How to pick a TV picture mode | Standard, Vivid, Sports, Movie, ISF, Dolby

Hey everyone! I tried to make this video as accessible as possible to the largest audience as possible. For those of you who like to get deep into settings, we could talk about that, too! Let me know as a reply to this comment what your top questions are and I’ll see what we can do!

@caleb
Been watching your videos for some time now, ever since I bought an LG B2 OLED a few months ago, and connected it with a JBL Bar 1000 for some cool home theatre setting. I thought I should mention this: Apart from all the information you give out that's been super useful for a not-an-expert-but-likes-to-tinker-with-settings kinda person like me, the thing I have most enjoyed, almost as much as the information itself, is your casual but wonderful sense of humour. Makes watching your videos all the more fun, and not just useful (which it also is aplenty). So here's a shoutout to you: Thank you for taking the trouble to make these videos. You have made a difference to my life from across the other side of the planet, and for that I'm grateful.
Cheers
Roy, from far-away India.

I would submit that your straight to Hell comment was what I thought of you and your opinions 😂

Movie or cinema mode is best! 👍

Why are samsung tvs like the S95b have so limited colour settings cal day ,cal night no sport or game settings or expert bright or APS such a shame really nice better if it had dolby vision and imax what's the best setting for sports on the s95b will samsung ever upgrade and get more settings thanks would love to if there its a nice tv apart from that I use standard and filmmaker most the time

Vivid mod baikar hai

I have a big gripe with Filmmaker Mode or any of the “accuracy”-centric modes in my LG G3, and that is that they kinda suck. - First of all, yea, they’re indeed too dark, even in a completely dark room up close, because it just doesn’t make highlights very bright and rather dim and muted, which just sucks and makes having a high-contrast image kind of pointless. It’s almost like watching on an IPS-panel, minus the true-blacks. - Also, it makes intentionally dark sources even darker. For example, I’ve been watching ‘Stranger Things’, which is not only dark with even crushed blacks, but also mostly lacks bright highlights, cause they want to emulate that film-look (actually, it was transferred to real film, but I’m sure they flattened to contrast even more). And it looks like that in HDR and the panel pretty much at full blast. And the G3 get blindingly bright.
So if it already looks muted full-on, Filmmaker Mode and the like are just going to make for a weak experience being as dark as they are.
What’s more is the overly warm white-balance. - I’ve seen other people debate this, but those who consider it too yellow are just correct, and it’s not a matter of “getting used to it”. Which you can, but then you’re just forcing your brain to think yellow is neutral, like with indoor home lighting usually being rather yellow and that becoming “neutral”.
And true, “zero”, at least on this panel, is rather cold, but not bad. I’d say you shouldn’t go lower than 25 on the Warm side (it goes to 50 on this one), but definitely not 50 as it comes in those movie-modes. It just looks like an “old film filter”, trying too hard to look “classic” or something. I found that you can still go as high as 40, but probably 30-35 to not have it too warm, but definitely not over 40. - I mean, if it still looks yellow-ish when the room-lights I have are like 3000k yellow lights, something’s wrong.

I just got an LG G3 last month, but over the last few WEEKS I’ve been messing around with the settings almost every day, amounting to probably dozens of hours spent in the menus, not only to try and get it right, but also to understand everything and… well, getting it right (or close to).
It also doesn’t help that settings are set per… whatever, per app or per “environment”. Like when you have this particular TV on its “Gallery” mode, that has its own set of settings. So if you try to tweak things there and then go back to the Home menu, it won’t carry over, it will have its own settings. Same for when you go into apps or change the HDMI-channel. - And look, I love the flexibility, but that means I need to go through all settings a whole bunch of times, then re-checking if it’s all set right, and that per profile as well. And the fact that menus are kind of clunky and slow to navigate doesn’t help.
Anyway, I’ve narrowed it down to using about 3 profiles, that is Power Saving, just with everything on “neutral”, except no motion-smoothing for any profile (though de-blurring is fine, cause it doesn’t give the smoothing-effect and I kind of doubt it does much at all), then “Standard” quite neutral as well, but with lower processing, and then Filmmaker Mode full-on, but also definitely tweaked (cause it kinda sucks, even in the dark, in my accurate opinion).
One thing that makes it more once again is when it switches to any HDR-mode: It has its own profiles yet again. Filmmaker Mode actually disappears and Cinema-modes appear, as well as the “isf”-ones, at which point everything started over again. - I almost rage-quitted using the TV, but anyway… 😆
Oh, and yea, Game Optimizer for consoles, but also tweaked a lot. Definitely don’t just leave that at neutral. None of the profiles actually, unless you just really want to trust those “movie modes”.

I have an older TV, a Samsung F8500 Plasma. Using Movie mode for antenna TV, streaming, and PS4. Is that a good choice? I was considering switching to Standard for PS4 only.

I'm the only one thinkin' most movies and games of today are WAY too bright? i always start a game by dropping the brightness to a half hahaha

Hopefully this video will help me out. I have an XR 65A95L and comparing when I see a LG in the stores popping colors etc. hopefully the 65A95L can it also do.

Yeah, I knew NOTHING about “modern day” 4k TVs when I got my UHD/4k TV last year.

90% of the time I would watch in “Standard” mode cause my eyes just always told my brain that’s what looks best….I absolutely hated the super warm color tones of “Movie” mode.

I only just now discovered that I can tweak the color tones to a more neutral color.

Now I’ve been watching in “Movie” mode with a more neutral color tone….OMG! My display is soooo much better now!

As far as HDR, I leave that crap turned off…I have a cheap Samsungs and HDR is trash on it.

These settings make your TV go from full on carnival garish to watching through a frosted bathroom window .

Every expert uses high quality footage to adjust setting but real TV isn't like that different programmes and movies use or are different quality .
You'd be fiddling for half an hour every programme to fix it and auto settings are a joke
They assume what you want .
Just use filmmaker mode dark and put up with horrible older programmes looking bad and adverts looking washed out at east your favourit movie will look kinda ok .

Modes on TCL QM8 are different entirely. Each can be adjusted independently. I bough the QM8 after watching your review. All modes look terrific depending on external light .

I've recently purchased a 2022 LG UQ7500 43" 4k TV. I've noticed when watching movies on vivid that the picture keeps jumping from dark to light. It constantly happens. 9 times out of 10 I watch in film maker mode which is darker and recently Expert Bright setting, both are decent settings. But now and again, depending on the movie I switch to vivid but like I've said, I get the constant changes.

Can anyone tell me how to remedy this problem?

Love vivid for Anime, just me but I love the super bright colors for it lol

Well for me VIvid mode sux when just watching regulat TV program but for example for Avatar 4K quality is much better in vivid mode than the other modes...

Actually, Vivid Mode has a purpose. At least for me it does. Since it is garbage at a default, one thing it's good for is as a starting point for very bright sun lit rooms. I just adjust things down, contrast, saturation etc and it becomes a great Daytime mode. The other modes just seem too dark in a bright room. Same concept of adjustment, just starting from the other end of the spectrum.

I'm constantly changing my settings. If anybody has a LG G2 that has helpful settings, that would be great

Tv enthusiast don’t understand that the average consumer does not care about getting true to life, color, or lifelike images sometimes people like the Vivid mode, because it looks better than real life

When can you advice on samsung qn900c picture modes ?

What is ISF Bright in Samsung UHD series?

Very good video and applies to almost every TV :)
I have a QN90B from Samsung and my personal preference for both SDR and HDR is Standard Mode as it is generally brighter. I also like it because I like to add a little bit of sharpness which helps with HD content in my opinion. The only things I change depending on what I am watching are Color tone and Color space. Standard color tone is sometimes too blue and cold so I switch to Warm1 (personally I would like something in-between). And Native color space sometimes has very unrealistic green colors so I switch it to Auto. In the end it depends on what your eyes are used to and how the content you are watching has been edited (post-processing can make a huge difference in how an image look).

I don’t know why so many people hate motion smoothing. I like seeing the picture seem smooth and flowing

There are too many options lol

Thank you for the suggestions It was very helpful.

Man you would HATE my Oled TV settings then because my TV is BRIGHTER then vivid and I love it. I got luminance maxed out, color and sharpness at 65 while contrast stays at 50, brightness at 60, AND cool temperature with peak luminance on High with the gamma at 2.4. My TV lights up the room and animations look AMAZING. If you buy a TV at a store based on the picture at the store, why WOULDN'T you try to match those settings and make it as bright as possible? Especially with a OLED.

That's not goo...it's broccoli juice

Sure wish you were close by to adjust my new tv as I am very low tech and end up messing things up as with my laptop.

I watched this video in 144p

who care about getting the most accurate color temperature ? select the mode you like the most and that's it !
I like mine with cold temp, I don't care if it's a bit too blue( it doesn't ), I think it look better

Why the mode settings never stays as i changed to cinema, it comes back to vidio itself, it’s LG TV

My LG will not change to Vivid on Amazon Prime even though I chabfe from filmmaker mode to vivid. Help!

I use vivid mode a lot because its bright

Very, very helpful. Thank you.

I prefer the settings that make the ladies look the prettiest...!

I just need one setting, let's call it 'proper'. Fields and trees to look the same greens as those I can see out my window.
The red to make a london bus look like a............london bus.But herein lies a problem. I don't know about the US, but in the UK different channels produce different colours. I am fairly happy with my BBC colours, but then Channel 4 looks wrong.

Huh...

It's true, lighting for an office is always better using 4000-5000 kelvin instead of a yellow-ish 3000...
It gives better color rendition and is less stressful for most people.

T.v. settings by default are abhorent no matter which mode you choose. Step one after buying a nice tv is to go into the menu and spend 20 minites turning off unnecessary settings that make everything look like garbage, such as motion smoothing

On my LG TV the vivid and sports setting were insanely bright and unwatchable but turning on the power saver setting to minimum the excess bright was eliminated and now I watch everything on the sports setting as I like the color best on that setting.

Everything is proven vhs tapes don't have to be updated y it doesn't matter how old they are everything is proven vhs tapes don't stop playing at all it's the people who is the problem

Honestly, having to mess with the settings kinda triggers my OCD but I'm not really a fan of the out of the box picture settings.

Everything is proven am buying vhs movies offline now days everything proven am whiching vhs movies 7 days of the week now days everything proven vhs tapes don't stop playing at all it's the people who stops playing it

You didn't mention Dynamic Mode.

Yes, at 4 months Broccoli will liquefy, but just wait another 4 months and it will evaporate. Ignore the black stain left behind, insert more Broccoli and repeat.

BTW- leave a slice of wrapped american cheese in the fridge for 4 years. It won't change at all. Now if you happen to find a slice that says "processed imitation cheese food substitute", you have hit the jackpot because that will probably last a minimum of 20 years in the fridge, if not more.

I can tell you this from experience, that women have no concept or interest in adjusting their television whatsoever. They will have smoothing on maximum and won't know the difference. When you sit down and start making adjustments to the TV they will tell you to leave it alone they just want to watch the show. Women are absolutely clueless which is why men build things in society because women are incapable.

Well Gaming Is My Main Thing So I Use Game Mode For Gaming & Tv,Movies .