Improvement or Gimmick? Advanced Picture Settings of Your TV, Explanation

HDTVs come with all sorts of advanced settings designed to “enhance” the picture, but most of them are just marketing gimmicks. In fact, your photo will look better if some of them are disabled. Here are some of the settings you’ll find in the advanced menu and what to do with them.

Think of it as “Part II” of our HDTV calibration guide . We’ve covered basic settings like brightness, contrast, sharpness, and tint, and you should learn how to adjust them before moving on. So, if you haven’t read this guide and performed a basic calibration on your TV, do it now!

A note on your TV presets

Before you tweak your TV’s advanced settings – no, not even before calibrating it – take a look at the TV’s “presets”. It will likely have several different modes such as Vivid, Cinema, and Standard. They will contain not only various presets for brightness, contrast and other basic settings, but also advanced settings – and in some cases these advanced settings will be “locked” so you cannot change them. So, it is very important to start with the correct preset. In most cases, you will need to start tuning in the Movie mode, which locks out the least amount of adjustments.

If you’ve calibrated your TV using a different preset, I recommend switching it to Cinema mode and recalibrating it before moving on.

Most common advanced settings (and what they do)

If you go into your TV’s picture settings menu, you’ll probably find some deeper menus, usually called “Advanced Settings” or something similar. Here are some of the more popular settings you’ll find inside and what they do:

• Color temperature is an important parameter in determining color accuracy. There are usually several settings, such as Cool, Normal, and Warm. Cool gives whites a bluish tint, while Warm gives them a reddish tint. However, this is a little trick for your eyes: “warm” is usually closest to true white (not to mention being less harsh on your eyes when viewed in a dark room). Try it on Warm and give your eyes a few days to get used to – if you still hate it try Normal. Be sure to set this before calibrating your TV for the most accurate colors. Check out this CNET article for more information.
• Dynamic contrast is automatically adjusted during video playback, making dark areas darker and light areas brighter. In short, it makes the image “stand out” a little – but usually at the expense of detail. You will find that some blacks and whites are “squashed” when this setting is enabled, and this can even lead to color banding . Therefore, it is generally recommended not to turn this setting off to get the best picture. However, some TVs do this better than others, and some have different dynamic contrast ratios rather than just on and off settings, which may offer a good compromise. (I personally like my setting to Low – don’t tell anyone). Some people like it for sports too.
• Black Tone and similar features try to darken blacks, but like Dynamic Contrast, they usually just cause a loss of detail. As a general rule, we recommend leaving them disabled. You may have the opposite Black Detail setting (which we still recommend not to use). Also, don’t confuse these two settings with black level , which is something completely different (and something you don’t need to mess with in most cases).
• Local dimming of LEDs is a feature of LED TVs that affects the black level. Basically, this allows the LED backlight to dim in certain areas of the screen, making black areas appear darker than when the setting is disabled. This can be great if done correctly, but not all dimming functions are created equal. Some TVs do this much better than others, which can cause blooming when dimming is on. Try watching dark scenes (like in space) with the feature on and off to see which one you like best. Read more in this article Rtings .
• Motion Blur Reduction does exactly what it says: if you find that some scenes get too blurry with fast motion, you can try turning this option on. Some TVs have better blur reduction than others, and in some cases this setting can cause flickering or darkening, so try turning it on and off to see which one you like best.
• Noise Reduction (DNR) is usually not required for HD videos such as Blu-Ray, but can help improve the look of older or lower quality sources such as VHS tapes or some SD broadcast channels. If you’re watching anything in this category, try enabling DNR and see if you like it. But for HD content, it’s best not to use it.
• Flesh tone is a setting on some televisions that allows you to adjust skin tone without affecting the rest of the picture. In theory, if your TV’s color and hue is properly calibrated, you won’t need this, so I would leave it.
• Color management, white balance, and other functions are usually referred to as fine color adjustments intended for professional calibrators. All in all, you can probably leave this alone if you really don’t know what you are doing and just want to make some minor changes.
• Motion interpolation has many different names, such as Samsung’s Auto Motion Plus or Sony’s MotionFlow. Basically, it smoothes out motion on 120Hz and higher TVs, creating artificial footage in between the regular footage you would normally see. This is what causes the “soap opera effect” – some people like it, most hate it , but it can be good for sports.
• Game Mode reduces input lag, which, you guessed it, is important for video games, especially first-person shooters. This will lower the picture quality a bit, and I wouldn’t leave it on when watching movies, but it can be handy when playing games. Check out our guide to TV modes for more information.

These settings can sometimes have different names, and there are more of them than we could list here. If you don’t know what a setting does on your TV, Google it and you’ll probably find a more “generic” name for it (for example, Vizio TVs call dynamic contrast “Adaptive Luma”). We may have missed other settings, but these are some of the most common.

Chances are, if you don’t understand what it is doing, you should start by turning it off and calibrate the TV that way. Most of these additional features cause more problems than they solve. From there, you can try turning on each individual setting to see how they affect the image. As always, do what looks good to you -Your picture may be more “accurate” with something off, but if you like it, it’s your TV to go for it!

Additional Resources

We just touch the surface and each TV is different. So, if you’re not sure what a setup does, or if you’re especially annoyed by your set, I highly recommend looking at some of the following sites for more in-depth research:

• The AVS Forums are one of the best forums for the serious home theater enthusiast, and you’ll find more information here than you ever wanted. The community is very knowledgeable and very helpful, so you’ll definitely find the answer on the site – and if it doesn’t already exist, you can ask.
• Rtings is a site dedicated to in-depth technical TV reviews. Not only can you find information about your specific model, but they also have some great explanations in the Learn section (which you can access from the left sidebar).
• CNET , while not quite as technical as Rtings, sometimes has some good non-professional explanations for various advanced features (although they aren’t always as detailed as other sources). If you have little or no experience with TVs and home theaters, this is a good place to start getting your bearings before moving on to more technical stuff.

I’ve spent the last few weeks fiddling with a new TV, and from experience I can tell you that you can get lost in the research hole quite easily browsing these sites, so don’t let yourself get too crazy (or you can actually drive). you’re crazy). Remember, when in doubt, do what you love and enjoy watching TV !

More…