Fix a pixelated screen recording

Why screen video looks bad

Video codecs are designed for natural images: smooth gradients, motion and noise. A screen is the opposite. It is flat colours, hard edges, thin lines and text, and mostly still. When the codec encounters a code editor or a spreadsheet at a low bitrate, it blurs the thin strokes and leaves colour halos around each letter. Scrolling makes it worse, because the whole frame changes at once and the encoder cannot keep up.

The second reason is scale. Recording a 4K display at 1080p, or a window that is then shrunk by the meeting app, turns small text into mush before the codec even starts.

Recorder settings that help

If you can record again, start here:

• Record at your display's native resolution or at an exact half, never an odd size.
• Use a high bitrate or constant quality (CRF 18 to 20 in OBS) rather than a low cap.
• Record at 30 fps; most screen content does not need 60.
• Use the x264 or hardware encoder at a quality preset, not "speed".
• Zoom in the app when it is tiny, rather than relying on later upscaling.

Recording tips

Fixing the recording you have

Upload it. Our model is surprisingly good on screen text: the slider on this page shows a code editor frame before and after, and the strokes of every letter are redrawn cleanly. Colour halos and compression fuzz are removed by the cleanup pass, and edges become straight again.

Results depend on how much remains. Text that is smeared but still has a recognisable shape is rebuilt well. Text that is a grey smudge is guessed at, and the guess can be wrong, so do not use restored footage to read exact numbers or codes. When accuracy matters, re-record.

OBS and game capture

For OBS, the usual cause of blocks is a bitrate cap that is too low for fast movement. Our OBS recordings guide and the article on OBS pixelation when moving give exact settings. If your recording is already made and the footage is gone, our tool can clean it up.

Quick wins before you re-record

If you have the chance to record again, spend two minutes on a test: record ten seconds with your intended settings, scrub through it, and zoom in on small text. If the letters look clean in the test, you can record the real thing with confidence. It costs almost nothing and saves the heartbreak of discovering a bad setting after an hour-long tutorial.

Also close the apps you do not need. A busy CPU forces the encoder to drop quality or frames, and screen content shows both problems immediately.

Tutorials and demos

If you publish tutorials, crisp text is the difference between a video people follow and one they leave. Combine the right recorder settings with a one-time restoration of important older recordings, and upload at 1080p so platforms allocate you more bitrate. See also why screen recordings are blurry.

Dark mode and thin fonts

Light text on a dark background and very thin fonts are the hardest content for any video codec, since the thin strokes are lost first. If you make tutorials, a medium weight font at a larger size makes your video easier to watch, whether it passes through our tool or not.

Fix pixelated screen recording in three steps

1. Upload the recordingMP4, MOV, MKV and WebM are supported.
2. Check the text on the previewPause on a line of code or a label.
3. DownloadUnlock the full video, up to 1080p.