Blurry YouTube & Netflix video playback on my new ASUS monitor

[u.umar_malik]

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/asus-21-5-fhd-60hz-5ms-gtg-ips-led-monitor-vz229h-black/10737846.aspx?

I have no idea why the quality on videos is so bad. It's a brand new 1920x1080 monitor and on 1080p, sometimes you can't even make out words on YouTube videos. On Netflix, it looks like it's on 480p. All other functions are fine, but it's just videos that it's struggling with and I have no clue why!

 

[Lutfij]

Did you try uninstalling and reinstalling your GPU drivers? What are the specs to the system you've connected the display off of?

 

[SkyBill40]

Check your physical connections first. Also, what is the resolution you have Netflix itself to display content? I don't think it auto detects the best output for you, so you'd better check that in the event you haven't already done so.

 

[u.umar_malik]

Did you try uninstalling and reinstalling your GPU drivers? What are the specs to the system you've connected the display off of?

Windows 10
Gigabyte B360 Aorus
i5-8400 Coffee Lake
16gb Corsair Vengeance LPX
EVGA GeForce GTX 1060

Here's an image of a random YouTube video I clicked on. It's on 720p and you can see the blur..

 

[u.umar_malik]

Check your physical connections first. Also, what is the resolution you have Netflix itself to display content? I don't think it auto detects the best output for you, so you'd better check that in the event you haven't already done so.

It's YouTube as well, so even if I change the Netflix playback settings to max it won't fix both problems

 

[SkyBill40]

Check your physical connections first. Also, what is the resolution you have Netflix itself to display content? I don't think it auto detects the best output for you, so you'd better check that in the event you haven't already done so.

It's YouTube as well, so even if I change the Netflix playback settings to max it won't fix both problems

That seems... odd. YT should auto detect your best display resolution.

At this point, I'd probably go the uninstall/reinstall route and see if that makes any difference. When I get an update for Nvidia drivers, my screen will sometimes go blurry for a bit. Once it finishes up, it goes back to focus.

 

[u.umar_malik]

Check your physical connections first. Also, what is the resolution you have Netflix itself to display content? I don't think it auto detects the best output for you, so you'd better check that in the event you haven't already done so.

It's YouTube as well, so even if I change the Netflix playback settings to max it won't fix both problems

That seems... odd. YT should auto detect your best display resolution.

At this point, I'd probably go the uninstall/reinstall route and see if that makes any difference. When I get an update for Nvidia drivers, my screen will sometimes go blurry for a bit. Once it finishes up, it goes back to focus.

No change brother it's still the same :/

It doesn't effect games or anything it's just the video streams that have poor quality for some reason

 

[SkyBill40]

Just curious, but how is your display connected to your GPU? Can you switch to a different connection type and see if anything changes?

 

[u.umar_malik]

Just curious, but how is your display connected to your GPU? Can you switch to a different connection type and see if anything changes?

Through a single HDMI cable that came in the box with the monitor. I don't have a different connection type, but I have another HDMI cable. Doubt it'll make a difference though since the problem is very specific to videos

 

[SkyBill40]

I see it also takes a plain VGA connection though your GPU likely doesn't have one and will require an adapter to try should you not have one (and it's not really worth it). Try the HDMI cable swap and see if anything changes. :/

 

[u.umar_malik]

I see it also takes a plain VGA connection though your GPU likely doesn't have one and will require an adapter to try should you not have one (and it's not really worth it). Try the HDMI cable swap and see if anything changes. :/

Okay the other HDMI cable didn't work at all

 

[SkyBill40]

Sorry, man. I'm stumped.

 

[u.umar_malik]

All good brother I have no idea either. Maybe it's just a bad monitor to cmwatch videos on?

 

[cryoburner]

I don't think there's any actual problem here. It seems like this might just be a matter of the video itself of being of rather low quality. I had a quick look at the video on my computer as well, and it doesn't look much better. I can barely make out half the text on the screen. Consider this...

1) The video getting uploaded by a streamer is not going to be of particularly great quality to begin with, since it's generally getting encoded in realtime on their computer, while they are playing the game.

2) The resulting video file is getting re-encoded by whoever did the compilation video, reducing its quality further.

3) Youtube re-encodes their uploaded compilation video for efficient playback from their servers, reducing the quality even further.

4) The video is upscaled from 720p to 1080p to fit your screen, introducing some additional blur.

5) And then of course, you snapped a jpeg of your screen, resulting in another reduction in quality.

And that's assuming the video wasn't clipped out of some other prior compilation video, and re-encoded additional times. It seems to simply be a low-quality video at 720p, that's then scaled to fit your screen. You shouldn't expect it to look like a blu-ray, or even a television broadcast. The quality won't even be as good as if you were watching the gameplay when it was first streamed, since it's been re-encoded multiple times since then, introducing additional compression artifacts every step of the way.

Try watching a high image-quality youtube video that's available at higher resolutions, like this one for example, and see if there's still any problem...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXb3EKWsInQ

Even there, with high-quality source material, you should notice that there's a visible improvement when switching between 720p and 1080p on your 1080p screen. You should even notice a significant improvement setting the video to 1440p resolution, since Youtube adds a fair amount of compression to videos, making even 1080p content a little blurry on a 1080p screen.

 

[u.umar_malik]

I don't think there's any actual problem here. It seems like this might just be a matter of the video itself of being of rather low quality. I had a quick look at the video on my computer as well, and it doesn't look much better. I can barely make out half the text on the screen. Consider this...

1) The video getting uploaded by a streamer is not going to be of particularly great quality to begin with, since it's generally getting encoded in realtime on their computer, while they are playing the game.

2) The resulting video file is getting re-encoded by whoever did the compilation video, reducing its quality further.

3) Youtube re-encodes their uploaded compilation video for efficient playback from their servers, reducing the quality even further.

4) The video is upscaled from 720p to 1080p to fit your screen, introducing some additional blur.

5) And then of course, you snapped a jpeg of your screen, resulting in another reduction in quality.

And that's assuming the video wasn't clipped out of some other prior compilation video, and re-encoded additional times. It seems to simply be a low-quality video at 720p, that's then scaled to fit your screen. You shouldn't expect it to look like a blu-ray, or even a television broadcast. The quality won't even be as good as if you were watching the gameplay when it was first streamed, since it's been re-encoded multiple times since then, introducing additional compression artifacts every step of the way.

Try watching a high image-quality youtube video that's available at higher resolutions, like this one for example, and see if there's still any problem...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXb3EKWsInQ

Even there, with high-quality source material, you should notice that there's a visible improvement when switching between 720p and 1080p on your 1080p screen. You should even notice a significant improvement setting the video to 1440p resolution, since Youtube adds a fair amount of compression to videos, making even 1080p content a little blurry on a 1080p screen.

I think you're right. I was noticing it on a lot of videos so I thought it may have been an issue with my setup but that video you linked was crisp and clear. As for Netflix, the playback quality was on the 'Auto' setting so I'll try putting it on 'High' and watching from there.