Why is My Video Blurry? - TechSmith Tips

In this video Mike covers a few things that may be making your video blurry and also some terms that may help you understand what exactly is going on.

Before you ever click the record button on your screen recorder or camera, ask yourself two questions. Where will my video end up being displayed and what resolution is my computer screen or camera. These are the first questions you need to ask yourself when you begin creating a video! Will my video be displayed on a mobile device, a high definition TV, or maybe an ultra high definition billboard? What are the screen dimensions of my computer monitor or camera?

I can’t stress this enough, you always need to familiar with what resolution you are shooting with and delivering too.
Screen resolution is the dimensions of your screen, most commonly measured in pixels. High definition editing and production dimensions are 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels) and 720p (1280 x 720 pixels).

For example, here at TechSmith we know we will be most commonly exporting videos to 720p for youtube and our website, so when we record, our screen dimensions are usually 1080p. The reason we record in a higher dimension is because when we edit, it gives us flexibility in zooming and scaling footage. Your footage becomes blurry when you zoom in or scale footage larger than what you originally recorded at.

Depending on the content, you can get away with scaling or zooming slightly larger than 100 percent without viewers noticing, just be aware.

Nowadays there are ultra high definition monitors, which is also commonly referred to as 4K (2160p) or 8K (4320p), or Retina display, but unless you have a very powerful computer, I would recommend 1080p to get started because if you do record in those higher dimensions, you will end up with very large files, thus slowing down your computer dramatically.

Mike also covers Vector art vs. Raster Art. Plus what file formats work best for videos.

As always, feel free to add comments or questions below, and thank you for your time.


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Closed Caption:

Hey everyone and welcome to another episode
of TechSmith Tips. Today, I am going to show
you why your video is blurry.
Now don’t get me wrong, there can be plenty
of reasons why your video may be blurry. In
this video I am going to just cover a few
things that may be the problem and also some
terms that may help you understand what exactly
is going on.
Post-production begins in pre-production.
Before you ever click the record button on
your screen recorder or camera, ask yourself
two questions. Where will my video end up
being displayed and what resolution is my
computer screen or camera. These are the first
questions you need to ask yourself when you
begin creating a video!
I can’t stress this enough, you always need to be familiar with what resolution you are shooting
with and delivering too.
But what is screen resolution exactly? Screen
resolution is the dimensions of your screen,
most commonly measured in pixels. High definition
editing and production dimensions are 1080p
(1920 x 1080 pixels) and 720p (1280 x 720
pixels). But whatever screen resolution you
have available, always try and record in the
highest resolution possible. We will get to
the reason why in a bit.
For example, here at TechSmith we know we
will be most commonly exporting videos to
720p for youtube channel and our website, so when
we record, our screen dimensions are usually
1080p. The reason we record in a higher dimension
is because when we edit, it gives us flexibility
in zooming and scaling footage later. Your footage becomes blurry when you zoom in or scale footage
larger than what you originally recorded at.
Depending on the content, you can get away
with scaling or zooming slightly larger than
100 percent without viewers noticing, just
be aware.
Nowadays there are ultra high definition monitors,
which are also commonly referred to as 4K or
8K, or Retina display, but unless you have
a very powerful computer, I would recommend
1080p to get started because if you do record
in those higher dimensions, you will end up
with very large files, thus slowing down your
computer dramatically.
The second set of terms I want to cover are
vector art vs. raster art. Raster art is made
of a certain number of pixels and vector art
is based on mathematical calculations. In
other words, raster art cannot be enlarged
without losing quality and vector art does
not use pixels and therefore is resolution-independent.
If you are a Camtasia or Snagit user, you
may have noticed that some callouts are in
vector form, they can be scaled without loosing
quality. There are a ton of stock image sites out there that offer both types for purchase.
Finally the last topic I want to cover is
file formats. This topic can get very confusing
very quickly, but my main piece of advice
is try and use the .MP4 file format whenever
possible. This ensures a high quality video,
at a low file size. Plus, almost all web and
software applications accept this as a universal
format and play well on almost all devices.
So when you can, convert your footage to .mp4
I know this is a lot to cover and can be confusing
at first. But once you start practicing and
experimenting for yourself, it will start
to make sense. Just remember, record as big
as possible, then edit in smaller dimensions,
keeping in mind where this video will be displayed.
As always, feel free to add comments or questions
below, and thank you for your time.