Disable or Enable Video Quality Enhancer in Microsoft Edge

In this post, we will show you how to enable or disable Video Quality Enhancer in Microsoft Edge. Microsoft has introduced a feature called Video Quality Enhancer (also known as Video Super Resolution or Enhance Videos) that utilizes AI to improve the quality of low-resolution videos played in the browser. The feature uses graphics card agnostic algorithms to remove pixelated blocks in videos originally recorded in lower quality and upscale their content.

Video Quality Enhancer offers multiple video enhancement options, including vivid mode and super resolution, to give you a better viewing experience irrespective of your computer’s hardware and make your video streaming experience more engaging and enjoyable.

Disable or Enable Video Quality Enhancer in Microsoft Edge

While playing low-quality videos on YouTube or other video streaming platforms on your Windows 11 PC, you may enable Video Quality Enhancer in Edge from your browser’s address bar, from the Video Player window on the platform, or from Edge settings.

However, due to the computing power required to upscale videos, you can only use the feature when the following conditions are met:

Your device has one of the following graphics cards (GPUs): Nvidia RTX 20/30/40 series OR AMD RX5700-RX7800 series GPUs.
The video is played at less than 720p resolution.
Your device is not on battery power.
Both the height and width of the video are greater than 192 pixels.
The video is not protected with Digital Rights Management technologies like PlayReady or Widevine. Frames from these protected videos are not accessible to the browser for processing.

To utilize the feature, make sure your Edge browser is updated to the latest version available.

Enable Video Quality Enhancer from the Edge address bar

Locate the Enhance video icon in the address bar of your Edge browser and click on it (if you’re on a laptop, the icon will only appear when you plug in the device to a power source).

A window will appear. Turn on the toggle next to the ‘Enhaced videos when the device is plugged in‘ option. You’ll notice quality improvements in the video being played as soon as you enable the option.

Enable Video Quality Enhancer from the Video Player

Hover your mouse over the video player window. Two icons will appear at the center of the top edge. Click the left icon to enable the Picture-in-Picture mode in Edge. Click the right icon to enable Video Quality Enhancer.

Enable Video Quality Enhancer from Edge settings

Click the profile icon in the top-left corner of the Edge browser. Then click the Gear (Settings) icon in the window that appears.

Click System and performance in the left panel of the Settings window. In the right-panel, turn on the toggle next to the ‘Enhance videos in Microsoft Edge‘ option.

The Settings page also allows you to specify an enhancement technique to enhance low-resolution videos.

Click the dropdown next to the ‘Preferred method of video enhancement‘ option. You will see the options available for your hardware (the options will vary depending device’s capabilities).

Vivid mode: allows you to experience boosted video quality without the need for specialized GPUs.
Super resolution (preview): Uses machine learning to further boost the video quality on supported GPUs (Edge uses a built-in super-resolution for video upscaling on compatible devices).
Graphics driver enhancement: allows you to choose from select third-party graphics card options that have video-enhancing features available (Graphics driver enhancement may require additional configuration in the driver software).

Select an option using the dropdown to specify your preference.

Disable Video Quality Enhancer in Edge

The Video Quality Enhancer in Edge uses advanced algorithms to improve video quality, and this process involves additional resource consumption, particularly from the GPU. Disabling ‘Enhance Videos’ can bring your power consumption and thermals back to normal.

To disable the feature, turn the toggle next to ‘Enhance videos in Microsoft Edge’ to the ‘off‘ position.

Alternatively, click back the ‘Enhance’ icon on the video player window or turn off the toggle that appears after clicking the ‘Enhance video’ icon in the Edge address bar.

That’s it! I hope you find this useful.

Read: Enable HDR Support in Microsoft Edge on Windows.

How do I turn off Enhance images in Edge?

Microsoft has removed the ‘Enhance images’ feature from its Edge browser. The feature required sending image URLs to Microsoft’s servers, raising concerns about data privacy and transmission. As a result, Microsoft decided to disable the feature but continued developing other visual enhancements, like Video Super Resolution, which improves video quality through similar AI-driven processes.

How do I increase Microsoft Edge performance?

To boost the performance of your Edge browser, you should disable or remove unnecessary extensions and regularly clear your cached files, cookies, and browsing history. This will free up memory space and reduce the page load time. You should also enable efficiency mode to reduce resource usage (especially useful on laptops to conserve battery life) and hardware acceleration to leverage your GPU for smoother browsing.