TV picture quality: 6 quick steps for better images no matter the price of your TV
How much time have you spent over the years customizing your gadgets to work just how you want them? From icons to background images to ringtones, you can endlessly fiddle.
Before the iPhone’s iOS 14 update, you were stuck with Safari as the default browser and Apple Mail for email. Now, you can change these to one of many options. Tap or click to customize your iPhone apps to the ones you want.
If you have a Windows PC, prepare to see what you’ve been missing. From colorful themes to dark mode to your cramped Start menu, all it takes is a few minutes to customize your machine. Tap or click here for step-by-step directions.
What about your TV? Walk into an electronics store, and the new models are stunning. The pictures are bright and crisp. Then you get it home, and it’s not quite as impressive. Why? Your settings might be all wrong.
1. Balance the sharpness
You would think turning sharpness up would sharpen your picture, but it works the opposite way on most modern TVs. Instead, sharpness controls edge enhancement. This highlights the edges of images with an outline or halo.
This setting may make images appear sharper, but you lose detail along with it. The edge enhancement hides details and makes the picture look less natural.
If you’re using one of your television’s preset cinema or movie modes, sharpness is turned down by default. To tweak this setting on your own, turn the sharpness down until you don’t see any outlines.
For even more control, turn it all the way down and bring it up in small increments until you’re happy with the picture.
2. Reduce the noise
Noise refers to film grain, artifacts, and pixelation. This was more of an issue in older television sets and standard or lower-definition content. Noise reduction can produce a clearer picture, but it also washes out details — making everything on the screen look soft and unnatural.
If you’re watching high-definition and 4K content, disable noise reduction. Leaving it on may cause you to miss out on finer details and textures.
Google apps will help the hard of hearing
Plenty of us struggle with hearing. You know you have that TV extra loud, but it’s the only way you can hear it. You continually ask people to repeat themselves because you missed one or two words – or all of them.
Especially in this digital age, some gadgets are just too soft or their sound too tinny to be listened to comfortably.