Question What quality of video am I watching?

[irbluesky]

My monitor's resolution is 1600*900. On YouTube, we have 1080 (1920*1080) and 720(1280*720). So my monitor's resolution is higher than 720 and lower than 1080. Now What quality of video am I watching?

 

[fralexandr]

when you select the options/setting gear, the quality should state Auto and right next to it list the resolution of the video...

You could also right click on the video and select "stats for nerds" to see what resolution it's playing at.

 

[irbluesky]

when you select the options/setting gear, the quality should state Auto and right next to it list the resolution of the video...

You could also right click on the video and select "stats for nerds" to see what resolution it's playing at.

Thanks, but my question was something else.

 

[In2Photos]

Thanks, but my question was something else.

Then perhaps you need to explain more because the answer provided was the perfect response to your question.

 

[fralexandr]

The resolution shown is the resolution the video plays at. Your computer will upscale or downscale the video to fit the window... You could select 144p and full screen and it would play a 144p video scaled to 1600x900... or you could select 1080p HD and it would play a 1080p video scaled to 1600x900...

Whether or not the video quality is any good depends on what mix of hardware and software is used for scaling/encoding/decoding. Youtube and many streaming services are typically not the best for theoretical video quality due to the use of compression to reduce data usage to reasonable levels.