# How to improve video quality in full screen mode?



## Avis1

My HP pc is less than 1 year old. The problem is that when I watch a youtube video (or other videos or movies) in full screen mode, the picture quality is not good (not sharp, blurry). It is sharper when picture is smaller. 

My screen resolution is at the highest now (display is 1440 x 900). I have been googling this subject for a long time, but I cannot find any advice anywhere. 

FYI, my computer's graphics are "Desktop performance for Windows Aero" and Gaming graphics are "3D business and graphics performance". I guess it is not the best but I do not know if graphics is the reason the picture/movie doesn't look good in full screen. 

My friend bought a very basic least expensive lap top and she can watch movies on it in full screen mode in excellent quality. 

SO I wonder what is the problem. Do I need to adjust something? Do I need to improve graphics? How? I would appreciate your help in this matter


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## RootbeaR

There is a big difference between watching a movie and watching a video from youtube.
Try it yourself and you will see.

Youtube videos are flash videos and quality is limited.


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## jls242424

Avis1 said:


> My HP pc is less than 1 year old. The problem is that when I watch a youtube video (or other videos or movies) in full screen mode, the picture quality is not good (not sharp, blurry). It is sharper when picture is smaller.
> 
> My friend bought a very basic least expensive lap top and she can watch movies on it in full screen mode in excellent quality.


Try to watch youtube in HD mode, and/or download PowerDVD 9 "free trial for a month" for DVD'S at full screen. The quality you see now is what it's going to be. Nothing you can do when in full screen. 





http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdvd/overview_en_US.html


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## Soundy

As they say, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link... in this case, that link is YouTube itself. YouTube typically downsizes and heavily compresses the video... at that point, it doesn't matter how good your computer, you won't see the video in any better quality than it's being provided.

It's like taking your 1978 Civic to the race track - just because you're on a track, doesn't mean the car is going to go any faster than it's capable of.


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## Avis1

It is not only about youtube.com. Actually, I don't really care about youtube videos that much. 

My computer has bad picture quality in full screen mode also when I want to watch movies from good DVDs or from fancast.com or hulu.com or other sources. 

When I watch them in smaller window, the quality is fine, but when I make them full screen, it's not sharp and blurry. 

Please don't tell me their picture quality there is bad anyway, it is good because I was watching the same movies/video clips on other people's computers and laptops and everything looked great in full screen.

I just don't know what is it that I should improve in my computer. 

I know its graphics are not so good (see my previus post), a guy at Best Buy told be I should get a different kind of cable to connect my monitor to the computer...I am not sure about that because in the past they made me buy this expensive cable to connect my TV to VCR that was supposed to improve picture quality and it did absolutely nothing.... was just a waste of money


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## Soundy

Sorry to tell you, but Hulu probably won't be that great either - anything you're streaming over the 'net will be downsized and compressed horribly simply to accommodate low-bandwidth users. Now I don't know if Hulu auto-detects your connection speed and scales accordingly (I can't watch anything on it from here in Canada - I can go to the site but every video I've tried is blocked), or if you need to tell it your connection speed, but you might need to fake it into thinking you've got a faster connection that it thinks you have.

So, what size monitor do you have? 1440x900 is typical "native" resolution for 19-21" widescreen LCDs... once you get into 22-24" it goes to 1680x1050 or so. If you're not using your monitor's native resolution, it WILL look fuzzy.

What video adapter do you have? If it's onboard, what chipset is it using? Frankly, I can't see anything made in the last 5 years NOT being FAR more than sufficient for DVD playback. DVD and streaming video doesn't require 3D, so 3D performance is irrelevant.

What sort of connection are you using to your monitor now? Is it VGA (small 15-pin connector, possibly blue-colored) or DVI (larger connector, lots and lots of pins, probably white)? VGA will generally look poor on an LCD - you can get ghosting and smearing, especially with cheaper cables. DVI is definitely preferable, IF your computer and monitor support it. You shouldn't pay more than $15 or so for a 6' cable, and they can be had for less than $10, so don't let the BestBuy salesdroid sell you any gold-plated, diamond-encrusted, Mondo-Cable super brand thing for $50.

Only other thing I can think of is that whatever you're using to play the videos (Windows Media Player, InterVideo, etc.) is using really poor scaling to stretch the video to fullscreen. It will be even worse if the video itself is a different aspect ratio than the screen and the player is stretching it to fill - for example, watching "fullscreen" DVDs stretched horizontally to fill a widescreen monitor.

Unfortunately, you've given no real specifics of your system (model? video chipset? monitor make/model/size?) so everything here is just guesswork.


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