How to get the best HDTV picture quality

Be prepared to fine-tune your TV when you get it home

When you turn on your new TV, don't panic if it doesn't look as stunning as it did in the showroom. The default factory settings on most TVs are designed to create a super-bright, vividly colored image to lure shoppers, but they're almost always a bad choice for use at home. Tweaking the settings can greatly improve picture quality.

Adjusting picture settings individually can yield better quality, but it's easier to use presets, so try them first to see if the results satisfy you. Press the menu button on the remote to access the video or picture menu. See what picture mode is in use. It's most likely Vivid or Dynamic. Such modes tend to dramatically boost contrast and sharpness and lower brightness to less than optimal levels. Scroll through the list. We've found that modes with names like Natural, Cinema, or Pro (names vary by TV brand) generally provide the most-balanced settings. As you switch modes, settings for brightness, contrast, and sharpness are automatically adjusted to preset values optimized for different viewing environments.

In most cases, you can modify a particular setting within a preset mode to tweak the picture's appearance. On other TVs, if you try to change the settings, your picture mode will automatically change to a Custom, User, or Preference mode, which allows you to adjust picture settings individually.

If you want to adjust the individual picture settings yourself rather than use a preset mode, follow the steps below. A simple way to start is to set the brightness, contrast, color, and tint controls in the middle, then tweak slightly. You'll usually get a decent picture.

And a word of reassurance before you get started: If you're unhappy with the adjustments you've made to the picture, don't panic. Hitting the reset button should restore the factory settings, and you can start over. Or choose one of the recommended picture modes, which should reset all the attributes you've adjusted.

Brightness level

The "brightness" setting actually adjusts the black level, which plays a big role in picture quality. Ideally, a TV should be able to display deep black without losing the detail in the darkest areas. To help you achieve the right balance, freeze-frame a nighttime scene like one from a "Batman" movie. Turn the brightness/black level up until you can see the details in the image's darkest areas. Then turn it down so the black gets as black as possible without obscuring the details in the dark areas. A dark jacket is another good image to use—make sure you can see the edges of the lapels. With LCD sets, you generally don't get as deep a black as with plasmas and old-fashioned picture-tube sets. As a general rule of thumb, the brightness setting should be no higher than the setting for contrast. If brightness is set too high, the picture may look washed out.

Contrast

Contrast adjusts the white level, which affects how bright the picture looks. Find an image with lots of white—a wedding gown, a man's dress shirt, or a sky full of puffy white clouds. Start by setting the contrast to the highest level, then keep lowering it until you can see all the detail, such as the shadows in the folds of a white gown, the buttons on the shirt, or the subtle gray shadings in the clouds. Raise it slightly, to a point where you see the brightest picture possible without washing out the subtle, near-white details described. For the best picture quality, it's generally best to set contrast below the maximum level.

Color and tint

Once the black-and-white quality is optimized, it's time to adjust the color settings. Start with color temperature, sometimes called color tone. We recommend choosing the "warm" or "low" setting, so whites don't appear too blue. Then adjust the tint/hue control so that flesh tones look natural, neither too red nor too greenish-yellow. Generally, colors look best with a setting in the middle of the range. Adjust the color-level control (saturation) so that colors look vivid and realistic but not excessive (glowing). All those settings might interact with one another, so repeat the process as necessary.

Sharpness and more

Manufacturers often set the sharpness control high and turn on noise-reduction and other image-enhancement modes. Those are rarely needed when you're watching high-quality HD programming or a DVD movie. In most cases, resist the temptation to crank up sharpness to enhance HD's fine detail. If you set the sharpness control too high, the background will start to look grainy, and a halo will appear around the edges of objects, making the overall image appear less natural. We suggest you turn the sharpness control down to the minimum, then raise it slightly only if the image looks soft, or edges are indistinct. Also turn off any noise-reduction and image-enhancement modes, which tend to reduce image detail.

If your TV viewing consists mainly of standard-definition programs with typically noisy picture quality, then you may want to explore the noise reduction modes to determine if they work for you. Those modes are typically found in the menus for picture adjustments, advanced picture settings, or setup.

Consider the source

You might have to tweak picture settings for each video source, depending on the signal and the TV input it's coming in on. Each TV input has different circuitry that processes various types of signals, so brightness, color, and other picture attributes may vary. You might find that a DVD player connected to the S-video input yields a different quality picture than the same player connected to the component-video input. When you switch sources, you'll get the best picture quality with settings customized to each input. Some TVs will store custom settings for each input, either automatically or manually, which is handy.

Do-it-yourselfers who want to calibrate their TV picture in a more precise way can use a calibration DVD such as the AVIA II Guide to Home Theater from Ovation Multimedia, or Digital Video Essentials from Joe Kane Productions. They will walk you through an easy step-by-step picture-alignment process, eliminating guesswork. Some calibration discs now come in the Blu-ray format. Or try the free THX Optimizer included on THX-certified DVDs, including Pixar's "Toy Story" and "The Incredibles."