Sager NP9130 Poor Video Quality

I'm getting poor video quality on my new NP9130 which has a 1920x1080p screen. Whether I watch videos on Youtube, VLC or WMP, the video looks grainy and pixelated, even when the video is 720p or 1080p. My old HP Pavillion dv4 with a 1280x800p screen can play these same videos perfectly, so I don't see why my new laptop shouldn't do the same. My gaming graphics are absolutely perfect, it's just videos that suck. I've tried screwing around with the video card and graphics properties and have updated all of the drivers, but I can't get any positive results. Is there some option that I'm not seeing? 1920x1080p screens are made for 1080p videos right?

 

CODECS, my friend.
Also, settings in your player.

Software.

 

like b0b1man mentioned, get the k-lite codec pack and that should fix you up.

 

If you wanna play everything smoothly under Windows Media Player (like I do), then use CCCPack (combined community codec pack), which is free and includes everything you will ever need to play HD MKV 1080p movies and everything else.

 

+1 on the CCC package... I have been using it for over a year and it's amazing and best of all its free...I would highly recommend as well.

 

It is, isnt it? I've been using it for 3 years now and it hasnt failed me!
It works straight out of the box, no settings needed. Just install all components and register all formats with Media Player.

If you are tech-savvy, you can select or disable certain codecs in the settings panel.

VERY nice codecs!

 

As much as I liked CCCP I have to say K-Lite is the way to go as it has LAV. LAV is a better video decoder then ffdshow. While that is true ffdshow is better for raw video (for video editting etc).

Seeing how CCCP hasn't been updated in ages, I'd go with K-Lite as its constantly updated. Plus K-Lite has a slue of codecs that ffdshow doesn't have.

 

Well, CCC played all HD content I have (talking about anime 10-bit encodes and fullHD rips).

 

CCCP installs a lot of unneeded codecs. I recommend CoreAVC and AC3 Filter, and DirectVobSUB for subtitles if needed.

 

You can modify your instalation to choose which codecs to install

 

Well I tried installing CCCP and K-Lite, and neither one made a difference... any other recommendations?

 

Codecs wont explain why VLC doesnt want to play well since it uses its own codecs. Most likely the decoder is wrong in the settings menu and the reason your old laptop played them "perfectly" is because they were scaled down and you just couldn't see the blockiness.

 

Well not sure if codecs would effect Youtube vids. If it is a new laptop, have you checked that your display is set to full resolution, and not a lower one?

 

The resolution is set at 1920x1080, which is recommended. Is it maybe something to do with the video card? I tried messing with it but couldn't figure it out. I might be missing something.

 

Try turn off hardware acceleration on flash and see if it helps. But just like what everybody said install some CODECs.

 

I still believe it is a renderer issue and not codecs. There are many walkthroughs on google explaining how to select a different video renderer in VLC.

Youtube is always minutely blocky even at claimed 1080p, however, our screens have such a high pixel density that we can see it more easily than most. There really is no way to fix that.