Hey tribe, I am trying screen recording using OBS with Auto-wizard settings. From the video and screenshot, we can see that the quality of the video is not good. The text is not up to the resolution of the actual screen. I had the same issue with QuickTimePlayer and Kap as well. I am new to this. Can anyone guide me on what could be the issue? I checked OBS forums & all possible settings, but nothing works.

you might wanna look at

TapeX

simple + free tool for offline video recording assuming usecase is for offline recording

What's the issue with the inbuilt macOS screen recording tool?

Change the video resolution and bit rate. What's the current setting? You could use the inbuilt tool as Rush mentions

Also, please share what your OBS settings are. Without seeing those it's impossible to know what the issue is.

Also.. fwiw it looks fine to me,

If viewing on a 4K monitor can notice slight blur between the screenshot & video. On Full HD cannot notice it.

Thanks @brave-diamond-50548 The issue is not just with OBS, Its with every screen recorder I am trying to use on mac to record on my 2nd monitor.

Understood, the native recorder will darken your primary screen while recording, I imagine you don't want that

@red-oyster-35440 Which inbuilt tool ? I tried QuickTimePlayer. But had the same issue. BTW here is OBS logs.

17:54:39.853: CPU Name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz
17:54:39.853: CPU Speed: 2600MHz
17:54:39.853: Physical Cores: 6, Logical Cores: 12
17:54:39.853: Physical Memory: 16384MB Total
17:54:39.853: OS Name: Mac OS X (NSMACHOperatingSystem)
17:54:39.853: OS Version: Version 10.16 (Build 20B50)
17:54:39.853: Kernel Version: 20.1.0
17:54:39.873: hotkeys-cocoa: Using layout 'com.apple.keylayout.ABC-India'
17:54:39.874: Portable mode: false
17:54:39.999: OBS 25.0.8 (mac)
17:54:39.999: ---------------------------------
17:54:40.001: ---------------------------------
17:54:40.001: audio settings reset:
17:54:40.001: 	samples per sec: 44100
17:54:40.001: 	speakers:        2
17:54:40.004: ---------------------------------
17:54:40.004: Initializing OpenGL...
17:54:40.041: Loading up OpenGL on adapter ATI Technologies Inc. AMD Radeon Pro 5300M OpenGL Engine
17:54:40.041: OpenGL loaded successfully, version 4.1 ATI-4.0.47, shading language 4.10
17:54:40.133: ---------------------------------
17:54:40.133: video settings reset:
17:54:40.133: 	base resolution:   1920x1080
17:54:40.133: 	output resolution: 1920x1080
17:54:40.133: 	downscale filter:  Bicubic
17:54:40.133: 	fps:               60/1
17:54:40.133: 	format:            NV12
17:54:40.133: 	YUV mode:          601/Full
17:54:40.134: NV12 texture support not available
17:54:40.134: Audio monitoring device:
17:54:40.134: 	name: Default
17:54:40.134: 	id: default
17:54:40.134: ---------------------------------
17:54:40.139: Failed to load 'en-US' text for module: 'decklink-ouput-ui.so'
17:54:40.152: os_dlopen(libpython3.7m.dylib->libpython3.7m.dylib): dlopen(libpython3.7m.dylib, 257): image not found
17:54:40.152: 
17:54:40.152: [Python] Could not load library: libpython3.7m.dylib
17:54:40.320: A DeckLink iterator could not be created.  The DeckLink drivers may not be installed
17:54:40.320: No blackmagic support
17:54:40.426: obs_register_encoder: Encoder id 'vt_h264_hw' already exists!  Duplicate library?
17:54:40.426: [VideoToolbox encoder]: Adding VideoToolbox H264 encoders
17:54:40.529: [obs-browser]: Version 2.8.6
17:54:40.561: VLC found, VLC video source enabled
17:54:40.561: ---------------------------------
17:54:40.561:   Loaded Modules:
17:54:40.561:     vlc-video.so
17:54:40.561:     text-freetype2.so
17:54:40.561:     rtmp-services.so
17:54:40.561:     obs-x264.so
17:54:40.561:     obs-vst.so
17:54:40.561:     obs-transitions.so
17:54:40.562:     obs-outputs.so
17:54:40.562:     obs-libfdk.so
17:54:40.562:     obs-filters.so
17:54:40.562:     obs-ffmpeg.so
17:54:40.562:     obs-browser.so
17:54:40.562:     mac-vth264.so
17:54:40.562:     mac-syphon.so
17:54:40.562:     mac-decklink.so
17:54:40.562:     mac-capture.so
17:54:40.562:     mac-avcapture.so
17:54:40.562:     linux-jack.so
17:54:40.562:     image-source.so
17:54:40.562:     frontend-tools.so
17:54:40.562:     decklink-ouput-ui.so
17:54:40.562:     coreaudio-encoder.so
17:54:40.562: ---------------------------------
17:54:40.562: os_dlopen(../obs-plugins/obs-browser->../obs-plugins/obs-browser.so): dlopen(../obs-plugins/obs-browser.so, 257): image not found
17:54:40.562: 
17:54:40.562: ==== Startup complete ===============================================
17:54:40.628: Service '' not found
17:54:40.634: All scene data cleared
17:54:40.634: ------------------------------------------------
17:54:40.688: coreaudio: device 'MacBook Pro Microphone' initialized
17:54:40.688: [Loaded global audio device]: 'Mic/Aux'
17:54:40.736: Wifi Webcam: Selected device 'Iriun Webcam'
17:54:40.736: adding 46 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 46 milliseconds (source: Mic/Aux)
17:54:40.736: 
17:54:40.739: Wifi Webcam: Using preset 1280x720
17:54:40.865: coreaudio: failed to find device uid: LogiGamingAudio:Generic:Blue Microphones:2031BAB043M8:1, waiting for connection
17:54:40.867: Webcam: Could not initialize device with unique ID '0x14120000046d0825'
17:54:40.873: Switched to scene 'Coding Scene'
17:54:40.873: ------------------------------------------------
17:54:40.873: Loaded scenes:
17:54:40.873: - scene 'Coding Scene':
17:54:40.881:     - source: 'Exteranl Monitor' (display_capture)
17:54:40.881:     - source: 'Wifi Webcam' (av_capture_input)
17:54:40.881:     - source: 'Blue Yeti' (coreaudio_input_capture)
17:54:40.881:         - filter: 'Noise Suppression' (noise_suppress_filter)
17:54:40.881: - scene 'Presentation Scene':
17:54:40.881:     - source: 'Webcam' (av_capture_input)
17:54:40.881:     - source: 'Keynote' (window_capture)
17:54:40.881:         - filter: 'Chroma Key' (chroma_key_filter)
17:54:40.881: ------------------------------------------------

The logs aren't useful in this scenario.

@wide-twilight-82330 Can you check on 4K monitor if you have ?

Inbuilt tool = cmd + shift + 5

@red-oyster-35440 Would this help ?

High Quality medium file size -> Indistinguishable quality. Stick to simple output. Your secondary monitor is a 1080p monitor?

Yes its 1080p. I tried all the 4 qualities and 60fps. But did not worked. Might be the the VLC player not able to play 1080p properly. Any other player which can verify this assumption ?

VLC is more than capable

I don't think it's an issue. Try recording your main HiDPI screen and see if that comes out as you expect.

@able-xylophone-142 that 4K reply I posted after seeing it on a 4K only

@red-oyster-35440 I tried only recording my mac screen without monitor and the issue is same. @modern-table-48211 Good idea. Let me try that.

This is how it looks on a 4k monitor . See the quality of text, one is hazy one is sharp

Thanks @wide-twilight-82330 for posting. It's for YouTube. And yes I've already wasted couple of days on fixing this. So I decided to move on with whatever quality I've right now. I posted this out of curiosity to check if I am not missing any obvious settings which I guess I am not. Thanks everyone ☺️

i would suggest increase the font size of the editor or record in Intellij’s presentation mode.

These are the settings I use (YMMV): encoder x264, rate control: ABR, bitrate: 20k

Streaming settings are for when you livestream to twitch / YouTube etc