Display problems with videos only

[Firzen530]

Hello, for some reason videos that I view have some sort of bad quality, which can be easily seen in fullscreen. I firstly noticed this with internet broswer videos. This is happening across not just Youtube, but also other streaming websites and also Facebook. Even if I choose 1080p it is noticeable. This happened some time ago, but now it is getting irritating, and I'm not even sure how it happened in the first place, it just happened. I've noticed that it doesn't seem like a GPU problem of some sort as high-end games and such run fine. Eventually I realised this seems to be a problem with locally played videos. I tried a DVD on VLC player which showed similar problems, then I tried a blu-ray with the cyberlink power media player (or something like that) and it seems fine. Although the other case could just be it isn't as noticeable. When I play .mp4 files as well as other types offline and such though I seem to see the picture quality being poor.

I really do feel something is not right as the quality of videos I have previously watch differs and even if it is lower quality, it doesn't like as if it was just a lower quality but it does seem a bit pixely in a way. There a few videos also which I have watched, although I can only remember one of them, which has some type of weird horizontal bars which I shall provide a photo of, along with another video with the problem occurring with all videos.

If I watch a lower quality video which isn't HD it is just almost unwatchable and terrible quality, where it has come to the point where for some reason 1080p videos are only slightly decent while showing bits of that pixely look where anything lower looks not too great at all.

The picture with the horizontal lines was not even in fullscreen nor the theater mode but in its little normal mode and this is what the 1080p video displayed. I'm am sure it was not like this before, it was smooth and clear before this all happened.

The picture with the guy is just the normal 1080p in fullscreen while the other is an example of the problem which occurs with a few select of videos. I also uploaded a third screenshot when I was fullscreen on an anime streaming website. This part comes up before every video on this website. You may think I'm over-exaggerating, but I am 100% sure that the text was much smoother and cleaner, less rough and pixeley looking than before. The actual episode would then begin to also share the quality problem which I believe was clearer and crisper than before. You might also want to view thsi picture more closely, fullscreen if possible before you can actually see it. It is more noticeable around the S's in the "Kiss" part.

I have also added another picture as an example for some that appear with some weird type of horizontally line distortion, with the policeman in the car. Just thought I'd note the horizontal looking things I have only come across online, as I haven't watched many videos offline.

Just wanted to just say that I do not believe this is an actual GPU problem of some sort as when I run high-end games, the graphics are great, as well as with pictures. It just seems to be with videos.

If any bits of information is needed, feel free to ask.

HP Envy Notebook PC 17.3"
16.00GB Ram
Nvidia GeForce GTX 850M + Intel HD 5500 Graphics
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5500U CPU @ 2.40GHz

My settings are already on high performance, and are using the dedicated GPU. When it comes to internet speed for online videos, it is not a problem, especially if with the same connection before this occured there was no problem. I do have fibre internet which I believe is reasonable enough.

Thanks in advance!

LINK FOR PICTURES: http://imgur.com/a/dml3y

 

[Solandri]

The first and last picture are suffering from lack of deinterlacing. I can't see anything wrong with the middle two pictures.

Interlaced video only draws every other line each frame. So the first frame will have only the odd lines, the second frame only the even lines, the third frame odd again, etc. When it's displayed on a non-interlaced display like a computer screen, it needs to be deinterlaced - the missing lines interpolated so each frame has every line. The deinterlacing algorithm (sometimes decombing is used instead) borrows details from adjacent frames so it contains more detail than just the one frame, and also accounts for movement.

Unfortunately, the huge drop in price in video recording hardware means a lot of people who don't know about interlaced vs progressive, and deinterlacing can "publish" videos on YouTube and other video sharing sites. If they upload raw interlaced videos (broadcast 1920x1080 is normally interlaced), these sites will just splice two frames together instead of deinterlacing (this takes a lot less CPU power). If there's any motion from one frame to the next, it results in two images where odd and even lines are displaced in space, resulting in the comb-line lines you see.

It has nothing to do with your computer. VLC should automatically be deinterlacing any interlaced videos it encounters, but there's a chance you may have turned it off. If you dig through the options, you'll be faced with a plethora of deinterlacing algorithms you can use.
https://wiki.videolan.org/Deinterlacing/

 

[Firzen530]

Okay for the whole deinterlacing thing, I downloaded one of the videos and tested with with changing the deinterlacing option to on, and the horizontal lines did go away, although there seemed to be less of the lines, but they still were there. Anyway, the lines went away but how would this work for videos I view elsewhere? As that video was on youtube for example and it will still be like that.

Also, I guess it kind of is hard to explain what I meant with the middle two pictures, but I really do feel there is some sort of drop in quality or pixelated look. Previously watched videos do seem to have picture quality which wasn't how it was before, and like I was saying, some standard definition videos don't even seem standard and can be pretty unwatchable with this distorted look which doesn't just seem like a lower quality video but there is something not right. Here, I will upload another two pictures which will show the exact same scene in 360p and 1080p fullscreen. I'll also give you a link to the video so you would also be able to perhaps take a look at the video itself.

With the first picture, the 1080p near the darkers parts, these square pixel thingys are just more visible and all, and as the video goes on, where the distortion is kind of keeps changing as the square thingys kind of move around. Then with the 360p one, is where I can really see there is a problem. Not only are things more noticeable, but as soon as I made it fullscreen, those wave looking thingies around the bottom half where kinda just moving around even though it was paused. I then took the screenshot, and as I pasted it on paint, it did the same. Saved it, opened it to view it and it happened again. This doesn't seem normal to me at all.

Another reason why I do think this problem is actually there, I noticed both problems at the same time. It was when there was the bad picture quality, that in few videos there was the whole horizontal bar problem. It happened at the same time, and I do not know the cause. I do think it is hard to explain and show the situation through just screenshots.

Link for the two more pictures (please do fully view it): http://imgur.com/a/G0fL2
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0MDY9fl-IA

Thanks for the help so far. Just wanted to let you know, I'm not going to be home for a while so I won't be able to respond too quickly at times. Perhaps the problem could be with pictures also, but I haven't really viewed pictures, especially fullscreen so I can't tell. But I do see some pictures which are supposed to be HD which aren't as clear, but I can't tell if it is just the picture itself or what. Which also brings me to the fact is that the picture quality decrease happens when the video viewer is in theatre mode or in fullscreen. I find this is strange as games seem fine.

EDIT: I don't know if this had something to do with it, but I thought it you never know and perhaps this was related to it, but sometimes especially more often recently when I'm on Facebook, I get a WebGL hit a snag error thingy, and it seems to happen more often when I watch videos. I don't know what WebGL is but perhaps it has something to do with it.

 

[Solandri]

Yeah, when the video was uploaded to YouTube, the horizontal lines from interlacing were hard-coded into the now-progressive video. At that point, it's difficult to remove - the deinterlacer doesn't know which lines are due to interlacing, which are actually part of the scene. A good algorithm can mostly get rid of it, but not entirely. To completely remove it, you need the original interlaced video. Like I said, it's nothing wrong with your computer, the fault lies with the person who uploaded the video. If they uploaded the video that way, there is nothing you can do about it.

I'm not seeing the problem you're describing in the new pics you uploaded. I can think of two causes for what you're seeing though. What kind of cable are you using to connect to your monitor? And what is the brand and model of your monitor?

If you're using a VGA cable, then the image is being sent to your monitor as an analog signal. It's possible the signal in the dark parts is weak enough that you're seeing noise picked up by the cable.

Most monitors don't really show 8-bit colors. They're 6-bit and use something called FRC to simulate 8-bit. Basically the pixels rapidly flicker between two 6-bit values to simulate an 8-bit value. On newer monitors this flickering is fast enough so as to be almost invisible. But your monitor may be old/cheap enough that this flickering is visible.

 

[Firzen530]

Sorry for the extremely late reply, just got back from my trip. Okay, but what I don't get is, with those interlaced and such videos, I've seen a few of them which does the whole horizontal bar things, before without the stuff happening having no lines (as well as a bit clearer). So although I kinda understand how it works with being uploaded on Youtube, I've seen a few of those videos before the problems came up fine. Yeah, I guess it is kind of hard to kind of show and explain the picture quality thing through just messages. I thought maybe the way the pictures and stuff are displayed are different to the way it is being displayed on my screen? Also, I feel like the two problems are linked (as they occurred at the same time) so perhaps a solution to the horizontal line thingy might fix the whole picture quality problem also. My computer isn't a desktop, it is a laptop. HP Envy 17.

EDIT: Just wanted to add something. I tried giving the whole deinterlacing thing a google, and I came across this site: http://www.100fps.com/video_resolution_vs_fluidity.htm

What I noticed is when it was comparing a non-interlaced and unnecessarily deinterlaced shot of a video, (the diving one) what was displayed looked exactly identical to me. This just had me thinking perhaps the problem is indeed also reflected in photos. I'm guessing what both pictures display, was only supposed to be displayed through the second one, but my guess perhaps the problem is also being reflected in photos, which could be also lead to why it seems we are seeing the pictures differently.