# Fix slow or choppy video

## Symptoms

- Your clicks and typing show up late on the remote screen.
- The picture stutters, freezes for a moment, or jumps.
- The picture is blurry or in black and white.

## Read the status strip

The strip along the bottom of the viewer shows live numbers for the screen you are watching:

- the frame rate (`fps`) and the video bit rate,
- download and upload speed (`↓` and `↑`),
- `ms rtt`: the round trip time of the connection. Lower is better.
- `+N ms buffer`: extra delay Blink adds to smooth over network hiccups. It grows after a hiccup and shrinks after a quiet minute.
- `N lost`: packets lost on the way. It only shows when some are lost.

A high round trip time points to a slow or distant connection. A growing **lost** count points to a congested or unreliable network, often Wi-Fi.

## Pick a quality setting

The quality menu in the viewer toolbar has four settings. Every session starts on **auto**, and a manual choice lasts until you close the viewer.

| Setting | What you get |
|---|---|
| **auto** | Blink adjusts frame rate, sharpness and colour to the connection as it changes. |
| **low** | 15 frames per second at half resolution, in black and white. Easiest on a poor connection, and text stays readable. |
| **standard** | 30 frames per second at full resolution. |
| **high** | Up to 60 frames per second (or the monitor's refresh rate) at full resolution. Needs a fast connection. |

If the picture turns grey or blurry on **auto**, that is Blink saving bandwidth on a weak connection. Choose **standard** or **high** only when the connection can carry it.

## Check the network

1. Close other heavy traffic on both sides: large downloads, cloud backups, video calls.
2. Ask the customer to move closer to their Wi-Fi router or use a cable.
3. Each monitor you watch, in the viewer or in pop-out windows, is a separate video stream. Watch only the screens you need.
4. Try your side from another network. If it is better there, your network is the bottleneck.

## Direct or relayed

Blink connects video directly when the networks allow it. When a firewall blocks the direct route, for example a network that blocks UDP, Blink relays the session instead. A relayed session works, but it usually adds delay.

- **Blink Cloud:** relaying is handled for you. If sessions with one customer are always slow, ask them whether their network blocks outgoing UDP traffic.
- **Your own Blink server:** make sure the session and relay ports are open on the server (see [Fix a Blink agent that will not connect](/troubleshooting/agent-wont-connect/)), so sessions do not have to fall back to relaying over TLS.

## Check the remote computer

1. In **Sessions**, open the session and look at **Encoder** under **Remote computer**. `openh264` means the computer is encoding video in software, which uses more of its processor and can slow things down on an older computer. See [Fix a black screen or missing video](/troubleshooting/black-screen/) for graphics driver advice.
2. Ask the customer to close programs that keep the processor busy.

## When to contact IZT

Contact [IZT](https://izt.app) if sessions stay slow on a good connection on both sides. Send the session id, the time, and the numbers from the status strip. See [Collect logs for IZT support](/troubleshooting/collect-logs/).