Nvidia has long been a gaming-oriented company that creates superb computer video cards for any 3D graphics challenges.
In 2012, the GPU maker also started focusing on AI tech and developed a breakthrough neural network whose legacy would continue through other Nvidia AI video upscaling tools and massively impact the gaming and streaming worlds a decade later.
In today’s guide, you’ll learn what Nvidia AI video upscaling is and how it works, how the company develops these technologies, and the different Nvidia AI video upscale tools available to the public today. Stay around to learn more about AI video upscaling with Nvidia, as we’ll also elaborate on the benefits of these modern-day apps.
In this article
Part 1. What Is AI Video Upscaling?
In simple terms, AI video upscaling refers to tools that leverage advanced generative AI algorithms to enhance video quality and increase resolution. Applications based on AI video upscaling can take low-quality, low-resolution, and old videos, stretch them to a much higher resolution, and fill in the missing space between the existing pixels with new, AI-generated details that match the old content.
Part 2. How AI Video Upscaling Works
Most AI video upscaling apps are trained on massive numbers of high-quality images and videos. In these training sessions, they look into patterns between the pixels and learn what’s considered a high-quality output. This process allows AI video upscaling tools to analyze your video content and recreate similar conditions when you feed them a video clip.
The process begins with the tool’s artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms analyzing the video and predicting what the space between its pixels should look like if stretched. These tools then compare your video to the high-quality clips and images they were trained on, looking for similarities.
From there, powerful AI algorithms generate new pixels, inserting them into the empty spaces between the stretched existing pixels of a video. These new elements are then synchronized with the older details, creating a stunning video with a much better resolution and details than you first started with.
Conversely, Nvidia’s AI video upscalers function similarly to this concept but with a twist. Unlike traditional upscaling tech, when given a low-resolution video, AI video upscaling with Nvidia’s GPUs predicts what a high-resolution clip that would downscale to this low-resolution video would look like.
This process allows Nvidia’s AI video upscaling tech to create high-resolution outputs with incredible details and sharpness. It also lets the company’s engineers guide the neural networks that make this possible through supervised learning.
Part 3. How Nvidia Develops AI Video Upscaling Technologies
It’s no secret that Nvidia’s gaming GPUs power four out of five gaming PCs surveyed by Steam, with AMD and Intel GPUs sharing the remaining 20-something percent. In data centers, that market share is even higher, accounting for a staggering 98% of all GPU spending in 2023. This market control is behind Nvidia’s rapid AI video upscaling tech developments.
At its core, the development process looks something like this:
Hardware acceleration is also pivotal in Nvidia’s AI video upscaling tech development journey. Nvidia’s RTX cards, especially the newer 3000 and 4000 series cards, were primarily introduced as GPUs capable of real-time ray tracing in games and other software tools.
However, these cards also contain powerful Tensor cores with incredibly swift matrix operations necessary for neural network operations.
Part 4. Different Nvidia AI Video Upscaling Technologies
The development process of Nvidia’s AI video upscalers is simplified, as understanding it isn’t particularly vital. On the other hand, understanding the different Nvidia AI video upscaling tools available today is essential, as it’ll help teach you how to use them and improve your content enjoyment experience.
So, let’s dive right into these technologies:
RTX Video Super Resolution
One of the company’s key architectures is its RTX Video Super Resolution (VSR) technology. This powerful feature is a part of the Nvidia GeForce Experience app but isn’t intended for gaming. Instead, it works with web browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge to make streaming video more enjoyable.
Streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube stream around 90% of their content in 1080p, while modern monitors and TVs can display in QHD and 4K resolutions.
VSR bridges the gap between lower streaming resolutions and utilizes newer 3000 and 4000 series RTX cards and their Tensor cores to upscale a streaming platform’s video to a higher resolution and match your display’s capabilities.
By leveraging your Nvidia RTX card’s VSR tech, you can significantly reduce your bandwidth utilization by streaming low-resolution videos and upscaling them with your GPU’s Tensor cores in real time. These AI-driven video quality improvements create an excellent streaming experience even if the source video from a streaming platform is low quality.
Nvidia SHIELD
Since Nvidia’s AI video upscaling tech is primarily focused on streaming video enhancements, it’s clear why the first versions of this technology appeared on Nvidia SHIELD TV streaming devices. Regardless of their compact, stealthy form factor, these tiny media players have been capable of effortlessly streaming high-quality video content since 2019.
While they’re less potent than modern-day 3000 and 4000 series RTX GPUs, Nvidia SHIELD streaming devices can still transform your TV viewing experience thanks to Nvidia’s AI video upscaling. These media centers leverage the company’s advanced AI algorithms to optimize video content for a ten-foot viewing experience and upscale content between 480p and 1080p to 4K.
Despite their low price of $150 for Nvidia SHIELD and $200 for Nvidia SHIELD Pro, these tiny devices are fantastic at taking low-resolution content from Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and YouTube video and upscaling it to a much higher resolution.
They make paying for UHD plans and content unnecessary, as you can enjoy high-quality streams even with the cheapest 720p subscriptions.
Nvidia Maxine
Years of data collection, petabytes of video content, supervised neural network training, and AI video upscaling with Nvidia cards have allowed the company to create a powerful GPU-accelerated and AI-enhanced tool for video conferencing and content creation – Nvidia Maxine.
This potent developer platform comprises software development kits (SDKs) that let developers deploy Nvidia’s AI video upscaling technology.
Maxine’s incredible features in video conferencing apps allow users to apply dozens of audio, video, and augmented reality (AR) effects during a call. They let users increase their video call’s resolution, remove unwanted artifacts, and denoise their output in a video conference, even with standard microphone and camera equipment.
Nvidia Maxine also includes real-time audio enhancement features that seamlessly filter out background noises and handle echo cancellation.
Conversely, the tool’s face-tracking technology, eye contact correction, background replacement, and AI-powered face reenactment increase the video conferencing experience while reducing the bandwidth needed for such a call. Of course, these AI features can also be used for content creation, streamlining the live streaming experience on platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, Kick, etc.
Conclusion
Nvidia’s 2012 move from gaming-oriented GPUs into neural networks marks the beginning of the company’s massive pivot into AI and data center domination. Its huge market share in the gaming industry allowed the company to transform its operations and kickstarted a series of developments based on AI technology.
By collecting massive data sets of video content from its users, Nvidia’s supercomputers packed with the company’s powerful Tensor core GPUs could train on billions of images and videos.
These supervised training sessions allowed the company’s neural networks to become incredibly effective at analyzing, predicting, and generating pixels, fueling the growth of modern-day Nvidia AI video upscaling tech.
Today’s RTX Video Super Resolution technology, Nvidia SHIELD devices, and Maxine SDKs have become fundamental in our daily operations. They power the gaming, streaming, video conferencing, and content creation industries, forever changing the game in Nvidia’s favor.
