online videos not playing

Hi, I'm on a 2016 Macbook Pro that's running OS Catalina. The problem I have is a problem where online videos will stop playing on my Macbook. This applies to all types of videos, from YouTube, Twitch, Amazon Prime, any type of online video player (Quicktime player for mp4s I have downloaded still play) and also applies to every single internet browser I have installed (Firefox, Safari, and Chrome). Regardless of whatever combination of browser/video platform, videos will just not play. This is not an internet problem, as I can load any page and browse anything so long as it is not a video. Completely closing and reopening browsers does not work, and waiting for the problem to go away does not work either.

The only way I've found to resolve the problem is to completely restart my computer, which would be fine if this was a monthly or weekly occurrence. The issue is that the problem will just manifest itself again from 40-180 mins after my previous restart and I'll be forced to run another restart. To say the least, being forced to restart my computer at the whim of this problem is aggravating. I'd like to find a more permanent solution to troubleshoot this issue.

As this has happened more and more, the only pattern I've noticed is that the audio quality of whatever I'm watching goes to **** right before this problem occurs. Whatever video I'm watching will just sound extremely grainy with a ridiculous amount of static and sound distortion before all videos just become completely unplayable on my computer pending a full restart.