VLC Media Player colors look washed out

I might be splitting hairs here, but I can't help feeling like the picture quality in VLC Media Player looks a bit washed out compared to other players I've used. On VLC Media Player, the colors just seem punchier and more vibrant. I was wondering if there's some specific setting within VLC Media Player that needs tweaking? I've tried a few basic adjustments already, but nothing seems to really move the needle.

https://i.postimg.cc/NGb747gw/dlz.jpg

To me, both photos look identical... Perhaps you have some background process running in your RAM that's interfering with one of those programs, which would explain why they only look off to you?

darkcobra66 said:I might be splitting hairs here, but I can't help feeling like the picture quality in VLC Media Player looks a bit washed out compared to other players I've used. On VLC Media Player, the colors just seem punchier and more vibrant. I was wondering if there's some specific setting within VLC Media Player that needs tweaking? I've tried a few basic adjustments already, but nothing seems to really move the needle.

https://i.postimg.cc/NGb747gw/dlz.jpg

It almost looks like the contrast on your screen is just a bit lower when you're using VLC Media Player. Is it possible you maybe accidentally turned it down?

You can really see the difference when you look at those side-by-side shots. The discrepancy mostly comes down to how the players handle decoding. Since VLC Media Player is set up to leverage your GPU, it’s handling all that heavy lifting through hardware acceleration. On the other hand, KM Player defaults to software decoding, which puts the entire burden on your Intel Core i9. Honestly, you definitely want the GPU taking the lead here—that's exactly what it was built for, and it's much more efficient at the task.

You probably have settings in both programs that let you tweak things like gamma, contrast, or extra image processing. As far as I can tell, you can also enable hardware acceleration in KM Player and load up specific codecs that leverage your GPU. Honestly though, I’m a bit out of my depth when it comes to which specific codec works best with which graphics card! Personally, I usually just stick to VLC Media Player.