How to Get the Best Picture on Your TV
Most of us buy a brand new TV, get it set up on the wall or on a stand and then forget about it. Apparently over 50% of buyers don’t bother to alter the settings once purchased, but this is not advisable if you want to get the best picture that you can.
A new TV is generally a fair expense and as Britons spend on average 3 hours a day watching it, it’s worthwhile getting it set up to it’s greatest advantage.
Steps to Get the Best Picture
Below are a few steps but if you’d prefer to watch some videos to help, www.myperfectpicture.tv has some easy step by step instructions.
When you buy the TV, the settings are generally on the brightest colour settings as this works well in the shop, but not necessarily in your house. One of the easiest things to do to improve the picture is to select the correct picture mode in the Picture Menu. Choose movie, cinema or THX (depending on your TV) as this sets up your TV with a better picture and conserves energy. There may be many settings on the menu but best to avoid ones such as “vivid” or “dynamic” as you would luminous wallpaper, it will be too much for in the house (unless you like that sort of thing).
Even if you set one of these presets, you can adjust it further and make minor tweaks.
1. Getting Your Settings Right
If you have the time, go through each input that is connected to a source using your remote control and choose each picture that looks the best.
Standard - As the name implies, good for everyday TV watching. Modest increase in contrast, brightness and fairly sharp
Movie/pro – Good for Movies, DVDs & blu rays. Contrast and brightness settings adjusted for great realism, enhancements like sharpness are reduced/eliminated
Dynamic/Vivid – Contrast/brightness and sharpness greatly increased. Good for gaming, animation or if your have quite strong room lighting.
2. Minor Tweaking
Once you’ve picked your setting, you can adjust it more to your own personal preference if you like.
Brightness - This controls the black level – how dark the image can go before you lose details. In some older HDTVs, this might be called Picture.
Contrast - This setting controls the white level. It’s more to do with how light the image can go before you lose detail. Changing the contrast effects the brightness, so once you’ve adjusted one, you need to go back and check the other.
Colour - This is colour saturation – how intense the colour looks. The details can be affected if it’s too high and if it’s too low, then you’ve got a black and white picture. Try to get it moderately bright, but not causing problems around the edges.
Sharpness - This generally only improves the look of lower quality signals like standard broadcast, cable & satellite broadcast. If it’s too high, it can create halos around the edges of objects onscreen so be wary of over adjusting. Many DVD movies already have edge-enhancement added during mastering so you can generally turn down sharpness to nearly zero for your DVD input. It’s also not needed for most HDTV sources.
If you’d like further help, try the Which video guide which will take you through it.
Which also publishes a guide for each model of tv as they come out, so go onto their website and have a look for you one for a tailor-made experience! This is available here:
If after all that, you can’t face it, we are trusted digital TV installers, so give us a call on 0131 450 7158. We’ll come out and get it set up and tuned in for your own personal preference. Just give us a call or book online!
