Image difference between source, NDI viewer, and OBS

[Ryq]

Log file: https://obsproject.com/logs/Lckch2ZtYrQBRoit

Hi! I'm trying to make some art. The image on the programs I use look good (touchdesigner, video waaaves, etc). When I use NDI to capture and then inspect with newtech video monitor, it still looks good. But in OBS itself it looks really bad compared to the source and what the NDI tools are seeing and displaying. I'll attach a photo that shows screen grabs of the difference between SOURCE > OBS preview (which looks the same as final output) > NDI MONITOR.

This persists on both my 2010 imac, and my 2020 M1ini, or going between them.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

There are multiple OBS Display scaling options to select from. I believe the default is based on best general use case, but you will benefit from an option focused more on resolution fidelity than CPU impact.
I'm not in front of OBS PC at the moment, but I recall being advised to change my PPTx window from the default for better readability (bicubic?? on an upper-end i7-10700K combined with a Turing NVENC GPU encode offload CPU... so plenty of CPU and GPU to handle extra load.) ymmv

Also, re-scaling would be something I'd recommend avoid, in general, and especially on that ancient for real-time-video-encoding 2010 iMac {which I'd surprised if it works at all for anything other than the lowest resolution/framerates, etc... and even then, personally I wouldn't even bother attempting}

Sorry, I can't find my reference notes on bilinear, vs bicubic vs Lancos and the others. Just know there are differences, and you may need to test/adjust to find the one that works for you and your system. A search in these forums should provide some pointers