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When I open an MP4 video file in Windows Media Player, it is sharp in windowed mode, but very blurry when the video is scaled up (e.g. when I enter fullscreen mode, or even when I make the window slightly bigger than the videos resolution). I only have this problem with Windows Media Player; other video players such as default "Movies & TV" do not have this problem. I have tried multiple codec packs but this does not help. How can I improve the sharpness of the video?

  • Part of the video as seen in windowed mode:

    part of the video as seen in windowed mode

  • The same part of the video as seen in fullscreen mode:

    the same part of the video as seen in fullscreen mode

Some information about my system: I am running Windows 10 Home Edition, I have an AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT GPU and dual screens both with a resolution of 2560x1440. The video is 1920x1080 at 30 fps and has a data rate of 600kbps and a total bitrate of 727kpbs. Windows Media Player gives the following properties for the video file:

video file properties

Using metadata2go.com, I see that the codec is h264, (the long codec name is "H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10" with codec tag 0x31637661). The pixel format is yuv420p and the encoder is "Lavf56.40.101".

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    What is the video resolution? What is your screen resolution? What codec is the video?
    – Mokubai ♦
    Commented Jan 3, 2023 at 13:04
  • @Mokubai I edited the question to provide answers to your questions.
    – Ruben
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 17:05
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    it is possible that for some stupid reason Windows Media Player is using a very bad but fast scaling method. Given it's age it might not know how to trigger the GPU scaling methods or is using the worst method available. It may be bundled with Windows, but there are far better programs with better performance these days. I notice in the options there is a "video smoothing" option, does that change anything? i.sstatic.net/7CmhE.png
    – Mokubai ♦
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 17:43
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    I just tried Windows Media Player on an mp4 and the performance was horrible, it looks like it was running at half frame rate, but was supposedly using a hardware decoder. What I notice differently though is that VLC is using not only the hardware decoder (seen in Task Manager -> Performance) but also is using 3D, presumably making use of DWM and newer features of the WDDM drivers. It may be that Windows Media Player is using some obsolete (GDI?) method to access and draw at the screen resulting in poor performance and scaling.
    – Mokubai ♦
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 17:47
  • @Mokubai Good comment! Unfortunately the "video smoothing" option did not make a difference.
    – Ruben
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:17

2 Answers 2

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  • you are downsizing the capture;
  • when you try to use full screen view, it MUST then scale up;
  • scaling up is a quality loss, as is scaling down, compounding the issue; especially with lossy compression techniques;
  • mpeg compression is especially brutal on hard-edge color transitions such as text on solid colors.
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    I understand how scaling works, but the point is that windows media player blurs the video when scaling up (the blurriness is significantly more than you would expect from just scaling up, which can be seen in the images I included in the questions). Other video players do not have blurry video.
    – Ruben
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 17:04
  • You cannot control what other users use to view the video
    – Yorik
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 17:06
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    Sorry, but I don't understand your remark. My question is "Windows media player playback is blurry when scaling up. How do I solve it?". I would think that I am the user here.
    – Ruben
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 17:08
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Windows Media Player doesn't appropriately scale at High DPI, when you change to fullscreen mode. The Media Player hasn't seen updates to it's codebase since a longer time and apps are set to be the successor of the WMP. This would explain, why other Players work flawlessly when playing the same file.

See this example from the Microsoft Docs: Example of DPI aware and unaware Application

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    My understanding is that high DPI mode (which I do not use) is only for UI. I would not expect this to affect the video playback.
    – Ruben
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 13:44
  • I edited my answer with an example of the Microsoft Docs. Well, video playback is still affected by DPI Awareness, since it's also displayed in the UI.
    – Zeik0s
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 14:39
  • As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please edit to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.
    – Community Bot
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 14:46
  • I have tried a lot of variations for the high dpi settings in the compatibility tab, but this did not help.
    – Ruben
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 17:10

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