Image: Microsoft
It’s a controversial move, but sometimes I think Microsoft Edge is my favorite browser. I love the PDF viewer and Edge’s built-in “read-aloud” capability. And soon, Edge will be able to upscale low-resolution YouTube videos, like scraps of old episodes of MTV real world,
In a blog post, Microsoft laid out its plans for Video Super Resolution, or VSR, just as Nvidia’s much-sought-after Super Resolution technology finally reaches the masses. Intel’s version has also been leak around, VSR uses machine learning to improve the look of low-resolution videos so they appear crisp and high-resolution. It’s similar to FSR and DLSS, techniques commonly used in gaming to reduce the load on your machine, but made specifically for video. Microsoft says its version works “without sacrificing bandwidth” on YouTube and other video streaming platforms.
A demo is currently available on Edge Canary, an experimental version of the browser, to a limited number of Windows Insiders. But you’ll need to have a somewhat recent GPU for this to work: you’ll need an Nvidia RTX 20/30/40 series or an AMD Ryzen RX 5700-RX 7800 series GPU in your setup. This feature turns on when you start playback of a video at 720p or lower. The media also can’t be DRMed, so it’s unlikely you’ll be able to access it through major streaming services. Microsoft suggests using the open-source Big Buck Bunny video (which I’ve used before with benchmark tools) as a test clip. When VSR works in the background, you’ll see a small “HD” button in Edge’s address bar.
Laptop users with hybrid GPUs can force Edge Canary to use the discrete GPU via Windows Settings and try and feature such, although Microsoft is still working on automated capabilities for those setups. . The laptop should remain charged and plugged in if you plan to experiment, as the VSR is a heavy load on the GPU. Microsoft says the feature “can be computationally intensive.”
The rest of the blog explains how the VSR feature works in the backend. Microsoft built it using the open-source Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) runtime and its native DirectML. The company says it has plans to bring the technology to older graphics cards in the future.
g/o media can get commission
Ideally, this feature would aid me in my quest to revisit VCR rips of television shows that I enjoyed growing up. It should also help improve stream quality where bandwidth may present a problem. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get performance to work on my Dell XPS 15 with the Nvidia GeForce 3050 Ti laptop GPU. I just downloaded Edge’s canary update, so it’s possible I need to set aside some time or reboot before it starts.
