Can't get color only black and white

First let me say that my Inspiron 8000 with XP Pro and a
DVD player does play back DVDs in color. I just
checked. However, I cannot get Internet video (ie: news
items from networks) nor the video offerings on the Media
Player nine to play in color...they only play back in
black and white. When I went into the view settings of
the player and tried to get the color, it changed the
players color (the skin) but not the video playing on the
player. I have the ATI XP video driver from Dell
installed and the settings set to 32 bit hi-color. Any
suggestions????