NVIDIA Video Super Resolution (VSR) is a great feature that enhances the quality of streamed videos through AI-based upscaling. However, its current integration in Firefox presents significant usability limitations.
At the moment, enabling or disabling VSR requires changing hidden preferences in about:config and restarting the browser. This makes the feature cumbersome to control and effectively unusable in many real-world scenarios.
VSR often activates automatically even when it is not desired, leading to:
unnecessary GPU usage, with multiple videos getting upscaled even at the same time, which can deprive the GPU of resources that could be used elsewhere;
increased power consumption (especially on laptops);
higher system temperatures and fan noise;
In Chromium-based browsers, this issue is mitigated by a convenient in-video toggle, similar to the Picture-in-Picture button, which allows users to enable or disable VSR instantly on a per-video basis.
I propose adding a visible, user-accessible toggle directly on video players in Firefox, allowing users to enable or disable VSR in real time, without having to go through the tedious process of changing flags in about:config and, most of all, avoiding browser restarts. This would also help with thermals and energy consumption, of course. At the moment, I feel like NVIDIA VSR is genuinely practical feature that is hindered by a hidden, all-or-nothing setting.
... View more