lost color in video playback

[skunkwerk]

video was playing back fine, but suddenly all the videos I play are in black-and-white now (I've confirmed the videos themselves are actually in color, as are the thumbnails). I've tried playing back in VLC, Totem, mplayer - all exhibit the same problem. I'm not sure which video card I have, but it's a Thinkpad X60 laptop running ubuntu 7.10. Could it be a codec issue - I can't see how, as the video and audio play back fine

thanks

[mc4man]

check here may help
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=769209