Tom is correct on this IMO.
Tom is correct on this IMO.
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Yup. Best bet is to turn off all the edge sharpening, motion smoothing, noise reduction, etc filters on the TV. And reduce the brightness level from “nuclear weapon flash” level. Manufacturers throw in all these gimmicks, because they’re all chip based or software based and cost them next to nothing and they all want a long checklist of “features” to help sell their sets.
Any set nowadays is going to be pretty fantastic. We’ve moved far far beyond the day when state of the art was a 27” color analog tube display. It’s all good now.
He’s right, the standard, stock settings on most (all?) new TVs are terrible. Too bright, too contrasty, and way too many motion-smoothing and artifact-filtering options turned on, or turned too high.
I recently bought a new OLED TV (LG), and when I first turned it on I thought maybe I had made a mistake buying it. Dark colors were totally crushed into black. But once I fiddled with the settings and got it the way I like it? Beautiful.
He is partially correct. If you have an old 4:3 aspect ratio tv, yes. And yes, the early 16:9 HD tv's had adjustments like stretch, expand, and full to fill in the screen for 4:3 camera productions. It used to be called "letterbox" and the adjustments would make it fill in but distort the image - depending on which setting.
Every TV production now uses HD cameras (16:9). Even older movies on premium channels have been re-mixed to fill the screen on newer HD displays. Other than the very poor or the use of small tv's for counter-top usage, most Americans now have an HD tv.
We had a Mitsubishi first generation HD (tube rear projection) for years and had to deal with the above adjustments for some time. As HD camera usage became the norm, we needed less adjustments.
Side-note: We recently splurged on a 4k Ultra High Definition and the picture is so beyond early HD(1080)it amazes us all the time. Yes, most people can't afford them as yet, but if you can, it is like looking through a window. Ours is LG 4k OLED. Also, the up-scaling of non-remixed older movies is phenomenal. Any older movie that has not been re-mixed has the detail and color of any recent movie. It's like seeing the movie for the first time. Amazing!
Most theatrical movies are filmed in cinemascope or panavision and still have varying size black bars on top and bottom because of wider and different aspect ratios. However, the old grayish bars are now black with the new 4k OLED displays so you get used to them. The contrast is just incredible - blacks are black and whites are white and everything in-between as it was shot.
All the over the air channels like 2.2, 5.2, 5.3, 13.4 etc are horrible looking and look like 360 pixel youtube videos. I watch WKRP on the ME channel and can barely make out the faces as they are blurry and pixelated. The main channel like ABC will have a great picture but the sub channels are given less bandwidth.
I knew there was a problem with my TV settings when I saw him playing the part of Jack Reacher. Jack was 6’5” and 250 lbs. The books were very involved in his size. Cruise is 5’7” and weighs about 150.
indeed.
Tom is 100% correct about this.
I bought a big Samsung plasma set right before they quit making them a few years go. It had amazing reviews for picture quality ... when i turned mine own the first time, the picture looked like sepia tones... i was like, WTF, and came close to returning it, but instead decided to first look at the picture settings ... the first thing i found was a picture setting whose default was “ecosetting” ... i changed that to normal, and suddenly the screen lit up like a Christmas tree, with brilliant, saturated colors and deep, deep blacks ... that one default setting alone had crippled an amazing piece of technology ... why on earth are manufacturers deliberately crippling their brilliant, expensive products like that?
I’ve never heard of a Hollywood ‘thing’ saying anything of value ... is this a first?