I did not read the entire thread, but if you have an NVidia video card, NVidia put out a few drivers which would not work with DirectShow (i.e. Windows Media Player). Just a thought.
I'll give new drivers a shot, as I have not done that before.
Moot, when playing the video I only get audio, nothing visually, not even what you were describing. As I already mentioned I tried VLC and it yielded the same results.