I'm going nuts. A year ago when I bought my pc after installing some codecs I had a problem. All WMV and MPG files were suddenly being played in black and white. A darkish unclear black and white that is. But somehow I solved the problem after hours of surfing and trying. After a year I had so much sh#t on my pc it crashed. So I needed to reinstall. The black and white problem I had fixed a year ago now has returned with the new installation, but this time I can't find the right answer... CAN ANYBODY HELP? This is one of two major problems I'll post the other in the appropriate thread.
I doubt this will solve it but back in the day when my video started playing in black & white the problem turned out to be Windows Messenger. I just closed that and everything was fine, in color again.
Sometimes if you install individual codecs one by one, they might clash with one another. Try uninstall all the individual codecs, then download and install K-Lite Codec Pack (full or mega version) to see if that might solve your problem. Good luck!