Microsoft Edge will start letting you upscale crappy low-res videos online
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Some Microsoft Edge Canary users are finally getting access to a feature announced at CES 2023 in January.
According to Newwin, that feature is called Video Super Resolution (VSR) and it’s an upscaler that uses AI technology from Microsoft Research to improve the video quality in the browser. Starting today, 50% of Microsoft Edge Canary users will have the opportunity to test VSR. The feature works by removing block compression artifacts and upscaling the overall resolution to different streaming platforms.
This should be an incredibly useful feature since, according to Microsoft’s own data, “one in three videos in Edge are played at 480p or lower.” It helps users with low network bandwidth or poor video quality.
However, it comes with caveats. For example, VSR requires a discrete graphics card from Nvidia (RTX 20 series and newer) or AMD (RX 5700 and newer). Microsoft stated that it would release an update to allow automatic switching between iGPU and dGPU in the near future. You also cannot use the feature on DRM-protected videos or when your laptop is unplugged.
AI scale-up may be the future
It seems AI scaling could be the future of general video upscaling as it looks very similar to one Nvidia has also pushed. It’s called RTX Video Super Resolution which, according to a statement given PC gamerwould “enable resolutions in excess of 1080p. It will upscale video at a native resolution between 360p and 1440p, and it will work with video up to a frame rate of 144 Hz.”
And it works for both Chrome and Edge browsers, meaning Chrome users aren’t left out in the cold. However, this feature requires an RTX 3000 series or 4000 series GPU, but in return you can have videos upscaled to 4K resolution.
It will be interesting to see if other browsers like Safari, Opera or Mozilla will use their own upscaling technology, as well as AMD developing independent technology to compete with Nvidia’s.