Editor's note: This post is part of the AI Decoded series, which demystifies AI by making the technology more accessible, and showcases new hardware, software, tools and accelerations for RTX PC and workstation users.
Video is everywhere - nearly 80% of internet bandwidth today is used to stream video from content providers and social networks. While screens have become bigger and support higher resolutions, nearly all video is only 1080p quality or lower.
Upscalers can help sharpen streamed video and, powered by AI on the NVIDIA RTX platform, significantly enhance image quality and detail.
What Is an Upscaler? The larger file size of videos makes it harder to compress and transmit compared to images or text. Platforms like Netflix, Vimeo and YouTube work around this limitation by encoding video - the process of compressing the raw source of a video into a smaller container format.
The encoder first analyzes the video to decide what information it can remove to make it fit a target resolution and frame rate. If the target bitrate is insufficient, the video quality decreases, resulting in a loss of detail and sharpness and the presence of encoding artifacts. The smaller the file, the easier it is to share on the internet - but the worse it looks.
Typically, software on the viewer's device will upscale the video file to fit the display's native resolution. However, these upscalers are fairly simplistic, merely multiplying pixels to meet the desired resolution. They can help sharpen the outlines of objects and scenes, but the final video typically carries encoding artifacts and sometimes looks over-sharpened and unnatural.
AI Know a Better Way The NVIDIA RTX platform uses AI to easily de-artifact and upscale videos.
Easily de-artifact and upscale videos with RTX. The process of AI upscaling involves analyzing images and motion vectors to generate new details not present in the original video. Instead of merely multiplying pixels, it recognizes the patterns of the image and enhances them to provide greater detail and video quality.
Images must be first de-artifacted before any processing begins. Artifacts - or unwanted distortions and anomalies that appear in video and image files - occur due to overcompression or data loss during transmission and storage.
NVIDIA AI networks can de-artifact images, helping remove blocky areas sometimes seen in streamed video. Without this first step, AI upscalers might end up enhancing the artifacted image itself instead of the desired content.
Super-Sized Video Just like putting on a pair of prescription glasses can instantly snap the world into focus, RTX Video Super Resolution, one of NVIDIA's latest innovations in AI-enhanced video technology, gives users a clearer picture into the world of streamed video.
Click the image to see the differences between bicubic upscaling (left) and RTX Video Super Resolution (right). Available on GeForce RTX 40 and 30 Series GPUs and RTX professional GPUs, it uses AI running on dedicated Tensor Cores to remove block compression artifacts and upscale lower-resolution content up to 4K, matching the user's native display resolution.
RTX Video Super Resolution can be used to enhance all video watched on browsers. By combining de-artifacting with AI upscaling techniques, it can make even low-bitrate Twitch streams look stunningly clear. RTX Video Super Resolution is also supported in popular video apps like VLC so users can apply the same upscaling process to their offline videos.
Creators can soon use RTX Video Super Resolution in editing apps like Black Magic's Davinci Resolve, making it easier than ever to upscale lower-quality video files to 4K resolution, as well as convert standard-dynamic range source files into high-dynamic range (HDR).
Say Hi to High-Dynamic Range RTX Video now also supports AI HDR. HDR video supports a wider range of colors, lending greater detail especially to the darker and lighter areas of images. The problem is that there isn't that much HDR content online yet.
Enter RTX Video HDR - by simply turning on the feature, the AI network will turn any standard or low-dynamic-range content into HDR, performing the correct tone mapping so the image still looks natural and retains its original colors.
AI Across the Board RTX Video is just the latest implementation of AI upscaling powered by NVIDIA RTX.
Members of the GeForce NOW cloud streaming service can play their favorite PC games on nearly any device. GeForce RTX servers located all over the world first render the game video content, encode it and then stream it to the player's local device - just like streaming video from other content providers.
Members on older NVIDIA GPU-powered devices can still use AI-enhanced upscaling to improve gameplay quality. This means they can enjoy the best of both worlds - gameplay rendered on servers powered by RTX 4080-class GPUs in the cloud and AI-enhanced streaming quality. Get more information on enabling AI-enhanced upscaling on GeForce NOW.
The NVIDIA SHIELD TV takes this one step further, processing AI neural networks directly on its NVIDIA Tegra system-on-a-chip to upscale 1080p-quality or lower content from nearly any streaming platform to a display's native resolution. That means users can improve the video quality of content streamed from Netflix, Prime Video, Max, Disney+ and more at the push of a remote button.
SHIELD TV is currently available for up to $30 off in North America and £30 or 35 off in Europe as part of Amazon's Prime Day event running July 16-17. For Prime members in Europe, eligible SHIELD TV purchases also include one month of the GeForce NOW Ultimate membership for free, enabling GeForce RTX 4080-class PC gameplay streamed directly to the living room.
AI has enabled unprecedented improvements in video quality, helping set a new
More from Nvidia
13/09/2025
Celtic languages - including Cornish, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh - are the U.K.'s oldest living languages. To empower their speakers, the UK-LLM sover...
10/09/2025
GeForce NOW Blackwell RTX 5080-class SuperPODs are now rolling out, unlocking a new level of ultra high-performance, cinematic cloud gaming.
GeForce NOW Ultima...
09/09/2025
Inference has emerged as the new frontier of complexity in AI. Modern models are...
09/09/2025
As large language models (LLMs) grow larger, they get smarter, with open models from leading developers now featuring hundreds of billions of parameters. At the...
09/09/2025
At this week's AI Infrastructure Summit in Silicon Valley, NVIDIA's VP o...
09/09/2025
Inference performance is critical, as it directly influences the economics of an AI factory. The higher the throughput of AI factory infrastructure, the more to...
09/09/2025
At this week's IAA Mobility conference in Munich, NVIDIA Vice President of A...
09/09/2025
ComfyUI - an open-source, node-based graphical interface for running and buildin...
04/09/2025
NVIDIA today announced new AI education support for K-12 programs at a White House event to celebrate public-private partnerships that advance artificial intell...
04/09/2025
Editor's note: This post is part of the AI On blog series, which explores the latest techniques and real-world applications of agentic AI, chatbots and copi...
04/09/2025
NVIDIA Blackwell RTX is coming to the cloud on Wednesday, Sept. 10 - an upgrade ...
03/09/2025
3D artists are constantly prototyping.
In traditional workflows, modelers must build placeholder, low-fidelity assets to populate 3D scenes, tinkering and adju...
02/09/2025
For more than a century, meteorologists have chased storms with chalkboards, equ...
28/08/2025
Brace yourself, COGs - the Locusts aren't the only thing rising up. The Coal...
28/08/2025
Last week at Gamescom, NVIDIA announced the winners of the NVIDIA and ModDB RTX ...
27/08/2025
AI models are advancing at a rapid rate and scale.
But what might they lack that (most) humans don't? Common sense: an understanding, developed through rea...
25/08/2025
Robots around the world are about to get a lot smarter as physical AI developers...
25/08/2025
As autonomous vehicle systems rapidly grow in complexity, equipped with reasonin...
22/08/2025
As the latest member of the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture family, the NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPU builds on core innovations to accelerate training and AI reason...
22/08/2025
AI reasoning, inference and networking will be top of mind for attendees of next...
21/08/2025
Japan is once again building a landmark high-performance computing system - not ...
21/08/2025
From AI assistants doing deep research to autonomous vehicles making split-second navigation decisions, AI adoption is exploding across industries.
Behind ever...
21/08/2025
Across the globe, AI factories are rising - massive new data centers built not to serve up web pages or email, but to train and deploy intelligence itself. Inte...
21/08/2025
Get a glimpse into the future of gaming.
The NVIDIA Blackwell RTX architecture is coming to GeForce NOW in September, marking the service's biggest upgrade...
20/08/2025
Editor's note: This blog is a part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused o...
18/08/2025
With over 175 games now supporting NVIDIA DLSS 4 - a suite of advanced, AI-power...
18/08/2025
At Gamescom, NVIDIA is releasing its first major update to Project G Assist - an...
15/08/2025
Of around 7,000 languages in the world, a tiny fraction are supported by AI lang...
14/08/2025
NVIDIA is partnering with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to create a...
14/08/2025
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition is marching onto GeForce NOW,...
13/08/2025
Black Forest Labs' FLUX.1 Kontext [dev] image editing model is now available as an NVIDIA NIM microservice.
FLUX.1 models allow users to edit existing imag...
11/08/2025
Using NVIDIA digital twin technologies, Amazon Devices & Services is powering bi...
11/08/2025
Packing the power of the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture in compact, energy-effici...
11/08/2025
Physical AI is becoming the foundation of smart cities, facilities and industria...
07/08/2025
This GFN Thursday brings an offer members can't refuse - 2K's highly ant...
05/08/2025
Two new open-weight AI reasoning models from OpenAI released today bring cutting...
05/08/2025
In collaboration with OpenAI, NVIDIA has optimized the company's new open-so...
05/08/2025
NVIDIA and OpenAI began pushing the boundaries of AI with the launch of NVIDIA D...
05/08/2025
NVIDIA GPUs are at the heart of modern computing. They're used across industries - from healthcare and finance to scientific research, autonomous systems an...
31/07/2025
August brings new levels of gaming excitement on GeForce NOW, with 2,300 titles now available to stream in the cloud.
Grab a controller and get ready for epic ...
31/07/2025
Interest in generative AI is continuing to grow, as new models include more capabilities. With the latest advancements, even enthusiasts without a developer bac...
29/07/2025
FourCastNet3 (FCN3) is the latest AI global weather forecasting system from NVID...
28/07/2025
The electrical grid is designed to support loads that are relatively steady, such as lighting, household appliances, and industrial machines that operate at con...
24/07/2025
For media company Black Mixture, AI isn't just a tool - it's an entire p...
24/07/2025
Sharpen the blade and brace for a journey steeped in myth and mystery. WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers has launched in the cloud.
Ride in style with skateboarding leg...
23/07/2025
In today's fast-evolving digital landscape, marketing teams face increasing ...
22/07/2025
Editor's note: This post is part of the AI On blog series, which explores th...
17/07/2025
Listen up citizens, the law is back and patrolling the cloud. Nacon's RoboCop Rogue City - Unfinished Business launches today in the cloud, bringing justice...
15/07/2025
Submissions for NVIDIA's Plug and Play: Project G-Assist Plug-In Hackathon a...
Editor's note: This post is part of the AI Decoded series, which demystifies AI by making the technology more accessible, and showcases new hardware, software, tools and accelerations for RTX PC and workstation users.
