GoKawiilPicture this: You just set up a new TV. You've been patiently waiting from the moment you ordered it to start using your living room upgrade. It's plugged in, connected to your various streaming boxes and game consoles; you're ready to binge Heated Rivalry. But when you hit play on HBO Max, the picture quality looks nothing like what you expected. In fact, it's pretty awful. Before you dive into manual adjustments, there's one setting to check because it could fix things in just a couple of taps.
More specifically, the thing to look for is store or demo mode in the settings menu. New TVs often ship with this enabled, even if you didn't visit a physical store to purchase it. This makes certain adjustments for in-store environments and may even reset any changes every few minutes so the next customer who walks by sees the fresh picture as the manufacturer intended. This is the main reason why you shouldn't start making brightness, contrast or any other adjustments before you check to see if the mode is active.