If you're having trouble viewing one of our videos, you might try using a different video resolution. This might be needed if you experience blurry videos. Note that a brand-new uploaded video can take a little time for all of the various resolutions to become available, but it's usually complete within a few hours. We typically upload our videos at full desktop resolution (e.g., 1080p, typically 1080 progressive lines, which is typical HD video at 1920x1080). Our video provider then processes the video to be viewed at other smaller resolutions and makes multiple resolution versions of the videos available to viewers.
When you first start watching a video, it prioritizes getting the video started so you don't have to wait for it to begin. It sometimes appears a bit blurry at this point as it plays a lower-resolution version while downloading the higher-resolution video for you in the background. Once it's buffered enough of the higher-resolution version, it will switch to that, and the video will clear up. This is why just letting the video play for a bit can help it clear up. You can start the video, then press pause for a bit, then play again and that may speed up the buffering. The faster your internet connection is, the sooner it should provide you with a clearer, higher-resolution video.
There's a small possibility that you may have a setting incorrect in your playback settings that could be causing less than the high-resolution video to play. You can select which resolution to view by opening a video, then clicking on the settings gear, located at the bottom right. You'll see a popup menu appear, which highlights the currently-selected resolution "Quality" in blue, and alternate resolutions in white. Usually, leaving it set to Auto allows for the best viewing experience, but you can experiment with different resolutions to see if it helps. Remember that with newly-uploaded videos, it can take a bit before all resolutions are available. If you're not using Auto (the recommended setting), then you might be getting a lower-resolution version. See the image below for how this menu appears when you click on the gear at the bottom right of the video.
Why are different resolutions of video created for each video? Different users may have different platforms that can't even show the high-resolution version, such as when viewing the video from a phone. If your phone or tablet isn't capable of showing a 1920x1080 image, then it's not worth sending all the data for that resolution to your phone. So the different resolutions can be automatically selected based on what's best for your device. The default selection for which resolution to use is "Auto", which automatically chooses the one that's best for your device. If you manually select a specific resolution, you could be getting the lower-resolution version showing on your desktop even though your desktop could use the clearer higher-resolution version. So keeping it on Auto is recommended. If you're using a smaller device that is using the lower-resolution version and you want to override that automatic setting so you can zoom in on a specific part, for example,, you can choose whichever resolution meets your needs.
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