Microsoft announced on Monday (06) that it is releasing a native upscaling function for Edge. It is a tool that will allow increase the resolution and improve the playback quality of videos in the browser using machine learning, expanding the use of artificial intelligence in its services.
Video Super Resolution (VSR), as Microsoft calls it, works similarly to NVIDIA’s RTX Super Resolution. For this, artificial intelligence tries to remove video compression artifacts to increase its resolution and ensure more sharpness in the image, improving the embedded multimedia experience of the browser.
VSR, on the other hand, has some limitations compared to RTX Super Resolution. The technology It is only capable of upscaling videos up to HD (720p)while NVIDIA’s solution can upscale to Ultra HD (4K).
Microsoft has listed some conditions for users to test the tool — for now, only on Edge Canary. The video must have a height and width of 192 pixels (minimum). Also, in cases of mobile devices, the PC must be connected to power to allow the hardware to work at its maximum power.
other condition requires the user to have a video card from NVIDIA (GeForce RTX 20, 30 or 40 series) or AMD (Radeon RX 5700, 6000 series or 7000 series). Microsoft claims that this requirement is due to the need for massive computational power to increase the quality of videos using machine learning.
To test the new tool, it is necessary to activate the flag in the Experiments section of Edge. Just enter “edge://flags/#edge-video-super-resolution” (without quotes) in the address bar, identify the experiment, click on “Default” and switch to “Enabled”.
For now, the feature is “only available to 50% of users,” according to Microsoft. When all requirements are met, it will be possible to find an icon in the address bar with the initials “HD”. Just click the button and the browser will do the magic.
