A solution for blurry YouTube videos

By | October 22, 2011
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Sally wants to know why some YouTube videos appear blurry while others are fine
I have a high-speed Internet connection and I enjoy watching YouTube videos. But I can’t understand why some of them are very clear and others are blurry. I searched for an answer to this problem but I couldn’t find one. So I figured if anyone could help it would be you guys. Can you help?

Thanks for all you do for us. You’ve helped me more times than I can count. Keep up the good work!

Our answer
Thanks Sally. If you’re viewing the video in full-screen mode, the large size can make some videos appear very blurry. But sometimes, even the regular size videos can appear blurry. As far as we know (and we’re not YouTube experts), the reason why some YouTube videos are blurry is because free YouTube members have limits on the size of the videos they are allowed to upload – so they upload lower-resolution videos so as to keep the file size within YouTube size restrictions. YouTube’s Premium members pay a fee so they can upload videos without the size restrictions and those are usually high-definition videos — i.e. very clear. So that’s why some videos are very clear and others are somewhat fuzzy – or blurry.

So the next time you are viewing one of those blurry low-res videos, try this tip. Remember this tip will work most of the time. Just go to YouTube and open whatever video you want to watch. Now at the end of the URL (in your browser’s address bar) and type (or paste) “&fmt=18” and press Enter.

For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59mP3R4I8wU

becomes….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59mP3R4I8wU&fmt=18

(In case you clicked those links you won’t notice much of a difference in quality since the original was very clear to begin with.)

As we’ve said, this will work most of the time, but not all of the time. Let us know how this works for you.

34 thoughts on “A solution for blurry YouTube videos

  1. J.

    I had the same problem & solved it,here’s how.put your mouse pointer on to the video your watching,then right click on it,click settings,then click display,then uncheck
    enable hardware acceleration,then click close.
    now on your browser click refresh or reload depending
    on the browser you use.The video will now restart without blurring.The problem is some of todays computers have too much power to run flash player videos.After watching your videos you can reanble hard ware acceleration the same way if you want to.

    Reply
    1. priya

      it was not so with me…but u gave me the clue to handle this problem…it worked fantastic 😀
      Thanks a lot 🙂

      Reply
    2. A

      When i right click on the video , it doesn’t give the option ‘settings’. How can that be?

      Reply
      1. Steve

        Same here… no Settings option… Where do we find this now (after I’m assuming it was changed) ?
        thanks

        Reply
      2. Person124

        I clicked the ‘Settings’ option at the bottom of the video and then clicked ‘Quality’ and changed to a higher number. If that doesn’t work, I usually refresh the tab.

        Reply
  2. zegeli

    Hi Guys,

    I was having the same issue, I am uploading screen recordings and even though the videos look great on video player on my computer they look blurry on youtube. So I did this fix and now after enabling hardware acceleration it looks good. However what about my viewers? I cannot expect people to know this fix. Isnt there a permanent solution for this? Am I doing something wrong when uploading the videoS? I am testing my videos on other computers and I get the bllury video again so for me its not a solution since my viewers will see them blurry anyways. Please help.

    Reply
  3. vfvgsdgn

    no both the ways didnt help me 🙁 i tried 4 times 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁

    Reply
    1. infoave Post author

      Are your sure your Internet connection isn’t to blame. Just because you’re paying for high-speed Internet doesn’t mean you’re getting it. Go to http://www.speedtest.net and tell us what your download and upload speeds are.

      Reply
  4. jeff phillips

    You tube makes tons of money each year. Why cany someone there fix the dark movies that have a bright spot in the middle. Also when I try to watch help tutorials most of the time the screen goes black at the first of the video making many of the unwatchable. I hope thet soon there will be some effective competion from some other company for you tube.

    Reply
    1. infoave Post author

      I think most of the content on YouTube is user-created. i’m not aware though, of “dark movies” with bright spots in the middle, but then I’m not a big YouTube fan. i would think dark movies with bright spots would be the fault of whoever made it – as far as I know YouTube does not make any of the videos on YouTube – they’re all uploaded by people, companies, groups, etc. I may be wrong but I don’t think YouTube creates any content for YouTube.

      Reply
  5. Priya

    Hi Guys,

    After downloading the videos from you tube through youtube downloader, at first it was running at HD display, but just before few days all the videos got blured and reduced quality , where as the same video runs in HD quality on my mobile.

    Need Help regarding this.

    Thanks.

    Reply
    1. infoave Post author

      Sounds like a video card issue… definitely does not sound like a driver or software issue.

      Reply
  6. jam

    HI guys, well I am having the same problem. Any videos I watch was blurry. But it isnt like this before. My dad probs accidentaly clicked on something and every vids I watch is alreafy blur eveb though I updated the app already. DO you guys know how to resolve this.? Pls help me 🙁

    Reply
    1. infoave Post author

      Hi, sorry, not enough info to be able to help you.

      Reply
  7. Lunga

    Hi guys

    I downloaded YouTube videos using YouTube online converter and clipconverter.cc. When I watch the videos they are blurry or say white in the middle but sound is okay. Please I beg guys help.

    Reply
    1. infoave Post author

      Our article was just a suggestion. Ther are dozens of other things it could be. Your Internet connection, your video card going bad, your video drivers, etc. Without actually looking at your computer, we’d be just guessing.

      Reply
  8. kmpres

    I, too, have this problem and none of the solutions outlined above have worked. Right clicking youtube videos does NOT reveal a settings tab of any kind in my system. I cannot change video card settings (ATI Radeon HD 3850) because my system has no settings to change. (It did have its own somewhat buggy control panel interface when I was running Windows 7 but not now in Windows 10). I have updated my video drivers with no change in symptom. Everything else works at my screen’s maximum resolution, including other youtube videos, so this is a problem with SOME but not ALL videos, usually free movies and TV programs. Other youtube videos, including tutorials and educational videos over two hours long, are stunningly clear at 1080p. Also, my fiber-optic internet consistently tests at 93 mb/s so this is not a speed issue. This is definitely a youtube problem. I sure would like to find a solution to this problem because I’m getting mighty tired of looking through cheesecloth at these so-called HD videos that are anything but.

    Reply
  9. Ffaaarrzz

    My problem is when i watch any vid such as song..parodies…or another else it look blur..all of vid that i watch look blur…maybe the setting is changed or what…i dont know…can u tell me how to make it look clear just like before??

    Reply
  10. Beth Ross

    It WORKED!! Thanks!

    Now, is there a way to make all the YouTube videos have the &fmt=18 automatically without having to change each one individually?

    Reply
  11. Ilse van Berkum

    Hi! I have a very weird problem on my laptop. Every video I watch, becomes super blurry/pixelated unless my mouse poiter is on it. When I’m not in full screen, leaving the mouse pointer on the video doesn’t work because the vid goes blurry after a second or so. All the tips here didn’t help, does anyone have a solution?

    Reply
  12. Scott Viehbeck

    I did what you said on YouTube video but when I right click it and on settings comes up with only copy debug info, troubleshoot playback issue and stats for nerds. Nothing about video resolution

    Reply
    1. infoave Post author

      Nothing in our article says anything about debugging and nothing in our article says it works with all videos.

      Reply

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