Does HDR -> SDR not work in WMP?

[Sunfox]

With a 4K HDR MKV (remuxed from BD), using all LAV components (splitter, video and audio icons all come up in Windows 7 taskbar), does WMP not support HDR to SDR conversion? The video is obviously muted in colors (ie. white is a dull grey).

However, playing the same file back in MPC-BE using the same codecs, HDR to SDR conversion is obviously occurring and looks good.

Just curious whether this was supposed to work in WMP or not.

[Shark007]

WMP does not allow changing the renderer therefore it will not work in WMP.

[Sunfox]

Thanks! I had suspicions it was something like that, but wanted to be sure. It can be hard to drop the simplicity of WMP even when so many alternatives exist.

[Shark007]

Just to update this thread...
In Windows 10, it works using the Microsoft Media Foundation decoder.
To use that, just press [RESET ALL] in the 32bit App (Doing this returns all decoding to Microsoft)
Next, choose the SUGGESTED settings to have subtitles too.
Also know, I am using the most current release of my software where-as an older release may not work as mentioned here.

I have the following FREE Media Foundation codecs installed... (I do not know if these are still free to all... they used to be, and still are to me)
HEVC codecs
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/store/p/...4wgh0z6vhq

Vorbis or Theora codecs
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/store/p/...5tdp8vcmhs

VP9
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/vp9-vi...4d0msmp0pt

mpeg
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/mpeg-2...95q1zzpmh4

[Sunfox]

I hadn't updated my Shark007 codecs in quite a while, but I wanted to get 4k / HDR-to-SDR working. Updating actually broke a bunch of stuff - H264 video in IE11 no longer works at all (used to work mostly, just kinda laggy, but no big deal since IE11 is dead anyways)... but WMP (specifically) stopped being able to play back MP4 files at all, and was giving an error "cannot access file" like there was a permission problem (there wasn't). Disabling the Microsoft audio codec ended up fixing that.

[Shark007]

Switching back and forth between WMP 32bit and 64bit is known (to me) to cause problems.
If this is you, I suggest you choose which you prefer, set it through the 64bit App and forget it. (Reboot too)
Some filetypes get set to the 64bit player while others are trying to open the 32bit player and often you'll get a server execution error or something similar.
Once you stop switching between the players, WMP problems are solved automatically.

My personal setup is to use WMP 32bit, and MPC-BE from my tools page, which is 64bit.