Nvidia Unveils ‘Upscaling’ Tool That Lets You Enhance Low-Res Videos On Browser

Artificial intelligence firm Nvidia has finally made its long-awaited Video Super Resolution (VSR) toolkit available to the public, which claims to be able to transform low-resolution videos into crisp, high-definition ones on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers.

The feature, which was first unveiled at CES 2023, is similar to the one the company has for video games. And with nearly 80% of internet bandwidth being used to watch videos, it only makes sense to apply its capabilities to streaming as well.

According to Nvidia, when viewers choose to display clips higher than 1080p, the browser scales the video to match the requested resolution. To do this, most browsers make use of basic upscaling techniques to achieve the desired effect, resulting in soft or blurry shots.

Now, with RTX VSR, users with a GeForce RTX 40 and 30 Series graphics card can tap into the power of AI to enhance low-resolution videos into 4K goodness. This works as the technology helps remove blocky compression artifacts and allows the sharpness of the video to be increased.

“Just like putting on a pair of prescription glasses can instantly snap the world into focus, RTX VSR gives viewers on GeForce RTX 40 and 30 Series PCs a clear picture into the world of streaming video,” the company explained.

However, Tom’s Hardware cautioned that the changes in resolution may be slightly exaggerated in the sample images shown. While the difference may not be all that massive, the publication did admit the final result looks better than if just left to Chrome’s usual upscaling techniques.

Naturally, there’s a limit to the AI’s powers. Getting a video from 720p to 4K (nine times upscale) will not look as good as one going from 1080p to 4K (four times upscale) in terms of detailing and clarity.

The company said its deep-learning network used to power the tool is trained on a wide range of content across varying compression levels, and that extensive visual evaluation has been performed to ensure the model works effectively on almost all real-world or gaming content.

If you’ve got the graphics cards suited for the feature, head here for more information on how to enable VSR.

[via Tom’s Hardware and Nvidia, images via Nvidia]