Microsoft Edge Has More Efficient Video Playback, Microsoft Says update from July 2016

Microsoft Edge, the Windows 10-only successor to web browser Internet Explorer, has already shared test results showing it to be a more power-efficient browser than its competitors. Now, say Jerry Smith, Jatinder Mann and John Simmons, the browser is also better at processing video than other Web browsers.

How? According to the Microsoft Edge team:

It does this by offloading CPU intensive video processing operations to power efficient peripheral hardware found in modern PCs and mobile devices. This starts with the use of Microsoft DirectX video acceleration (DXVA) to offload decoding of compressed video.  For rendering, Microsoft Edge also works with Multiplane overlay display hardware and sophisticated graphics and UI compositing features to offload video rendering operations. This significantly reduces memory bandwidth required for video processing and compositing at the display.

In other words, Edge works with a smaller energy footprint and more efficient video processing by offloading some of its work to other processes that are already running.