No TV, even the best TVs, looks as good as it can straight out of the box. If you have a TCL TV, including one of the new X11L Super Quantum Dot models, adjusting just a few settings can drastically change the image. Even if you don't have any technical know-how, these settings will get you a more accurate, realistic-looking TV. 

You don't need special equipment -- just your eyes and your remote. Oh, and some shows and movies to see how your changes affect the image. Even just choosing the best picture mode can deliver great results. 

You can't damage your TV by changing any of these settings, and if you want to go back to how it was before, that's easy, too. And while TCL and Sony have entered into a joint venture for future Sony TVs, this shouldn't change anything for current models from either brand. Let's dive in.

Navigating the settings menu

Once you've completed the initial setup, like pairing the remote, connecting the TV to your Wi-Fi and accepting (or not, if you're able) any data sharing policies, you can start adjusting the image. Different TCL TVs use different "operating systems," aka the user interface. For instance, some use Roku while others use Google TV. While the way to access the settings may be different, all of them will let you adjust picture quality. Also, not every TCL TV has all of these settings, but most should.

Picture mode

All TCL TVs have modes called standard, vivid, sports and movie. Some will also have intelligent and filmmaker. Broadly speaking, filmmaker and movie will be the most accurate and closest to what the creators intended. 

If the TV is in standard or vivid mode, when you first switch to movie or filmmaker, the changes will initially look very "warm" or "yellow/orange." This is because most other modes have a far cooler color temperature, and when you switch to one that's more accurate, it will look warm in comparison. Give it a little time, and it will look normal, and the other modes will start to look too "cool" or "bluish." You can also adjust the color temperature separately. This might come as a surprise, but warm is usually the most accurate setting on most TVs. 

It's worth noting that, in TV Editor Ty Pendlebury's recent reviews of some TCL TVs, there wasn't much difference between the movie and filmmaker modes, though the latter was a little better. Broadly speaking, filmmaker tends to turn off most picture enhancements like sharpness and the soap opera effect, so it's giving you the best settings straight away.

Some streaming content is embedded with a specific flag that indicates when filmmaker mode is ideal, for example, and TCL TVs can feature automatic content recognition, which should switch over to filmmaker mode. Not all content that looks best in filmmaker mode has this flag, however.

Intelligent mode

This mode automatically selects the best image based on the content and viewing environment -- that is, it adjusts settings based on what it thinks you're watching, as well as the amount of ambient light in the room. Personally, I prefer leaving the display in one mode. Nothing will look wrong in movie or filmmaker mode. If you prefer how the TV looks in a different mode while watching certain content, that's fine, but for movies and scripted TV shows, movie or filmmaker are the best options. Does the TV know this and adjust back? I'm not sure I'd trust any TV to get it right every time, to be honest.

Important note: Some TVs have different picture settings for each input and for the TV's internal apps. Once you've gotten the TV looking how you want, check a different input (if you're using them), and see if the settings carried over. Some TCL TVs have a feature labeled apply all picture settings, which should, as its name implies, let you apply the picture settings to other inputs. 

Tweaking the picture

While most TV's picture modes are a matter of set it and forget it, televisions do come with a bunch of other settings, which let you further tailor the image. If you want to try to get the TV looking even better, you can experiment, but even TV reviewers tend to choose the default picture modes as they came in the box. Even so, this is what the extra settings do.

Contrast

Adjusts the intensity of the brightest parts of the image. If this is set too high, it will "wash out" highlights. For example, instead of a bright cloud in the sky, it will be a featureless white blob. This is probably fairly close to where it should be out of the box. Use bright scenes to adjust, especially with the aforementioned clouds. Skiing/snowboarding content is another good option.

Brightness

This adjusts the brightness of the darkest parts of the image. Set too low, and shadows will be too dark to see. On some TVs, the brightness control adjusts the overall brightness, while the black level control adjusts only the shadows. Dark movies are ideal for adjusting the Black Level.

If the TV has separate backlight control, or if the brightness control adjusts the TV's overall light output, there's no right or wrong setting. Set to its higher levels, the TV might be too bright to watch at night and will draw marginally more power. It's normal to adjust this based on how much light there is in the room. More on the automatic settings for this below.

Color and tint

You shouldn't have to adjust these.

Sharpness

Counterintuitively, lower sharpness is often better. Sharpness doesn't "add" sharpness -- it adds edge enhancement, which can increase noise, introduce artificial-looking edges to objects and even mask fine detail in the image. I'd also be wary of digital noise reduction, as it doesn't know what's actual noise and what is just film grain or fine detail in the image. Gradation clear can help remove the "steps" in color gradations of some content. Most people aren't bothered by these, but if you notice them, this feature might help reduce them. 

For more on these settings, check out Instantly Improve Your TV's Picture by Changing These Simple Settings.

Advanced settings

If you're willing to go a little further, you can tweak a lot more settings to fine tune the image, and professional TV calibrators, in particular, will use these.

Gamma

Gamma is, to oversimplify, how bright the medium-bright parts of the image are. So, not the brightest parts of the image (that's adjusted with the contrast control) and not the darkest (that's brightness or black level controls), but how bright something that's, say, 50% bright looks. There's more to it than this, but a smaller number will make the image appear brighter, but it might also make it look flatter, artificial or washed out. 

Motion clarity and LED motion clear: 

Motion clarity is TCL's motion compensation tech. This is also called MEMC or colloquially the soap opera effect. If you think your TV looks weird or the motion is "too smooth" or everything looks like a telenovela or soap opera, this is why. It can make sports look sharper and more realistic, but it makes movies and scripted TV shows look cheap and artificial. I strongly recommend turning it off. 

LED motion clear, on the other hand, is also called black frame insertion (BFI). This inserts a dark or black frame between the regular video frames. This can sharpen the motion with all content and doesn't add any weird movement like Motion Clarity. However, it makes the image slightly darker overall, and some people may see flickering. It's worth checking this feature to see if you like it. For some content, it might be ideal.

Dynamic or adaptive anything

Personally, I'm not a fan of modes labeled dynamic or adaptive. TVs almost always look their best when set correctly in one mode and not changing based on what they think the content should look like. This includes adaptive color temperature, black stretch, dynamic color, dynamic contrast and local contrast.

The exception, depending on your room and TV, is adaptive brightness, which adjusts the screen's brightness based on ambient light. In contrast, dynamic brightness adjusts the image brightness based on the signal. So dark scenes are darker, bright scenes are bright. This can look a little weird as the TV ramps up and down with some movies or shows. To turn this off, use a TV menu, usually marked by the "hamburger button" icon (three stacked lines or dots). When you select this, a separate menu will appear at the bottom of the screen. If your TV has a light sensor, scroll to the right and disable adaptive brightness -- this will give you the best picture.

In addition to covering audio and display tech, Geoff does photo tours of cool museums and locations around the world, including nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, medieval castles, epic 10,000-mile road trips and more.

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