OBS makes pixels blurry
- Thread starter sisudatu
- Start date
koala
Active Member
The most important thing you have to do is to record exactly the same resolution as your original something. No upscaling and no downscaling. No fit, no stretch, no resize. In Settings->Video, set both the OBS base (canvas) resolution and output resolution to the resolution of the source that captures your something.
It may make a difference if your something is running fullscreen or windowed or is captured with a capture card.
A capture card resolution should be set to the original something resolution, and the OBS base+output resolution the same.
If you capture your something fullscreen, you need to set the base/output resolution to the something resolution as well, no matter the (probably much higher) Windows desktop resolution.
For a capture of a something running in a window the resolution depends on the question if a title bar and window borders are captured as well, or not. These increase the resolution slightly, so you should start with a bigger resolution (for example with your Windows desktop resolution). The capture source will become some smaller frame in the top left corner of the preview. Now right-click the source->"resize output (source size)" to make the base/canvas resolution exactly this resolution.
Having done this, you will get clear pixels and no blurriness, however you might see slight color distortion. This is kind of unavoidable and the result of compression and encoding - usually, the color is encoded with only half resolution than brightness (chroma subsampling 4:4:0). If you need to avoid this as well, you need to change settings->advanced-Video->Color Format to i444 to get full color resolution.
You might notice Color Range in the same menu is set to limited, which means only 220 colors are recorded per color channel instead of full 256, however for pixel art there are often only 16 or 64 colors used, or a color palette is used with reduced colors, so changing color range doesn't do anything. This will only bloat your video with probably no benefit, and video players might distort colors encoded with full color range instead of playing back colors more accurately.
If you intend to upload your recordings to a video service such as Youtube, they will blatantly recode your material to 4:4:0 color format and limited color range, so the two tweaks in the advanced video settings will not be preserved.
It may make a difference if your something is running fullscreen or windowed or is captured with a capture card.
A capture card resolution should be set to the original something resolution, and the OBS base+output resolution the same.
If you capture your something fullscreen, you need to set the base/output resolution to the something resolution as well, no matter the (probably much higher) Windows desktop resolution.
For a capture of a something running in a window the resolution depends on the question if a title bar and window borders are captured as well, or not. These increase the resolution slightly, so you should start with a bigger resolution (for example with your Windows desktop resolution). The capture source will become some smaller frame in the top left corner of the preview. Now right-click the source->"resize output (source size)" to make the base/canvas resolution exactly this resolution.
Having done this, you will get clear pixels and no blurriness, however you might see slight color distortion. This is kind of unavoidable and the result of compression and encoding - usually, the color is encoded with only half resolution than brightness (chroma subsampling 4:4:0). If you need to avoid this as well, you need to change settings->advanced-Video->Color Format to i444 to get full color resolution.
You might notice Color Range in the same menu is set to limited, which means only 220 colors are recorded per color channel instead of full 256, however for pixel art there are often only 16 or 64 colors used, or a color palette is used with reduced colors, so changing color range doesn't do anything. This will only bloat your video with probably no benefit, and video players might distort colors encoded with full color range instead of playing back colors more accurately.
If you intend to upload your recordings to a video service such as Youtube, they will blatantly recode your material to 4:4:0 color format and limited color range, so the two tweaks in the advanced video settings will not be preserved.