Fire Sticks, Netflix and even regular TV ruined by FIVE killer settings that make your picture awful even on posh models
DON'T let a few rogue TV settings ruin the quality of your picture.
Even if you've forked out thousands on a very posh television, your movies and shows are still at risk of looking very dodgy.
The Sun has rounded up five essential settings that you'll want to check to make sure that you're not sabotaging movie night – no matter if you're using an Amazon Fire TV Stick, watching Netflix, or just browsing through Freeview channels.
ENERGY SAVER
Most modern TVs will come with some kind of energy-saving mode. It'll probably be helpfully named Energy Saver.
This is a great mode that can slightly reduce your energy bills, but it often comes with a catch.
Usually Energy Saver will make a change to screen brightness, dimming the overall picture.
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For a start, it'll mean that the picture is dark, which makes it hard to see what's going on.
You'll probably find that contrast is reduced, colours look less vivid, and the picture is overall poorer.
After all, many TVs are marketed on how bright their screens go. It can make a huge difference to how your picture looks.
So if you're watching something important like a top Hollywood flick, keep energy saver off.
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You can always switch it back on for regular telly.
MOTION SMOOTHING
Another setting you'll want to look out for is Motion Smoothing.
It might also be called Motion Interpolation, Smooth Movement, or something very similar.
Video on your TV is a series of images shown very quickly. The speed at which it can show a new image is called the refresh rate.
A refresh rate of 60Hz means that your TV can update the picture on the screen 60 times every second.
But Hollywood films are often produced at 24 frames per second, which creates a mismatch.
We've come to know and love this effect over the years, giving the movies a cinematic feel.
However, some TVs use Motion Smoothing to insert fake frames based on computer guesswork – bringing 24fps footage up to 60fps.
Naysayers argue that this creates a horrible "soap opera" effect for movies, and top Hollywood talent like Tom Cruise, Martin Scorcese, and Christopher Nolan have all urged people to avoid the feature.
So if you're watching a proper movie, try turning Motion Smoothing off.
What is 4K, Ultra HD and UHD?
Here's an easy guide to what 4K means...
- 4K, Ultra HD and UHD are all different names for the same type of TV screen. 4K refers to the number of pixels on your TV screen – or the "image resolution"
- The pixels are the tiny dots of colour that make up the image you see on your telly. A pixellated image is one where the pixels are really obvious, because there aren't many. But images with lots of pixels – like a 4K movie – generally look sharper and clearer
- A true 4K screen has 4096 x 2160 pixels. That means on your TV screen there are 3840 pixels across, and 2160 pixels vertically. That's roughly 8.3 million pixels on the display in total
- 4K gets it's name because it's got four times the number of pixels as a standard Full HD TV
- Full HD (or 1080p) screens have 1920 pixels across, and 1080 pixels going upwards – for around two million pixels in total. So 4K just means your TV has many more pixels on the screen compared to a more common Full HD display
- Ultra HD, or UHD, is basically the same as 4K. If you buy a UHD telly in a shop, you'll be able to watch 4K content on it with no bother
- But there is a small difference. Almost every TV you ever buy has an aspect ratio of 16:9. That means for every 16 pixels horizontally, there are 9 vertically
- True 4K footage doesn't quite fit in with that ratio, so you won't often find TVs with 4096 x 2160 pixels. Instead, to fit with the 16:9 ratio, most 4K TVs will have 3840 x 2160 pixels instead
- If it doesn't make sense, grab a calculator and divide 2160 by 9. Then multiply it by 16, and you'll get 3840. That's the aspect ratio working its magic. So when you see an Ultra HD TV, it just means it's a 4K image with slightly fewer vertical pixels
- If you try watching a 4K video on a non-4K TV, the video will still play – but it won't be in 4K quality. To watch a 4K video in 4K quality, you'll need to fork out for a 4K TV. Similarly, if you're watching standard or HD footage on a 4K TV, it won't magically become 4K quality
- Some TVs promise "4K upscaling", which converts your standard or HD footage to near-4K quality. This works by using software to guess what colours would fill the extra empty pixels missing in HD footage, and then filling them in. This creates a 4K-like effect, but it's not true 4K
ASPECT RATIO
Aspect ratio is the relationship between the width and height of the image on your screen.
For instance, a 4K movie has 3,840 pixels on every row and 2,160 pixels on every column going across the screen.
That works out at about eight million pixels overall, for exceptional detail.
The aspect ratio for standard 4K is 16:9. That means that for every 16 pixels on a row, there are nine pixels in the column.
This determines the shape of the footage that you're watching.
But if you've got the wrong aspect ratio set on your TV compared to what you're watching, the content might look squished, stretched, and can even have entire chunks cut off.
Thankfully it's very easy to adjust aspect ratio in your settings.
Often it'll be done automatically – but it might not work properly sometimes, especially if you're streaming from other devices.
Manually checking the correct aspect ratio for each TV show and movie could quickly get tiring.
So instead, try just eye-balling it.
As you flick through the aspect ratios, one should stick out as looking just right. No cut-off footage or wide, stretched bodies.
And if you really can't tell what looks right, you could just Google it and set the correct aspect ratio.
VIVID
Another setting to watch out for is something called Vivid.
Whether this looks good or bad will probably depend on what you're watching – and how your TV maker has set the feature up.
Vivid is a type of picture mode that will change settings on your TV to make the image look, well, more vivid.
But sadly this often means just cranking the saturation up – that's the intensity of colours.
Some saturation can make a movie's colours pop, but it can quickly look gaudy and artificial.
So try turning it off to see if you prefer it. You might find that movies and TV shows look much better with Vivid switched off.
Be aware that many TVs have a Dynamic mode that automatically changes settings for you. So that can also be to blame for dodgy colours.
SHARPNESS
Finally, there's Sharpness – a common setting that makes it very easy to mess up a TV's picture.
Sharpness is meant to control how defined the edges of objects look on your screen.
It'll enhance the edges so that they look sharp and clear, which can be useful.
But if you set sharpness too high, you'll begin to notice a lot of "noise" on the screen.
These are strange artifacts that your TV churns out because it's trying to add edge detail that isn't there.
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And with sharpness set to very high levels, it can totally ruin how your picture looks.
So keep sharpness nice and low – and if you really want to increase it, do it by a little at a time to see how the changes look.