As great as the best TVs are, they often don't look their best right out of the box. If you've recently purchased a new TCL TV, or even if you've had one for a while, adjusting the following settings can radically improve the image. The result will be more natural-looking and closer to what the creators of the shows and movies you watch intended when they made them.
TCL remote in front of a QM9K TV Ty Pendlebury/CNET
The settings listed below don't need any specialized knowledge or equipment. Even simple adjustments, like changing the picture mode, can yield great results, and a few tweaks to other settings, like contrast and brightness, can make a big difference.
You can't damage your TV by changing any of these settings, and if you want to go back to how it was before, it's easy to switch it back. Let's begin.
Navigating the settings menu
The TCL QM6K features the Google TV interface. Ty Pendlebury/CNET
Once you've completed the initial setup, like pairing the remote, connecting the TV to your Wi-Fi and accepting (or not, if you're able) any data sharing policies, you can start adjusting the image. Different TCL TVs use different "operating systems," aka the user interface. For instance, some use Roku while others use Google TV. While the way to access the settings may be different, all of them will let you adjust picture quality. Also, not every TCL TV has all of these settings, but most should.
Picture mode
All TCL TVs have modes called standard, vivid, sports and movie. Some will also have intelligent and filmmaker. Broadly speaking, filmmaker and movie will be the most accurate and closest to what the creators intended.
If the TV is in standard or vivid mode, when you first switch to movie or filmmaker, the changes will initially look very "warm" or "yellow/orange." This is because most other modes have a far cooler color temperature, and when you switch to one that's more accurate, it will look warm in comparison. Give it a little time, and it will look normal, and the other modes will start to look too "cool" or "bluish." You can also adjust the color temperature separately. This might come as a surprise, but warm is usually the most accurate setting on most TVs.
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