A few weeks ago, we mentioned that Nvidia had announced a new toy called RTX Video HDR. Well, this came as part of Nvidia's latest driver release for the launch of the RTX 4070 TI Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Briefly, RTX Video HDR uses AI algorithms to convert SDR video to HDR and is part of driver release version 551.23. The tool only works with Chromium-based browsers like Chrome itself and Edge, but should be compatible with all streaming video.

Of course, you will still need an HDR-capable display and an Nvidia RTX graphics card. But it is very easy to enable.

Once you have updated to the new drivers, go into the Nvidia control panel, select "Adjust Video Image Settings" under "Video" and click the "High Dynamic Range" checkbox under "RTX Video Enhancements" on the right side. Click this and make sure that HDR is enabled in the Windows display settings and you are good to go.

I gave it a quick try, but the results were not what I expected. In a simple test outputting to a Samsung Neo G9 mini-LED panel, there was an effect on SDR video, but it was more a case of SDR video suddenly looking like HDR video when viewed in HDR mode, rather than SDR video suddenly looking like HDR video when viewed in HDR mode.

The caveat here is that SDR content looks particularly bad in Neo G9's HDR mode. In this regard, RTX Video HDR is useful. However, it is difficult to draw conclusions from a single HDR display, and your mileage may vary depending on what type of monitor you are using.

And this rather underscores the broader issue of unstable HDR support across the Windows platform. It can be a bit of a minefield. There is also the question of whether it would be more suitable to convert SDR games to HDR, rather than simply video to HDR.

In any case, try it out, assuming you have a display and RTX GPU that supports HDR. Incidentally, driver release 551.23 also adds support for ultra-low latency mode in DirectX 12 games. This is great, because it means that you can use the same games in a different way than you would use in a DirectX 12 game.