

Thanks, CountryBumkin, for the input and suggestions. I'll give JRiver a test. If it is able to play video without the artifacts, I'll try to dig deeper into what I currently have to see if I can get it work better, before buying additional software or new hardware. Perhaps I'm just not tinkering with the right settings. And maybe the Shark007 codec is all I need. It does seem to be calling my name.