Screen recording is not so sharp

[denverfix]

Hello my friends, I am new to obs studio.

I have checked many videos on YouTube, and still unable to solve my problem.

My screen recording is not so clear. It gets a little blurry, the letters are not so clear.

How can I solve this problem and be able to record in high resolution.

Thanks!

 

[magicnut]

Hello my friends, I am new to obs studio.

I have checked many videos on YouTube, and still unable to solve my problem.

My screen recording is not so clear. It gets a little blurry, the letters are not so clear.

How can I solve this problem and be able to record in high resolution.

Thanks!

Lad it sounds to me like you are using downscaling.
What is the output resolution set on your OBS and is it the same as your canvas resolution?
I am guessing you are downscaling to 720p or something?In which case you should probably set the output resolution the same as your canvas and stop downscaling unless you have a particular reason to downscale (nowdays most folks stream at 1080p) , the only reason I can think of is perhaps you have a crappy connection like me with low upload speed or use cpu encoding on a slow cpu and want to take the load off..
Using a downscale filter namely Lanczos can sharpen the image a bit but if you really want a sharp picture you have to remove the downscaling.

 

[denverfix]

Lad it sounds to me like you are using downscaling.
What is the output resolution set on your OBS and is it the same as your canvas resolution?
I am guessing you are downscaling to 720p or something?In which case you should probably set the output resolution the same as your canvas and stop downscaling unless you have a particular reason to downscale (nowdays most folks stream at 1080p) , the only reason I can think of is perhaps you have a crappy connection like me with low upload speed or use cpu encoding on a slow cpu and want to take the load off..
Using a downscale filter namely Lanczos can sharpen the image a bit but if you really want a sharp picture you have to remove the downscaling.
View attachment 96539

My connection is not bad. And I'm running at 1080p both input and output.

See my settings.

I'm using an AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-5-5600g

It has enough processing power to run a video of less than 10min.

 

[rockbottom]

Check the Advanced tab, make sure the Color Range is set to Partial & not Full. Normally, CQP or VBR would be the rate control recommended for recording but AMF looks better with more bits thrown at it.

 

[newbie-02]

hello guys,

I have same / similar problem, I'd like crisp, sharp, color true screen-recording, it doesn't work out.

I start with a spreadsheet looking like pic_1 below ( magnified ), and end with something like pic_2 below.
( which is by far the best I reached, no scaling involved, the green circle segment in both shots is the
actual screen, the blurry edges of each and everything else are bothering me ).

For me it looks as if some step in processing tries to improve, smothe out something, but couldn't figure
which or how to disable.

IMHO it's too many settings which I don't know if related or not to write them all, isn't there a howto
around somewhere for 1:1 screen recording?

TIA for any hints.

pic_1 origin:

pic_2 recorded:

 

[koala]

It seems your recorded image is slightly compressed vertically. The 4 small dots at the bottom right corner are not quadratic any more. This indicates you're rescaling the image somewhere, which introduces distortion and blurriness. If you intend to record your whole desktop, make sure Settings > Video > canvas resolution is equal to output resolution and equal to your computer desktop resolution. And make sure the display capture source you use for capturing isn't rescaling anything. To reset any manual scaling of this source, right-click that source > Transform > Reset Transform.

To see the video without rescaling, you also need to make sure your media player is playback in fullscreen mode and doesn't do any postprocessing itself. The slightly darker edges of the red "Why" indicate some kind of postprocessing.

 

[newbie-02]

hello @ koala, thanks for reply,

> It seems your recorded image is slightly compressed vertically. The 4 small dots at the bottom right corner are not quadratic any more. This indicates you're rescaling the image somewhere, which introduces distortion and blurriness.

I did consider that as the same thing which affects the writing?

> If you intend to record your whole desktop, make sure Settings > Video > canvas resolution is equal to output resolution and equal to your computer desktop resolution.

It is, I had many experiments before, actually trying from base up, all set to 3840x2160.

> And make sure the display capture source you use for capturing isn't rescaling anything.

I had experimented with cropping from top right and bottom to get an 2560x1440 source, record it to 2560x1440 output, and then have easy integral downscaling to 1280x720 ... it was worse than the effect now so I stepped back to learn from scratch.

> To reset any manual scaling of this source, right-click that source > Transform > Reset Transform.

Tried it, no change, in this test the squares you mentioned are at another position and keep squares, but with some nearly invisible lighting / darking of single pixels inside and around.

> To see the video without rescaling, you also need to make sure your media player is playback in fullscreen mode and doesn't do any postprocessing itself.

Yes, thought about and experimented with already reg. 'color shifting', for a newbie it's indistinguishable to see on which side the fail is, but a good chance to finally misconfigure the wrong one ... that's why I thaught it should by default be 1:1, have the impression it isn't, users might put in wanted effects later, and asked for a tutorial / howto from someone who has / had it working, else I might working on a dead horse.

> The slightly darker edges of the red "Why" indicate some kind of postprocessing.

Do you know any tricks for triaging, I tried VLC and some other viewers / editors like shotcut and Olive, up yet not good solution ...

Normally I would have used Windows capture because I only need one Application, but that doesn't account my cursor highlighter :-( .

Think help would be appreciated by others too, have seen the question frequently, but not yet a solution.

 

[koala]

Unfortunately, you didn't post a log with a recording session, so we're unable to say more.

 

[newbie-02]

hi, 'log'? tried, hope I picked the right one, https://obsproject.com/logs/B4aJ96FFKqnYu7jt,
it's from a 3840x2160 recording as described below where the frames start very little blurry
and then improve.

think I'm coming near(er) to a solution. Think main step was to reset VLC ( 'vlc --reset-config' ).
Now recording with:
source = output = canvas = 3840x2160,
output rescaling disabled,
video encoder x264,
Color Format I444 (8-bit, 4:4:4, 3 planes),
Color Space sRGB, or 709, or 601,
Color Range full
yields good output, mostly ... looks as if the first frames after a picture change
often have some very small blurring,
pic below 'pic_3 recorded', see right edge of 'y' for 'unclean', evtl. you need to use a screen lens,
and subsequent frames are clear like source ... ???

that's not perfect, but something I can try to live with or improve later, it's good
enough that I frequently klick on the video to perform some action ... which can't work.

Next step is get it 'integer scaled down' to 1920x1080, think that needs to produce 0 .. 1 pixel
seaming on edges, instead I get 3 to 4 pixel, and mixup between adjacent nearby edges.
Any hint on this?

pic_3 recorded:

 

[koala]

Oh, you're using completely nonstandard settings for the common use case. You're using Linux, and this is the Windows support forum. It's not clear if it's possible to use a hardware encoder on your system, which would change some general approach. It's not clear what you want to achieve. It's not clear what your final product should be, and how your final product is supposed to be used/consumed. The settings you're looking for heavily depend on on what that product should be.

tl;dr I don't know how to help here beyond to what I already wrote.

 

[newbie-02]

hi, thanks for the hints,

windows?, oh, sorry, is there something around for linux?

what I want to achieve? good quality screen recorded videos which I can publish on e.g. youtube.

your help and my trying to express the problem already improved my work, I'm still in hope there is a
newbie-howto somewhere around.

what I think? A two pixel line is either aligned in a two/two/two grid, in downscaling should become a 1-pix line,
or is across a border, then should become a 2-pix half intense colored line ... not good? At least not the blurry
things like in pic_4 recorded, log for that recording: https://obsproject.com/logs/GE3iscU6nRLMCptr

 

[koala]

If you intend to record videos to later upload to Youtube, my recommendation is:

• create a new Profile with Profile > new to get the default settings
• run Tools > Auto-Configuration Wizard and optimize for recording
• use 1920x1080 as base (canvas) resolution (your machine is too weak for 4k video processing)
• use 1920x1080 as output resolution (or 1280x720 if you have performance issues)

This will switch OBS to simple output mode. Use this. In settings > Output > Recording, verify recording quality. It should be set to high quality or indistinguishable quality. Also verify Video encoder. In case no hardware encoder was detected, just x264 is available. If this is the case, from the two available, use the "x264 low cpu usage preset" if it isn't set by the wizard, since your CPU isn't very powerful and will struggle with encoding.

Keep all the advanced settings in Settings > Advanced > Video at the defaults you got after creating a new profile. Don't be obsessed by 1:1 original quality, since Youtube will recode your video to these standard settings anyway.

 

[newbie-02]

hi, thanks for further help and hints,

> If you intend to record videos to later upload to Youtube, my recommendation is:
create a new Profile with Profile > new to get the default settings

Did so ( as multiple times before ),

> run Tools > Auto-Configuration Wizard and optimize for recording
use 1920x1080 as base (canvas) resolution

As in former attempts it suggests x264, High Quality, Canvas 1920x1080, Output 1280x720, 60 FPS.

> (your machine is too weak for 4k video processing)

that's bad, considered it old but powerful, and thought low frame rate could ease
load, static content like showing spreadsheets doesn't require high FPS?
I can monitore CPU and memory usage in the XFCE panel, in 'idle' ( obs running and showing
preview but not recording ) it's about 12% for both, recording with the settings you / OBS
suggested ~75% for both, but very blurry output see pic_5 below, recording 4k -> 4k with
10 FPS load is nearly invisible, 30 FPS: ~40%, 60 FPS ~80% load, looks understandable to me,

> use 1920x1080 as output resolution (or 1280x720 if you have performance issues)

first tried the second as ACW suggests, very blurry, output 1920x1280 not really better,
problem is I have! a 4k screen, in former installations it was possible to set it to 1920x1080,
in recent OS ver. that vanished, recording acc. your suggestions but 4k -> 4k with low FPS
works, but produces 'darkened edges' around letters,

> This will switch OBS to simple output mode. Use this. In settings > Output > Recording,
verify recording quality. It should be set to high quality or indistinguishable quality.

high,

> Also verify Video encoder. In case no hardware encoder was detected, just x264 is available.

x264, there are reports about issues between linux and nvidia drvers, at least with my
installation, I don't know how to check,

> If this is the case, from the two available, use the "x264 low cpu usage preset" if it isn't set by the wizard,

hadn't seen 'low cpu' before, tried it now, see no improvement,

> since your CPU isn't very powerful and will struggle with encoding.

CPU isn't stressed when use low FPS,

I had watched the CPU load in XFCE panel monitor, it shows activity per core, I know that it
can go up to 8 times 100%, load with the recordings I tried before was below ~50% per core,

> Keep all the advanced settings in Settings > Advanced > Video at the defaults you got after creating a new profile. Don't be obsessed by 1:1 original quality, since Youtube will recode your video to these standard settings anyway.

I see lot's of 'work' done to produce blurryness with your / OBS suggestions, which
doesn't make sense ( to me ). And my concern is that subsequent re-renderings, either in
post processing, and / or upload / store at video hoster, and / or for display in other resolution
will improve the unsharpenedness.
Thus want to try to produce clean input to minimize such effects.

And think to have clean 1920x1080 than 4k source is better for uploads.

Would say what I want ... 1:1 ... or integer pixelsharp downscaling ... is easier than any
complex calculations, but seems OBS insists in calculating. After hours of experimenting
I can produce better output, esp. with 'advanced' settings and I444 3planes encoding,
but, checked with VLC 'frame by frame', it indeed starts with some artifacts strayed in
uni-colored areas, which take ~50 frames! to slowly go away.

pic_5 recorded 1920x1080 -> 1920x1080 or 1280x720:

 

[newbie-02]

Looks as if - still testing - setting an insanely high bitrate in settings - output - mode advanced - recording - encoder settings
of e.g. 250000 instead of 2500 solves the point of starting with some artifacts. Cross checked, setting bitrate to 1000 starts with
more artifacts which take longer to fade out.

If that holds and there is no option in OBS to produce 'integral sharp downscaled', then recording in 4k and postprocessing
could be an option, doe's anybody know a tool for simple strict 4 pix -> 1 pix or 9 pix -> 1 pix downscaling without any 'intelligent'
improvements?

TIA for any help, and hope above can help others with similar requirements ...

Tips for others: read and understand above thread, evtl. avoid nvidia graphics cards in e.g. 'live' installations which don't provide nvidias proprietary drivers, learn about 'screen zoom' ( for me worked with a hotkey and two finger scrolling ) or a screen magnifier lens to get clear sight on what's happening, and about VLC's 'e' option to step frame by frame through a video. Compare pic_3 in above postings to pic_5, it is possible to produce something meaningful, yet alone not with default settings. 'Discrete standstill graphics or text' or similar benefit from different settings than motion and gradients.

 

[koala]

Before you sink more time into changing all the advanced settings, create a 1-2 minute long recording with the best settings you found so far and upload this to Youtube. After Youtube finished processing your video, check what it will look like from Youtube. You will see Youtube will not reflect what you uploaded in the first place. Youtube is your final product, not the video saved by OBS, and you're unable to control the recoding by Youtube.

Consider switching your desktop resolution to 1920x1080 while recording, so the downscale from 4k doesn't take place. Downscaling will always make the image blurry, no matter the downscaling factor. For pixel graphics of legacy consoles, the "Area" downscale method is a solution to conserve single pixels, but spreadsheet graphics and rendered fonts will probably look strange, even if it's appearing as sharp.

Keep in mind, that if you intend to publish to Youtube, not everyone will watch your video with the same equipment as you. More than half of the users has 1920x1080 monitors, no 4k. Many of them will also watch your video windowed, not fullscreen, so there is a downscale in their media player. So you need to design your video that downscaling doesn't destroy its visuals. You also need to use big text that is still readable while downscaled.

I suggest you change the graphics design of your video to make downscaling effects less visible. Lower the contrast. Avoid white background with black lines, black text and other high contrast colored text. Instead, use light grey background, dark grey lines and even darker grey/colored font. Choose colors that create contrast due to the contrast of the colors, not due to brightness.

About your bitrate change: don't use a bitrate-based rate control for recording. Instead, use a quality based one. Bitrate-based wastes space while there is no change of the images, and hasn't enough space if there is change, so the quality is inferior. Quality based rate controls take as much space as required to satisfy the quality specification. Because of this, I didn't even comment your 2500 kbps bitrate, which is much too low for everything but instead recommended switching to simple output mode and use one of the quality settings.

About nvidia graphics: you're in the Windows forum here, and for a Windows PC Nvidia is the best GPU you can get for advanced usage. It's overpriced, but from a technical and driver point of view, it's providing the best features. For live streamers, the Nvenc hardware encoder is invaluable and the major selling point because of its superb quality with negligible system load at the same time, so OBS can run almost invisible in the background even with the biggest resource hog games running at the same time.

About the computer power of your machine: According to https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2637vs5569/Intel-Xeon-E3-1505M-v5-vs-Intel-U300 it's 16% slower in comparison to the small notebook I bought 3 months ago for 500 Euro for casual and office use. Your machine is just old. Its CPU seem to have a Intel iGPU that's able to provide the Quicksync hardware encoder, so I suggest you try an appropriate Intel driver. On a Windows machine, it would be already installed - because of such driver things, I pointed out you're in the wrong forum.

 

[koala]

Perhaps as comparison. I don't know what your recorded videos look like, but I attach2 tiny video examples from my machine. Some Excel spreadsheet, created with 100% standard OBS settings, just recorded. One 1920x1080, one 2560x1440. In my opinion, sharpness is perfect. Simple output mode, 60 fps, nvenc hardware encoder, "indistinguishable quality". The tiny red and green colored UI parts are bleeding slightly, but this cannot be avoided, because even if the original was recorded with some 4:4:4 color space, the recoding by Youtube will change it to 4:2:0 anyway and high contrast colors will bleed. Upload my demos both to Youtube and see what will be preserved.

A png export from the 1920x1080 video:

A png export from the 2560x1440 video:

 

[newbie-02]

hello @ koala, thanks again for multiple tips and hints, will come back to it but it may take some time until I manage to upload ...

 

[Minakshi Mirza]

Hello my friends, I am new to obs studio.

I have checked many videos on YouTube, and still unable to solve my problem.

My screen recording is not so clear. It gets a little blurry, the letters are not so clear.

How can I solve this problem and be able to record in high resolution.

Thanks!

Hello! Welcome to OBS Studio!

To solve the blurriness issue and get clearer recordings, try the following steps:

1. Set the base (canvas) and output resolution:
- Go to Settings > Video.
- Make sure both the Base (Canvas) Resolution and Output (Scaled) Resolution are set to the resolution you want (e.g., 1920x1080 for Full HD).

2. Increase the bitrate:
- Go to Settings > Output > Recording.
- Adjust the Recording Quality to a higher bitrate or choose “Indistinguishable Quality” for sharper output.

3. Choose the right encoder:
- Use either x264 (software) or your GPU encoder (like NVENC) for better performance, depending on your system.

4. Frame rate:
- In Settings > Video, set Common FPS Values to 30 or 60 for smoother video.

Make sure you're also using the correct resolution in the game or application you're recording from. Let me know if this helps!

 

[newbie-02]

hello @ koala,
my understanding improves ( my impression ), would you like to make the 1920x1080 video / screenshot
with colored text? Have the impression b/w is handeled differently to colored text, e.g. have sharp edges
for b/w vs. blurry for red, green or blue. See pics in https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/jittery-lines-and-washed-out-colours.175890/#post-648345 .

 

[koala]

That's true, with color format NV12 (4:2:0) colors are handled slightly different than brightness. Brightness (black, grey, white) is stored with full resolution, and colors with half the resolution to save space and resource consumption. Because of this, the colors bleed 1 pixels out of their supposed shape. A 4:4:4 color format such as i444 doesn't exhibit this behavior. It needs more space, and any video you upload to Youtube is recoded to NV12 color space, so even if you upload a 4:4:4 video with no bleeding, the resulting video on Youtube after their internal processing will have NV12 with the color bleeding that comes with it.

The examples I attached above are encoded with NV12 color format, so any color you see has this 1 pixel bleed. That's quite the common case, every video you see on Youtube has this. This is no defect or issue, it's just as it is. It's most visible with pure green or pure red, because the human eye is most sensitive to these colors, and because of this I suggested you should change colors, lower the contrast and use grey instead of white background. A slight red bleed on light grey background isn't that visible as on pure white background.