Zoom Video SDK (Web) video quality lower than Zoom Meeting in browser on same PC/network — expected?

Video SDK
,
1

Hi my dear Zoom team,

We are implementing a video calling feature using Zoom Video SDK (Web).

When starting the local camera, we try to enable HD as follows:

await mediaStream.startVideo({ fullHd: true });

If that fails, we fall back to:

await mediaStream.startVideo({ hd: true });

And if that also fails, we start without options.

Video sending/receiving works correctly, and there are no functional issues.

However, on the same PC and the same network, when we compare:

  • our Video SDK (Web) app, and

  • the standard Zoom Meeting in browser (Web Client)

in full-screen mode, the Video SDK side looks visibly lower quality (less sharp / more compression) than the Zoom Meeting web client.

Could you please confirm whether this difference is:

  1. caused by our implementation (e.g., incorrect configuration / missing settings), or

  2. an expected design/spec difference between Video SDK (Web) and the Zoom Meeting web client (e.g., different encoding, bitrate, resolution behavior, or adaptive quality policies)?

If there are recommended settings, APIs, or best practices to achieve quality comparable to Zoom Meeting in browser, we would appreciate your guidance.

Thank you.

2

Hey @PlumsaInc

Thanks for your feedback.

Could you share some problematic session IDs with us for troubleshooting purposes?

Thanks
Vic

1 Like
3

Hi,
Pls find below

sessionId: DTgrZnRSRTCMvT8hrp6DEQ==
Timestamp: 2026-01-18T08:15:01.195Z (Asia/Tokyo)
Browser/OS: Chrome / macOS
Participants: 1:1
startVideo option: fullHd was specified, and there were no errors or rejections reported.

Thanks

4

Hi @PlumsaInc

DTgrZnRSRTCMvT8hrp6DEQ==

After analyzing the logs, we found that the issue may be related to how video is handled on the receiving side.

Could you please check the stream.attachVideo method call? We noticed that the second parameter, which indicates the video quality you want to subscribe to, is missing. This parameter is required. If it is omitted, the SDK will default to subscribing to 360p video.

Thanks
Vic

1 Like
5

@vic.yang
Hello,
Fixed the problem. Thank you!