All out of a sudden, my videos appear brighter than they NORMALLY would.

DivX, Xvid, all appear brighter than normal.

I'm using Windows XP SP2.
Pentium IV 2.8Ghz
1GB RAM
7600 GS
I use Kaspersky Internet Security 6.

I don't KNOW why out of a sudden, all my videos appear brighter than they normally would. Videos in game have no problems though.

VLC, Media Player Classic, Windows Media Player, all play brighter than normal. However, when I change Video Output Module in VLC to OPENGL Video Output, the video appears normal...

When I change it back to DirectX Video Output, they appear brighter than usual again.

Anyone please help?

Could it have anything to do with Crysis or Gears of WAR? The problem happened right after I installed these two games.

Could the problem lie within DirectX or perhaps the new NVidia driver I just installed after being pestered by Gears of War?Welcome aboard

Did you try System Restore?I did not save a restore point. Sad.You don't have any Restore Points listed?Ummm... nope.Try re-installing the video drivers.
Try the monitor on another computer.
Double check the settings in Control Panel.Depending on the card and monitor you have, the color heat (kelvin) can be CHANGED from the monitors OSD, and the gamma setting can be adjusted from the cards utility. The monitors brightness and contrast can often help to "smooth" these settings. Since these settings affect all colors, a little tinkering might be necessay to stike a "happy medium". None of these settings should cause any damage, just pay attentention to "what" and "how much". And you can always revert to "defaults".