Enhancing the video playback quality

Due to the minor PC games releases of the past few days, we decided to include a simple guide to demonstrate how you can enhance your video playback quality. The easiest way is by buying the BluRay version of your favourite movie. But what if there isn't any high-definition version of it? And what if your camera can't record in HD?


We won't be using the various codec packs, like K-Lite. This is a simple guide after all. Instead we'll use the video enhancements of your GPU, provided you have an Nvidia card. For starters, you'll have to enter your Nvidia Control Panel. Simply click the left mouse button on your desktop and choose the 'Nvidia Control Panel' option. Your control panel will then open. Next, scroll down, find the 'Video' section and double click on it. You'll see two new options, one for the color and one for the image settings.

Let's go first to the color settings. There are three tabs: one for color, one for gamma and one for advanced enhancements. In the first tab, you can adjust the saturation, the brightness, the hue and the contrast. You'll have to experiment with them but we suggest adjusting only the saturation and contrast. There isn't any reason to adjust the gamma if you have properly calibrated your TV or PC monitor so skip it. In the advance tab, choose the 'Full' dynamic range and enable both 'Dynamic contrast enhancement' and 'Color Enhancement'.

Next, head over to 'video image settings'. Edge enhancement is a crucial option, but you'll have to experiment with it. What it basically does, is enhancing the edges of the characters/objects, thus giving a crispier video image. The higher the value of your edge enhancement, the longer your distance from your TV / PC monitor should be. Values of 90+ will add noise that can be noticed if you are sitting very near to your TV. Next one is the Denoise option ('Noise Reduction'). This enhancement reduces the movie noise and the grain filter, but adds blur and ghosting that can be easily noticed. Last but not least, is the 'Deinterlacing' option that removes the horizontal 'braking lines', so make sure you have enabled it.

And there you have it. These little adjustments will have a huge impact to your video playback quality. But you'll have to experiment a little with the values to find what suits you best. Enjoy and have fun!