There have always been a few restrictions on home entertainment. The brightness of the shows you view is diminished by the TV’s motion smoothing and other perplexing settings. Have you ever been enjoying a film or television series, only to find yourself abruptly squinting at the dark screen?
There was a notion in America that colorless or dark was more “immersive.” Colorless media was characterized as “realistic and mature.” This is an absurd trend that began in the 1990s when dark, dark shows overstayed their welcome, never leaving.
While dark scenes are typically the result of the director’s vision, there are a number of elements that affect the viewer’s ability to see what’s happening on screen in both cinemas and at home. Continue reading to learn more about how to make the experience better at home.
How To Improve Your TV’s Picture For Dark Content?
Using What You Have
You can take measures to make dark content look as nice as possible without purchasing a more expensive television. Turning off overhead lights, for example, is a good idea because it will reduce reflections on your screen.
The glossy surface of television will reflect light sources that compete with the actual image, so turning down the lights and attempting to create a film theatre-like environment is a smart idea, although darker is not always better.
Many home theatre gurus recommend basic illumination for the screen since it will increase the apparent contrast of your TV and eliminate the burning eyeball discomfort that occurs when a show transitions from dark and moody to painfully brilliant.
Smooth Isn’t Always Better
When buying a new television, motion smoothing should be deactivated as the first, simplest, and most obvious decision. This terrible feature is still enabled by default on many televisions, and it is a plague upon us all.
For the uninitiated, motion smoothing (also known as “motion enhancement”) artificially boosts the frame rate (or the number of displayed frames per second) of whatever you’re seeing.
In less technical words, it gives films and television programs that were deliberately shot one way the “soap opera impression” of appearing smoother than they should.
Consider A Fancier TV
Not all televisions are made equal, and if you own a high-end OLED television, you probably had an easier time comprehending what was occurring than if you own a television with conventional backlighting, whether LED or otherwise.
OLED televisions allow each pixel to turn off fully when it should be completely black. This permits them to appear completely black—a TV with a standard backlight often positioned around the screen’s edges.
Otherwise, arrays beneath the LCD panel cannot achieve true black since some light still leaks through. When blacks can’t get “inky” — a term home theatre writers used to enjoy when referring to plasma TVs.
If you increase the brightness of your screen in the hopes that it will make the battle scenes more legible, you are likely disappointed. This is because increasing the TV’s total brightness has no effect on contrast. You also brightened “black,” which negates the point.
You can remedy this issue by upgrading to a much better TV, which is fantastic if you have a lot of spare cash—OLED TVs are still at the top of the market. The lowest-priced OLED display currently available on Best Buy’s website is a $1,050 LG display, and prices increase significantly from there. However, this is not your only option.
Pick The Right Display Mode
All televisions are unique, and even identical models may not work identically out of the box. TVs often include display modes that attempt to optimize the settings for optimal performance. You may have noticed that your television asks during setup whether it will be used at home or as a retail display.
This is due to the fact that in-store displays generally maximize brightness and other characteristics such as color, contrast, and sharpness in an effort to attract your attention when you’re confronted with a big wall of TVs playing the same 2017 NFL highlights.
Typically, there is a “theatrical” option or a “neutral” mode that appears muted when you first select it, but this is the mode you want to use if you want to see everything on-screen. Eventually, your eyes will adjust, and they will appear normal. After a while, the brighter modes will appear unnatural and unsettling.
Typically, these theatrical modes also feature a high-dynamic range, which you must enable if your television supports it. The HDR protocols (usually a variant of HDR 10 or Dolby Vision) will strive to maximize color, luminance, and contrast.
Get The Best Source of Material
The quality of the stream you are watching, however, cannot be improved by adjusting your screen settings. You should ensure that your streaming device, such as a Roku, smart TV, or Apple TV, is configured to offer the highest possible quality for streaming material.
If you have the ability to attach your TV or media player directly to the router, you can mitigate some of the variations caused by your unstable Wi-Fi network. Even the feed from cable providers fluctuates based on network capacity, so if you were viewing when everyone else was, it could have contributed to your difficulties.
You’ll also want to ensure that your network is as pristine as possible so that you can allocate a substantial amount of bandwidth to the stream. To avoid interruptions, streaming providers will lower the quality of your content.
Conclusion
Underexposure might exhaust the audience and cause them to overlook vital information. The usage of darkness is an attempt to establish a precedent. It’s used to prepare the viewer for a harsh, serious, and mature film, and sometimes it actually succeeds, but other times it falls flat.
