8 TCL picture settings you should change immediately ‣ Diverse Daily

I recently reviewed what I think is one of the best smart TVs currently on the market for most people: TCL’s 75-inch QM7L SQD-Mini LED Google TV. It’s feature-rich, with a beautiful picture out of the box, but like any tech, it isn’t perfect. I outlined the pros and cons in my review, so you can check it out if you want more specific information.

Like smartphones, the TV has so many features that the manual may not cover them in much detail, so I want to walk you through configuring the picture settings to your liking. In this article, we’ll cover the differences between the picture settings. Settings like Dolby Vision IQ, Filmmaker Mode, Movie Mode, and more, and before you know it, you’ll be well on your way to getting the most out of that beautiful picture, no matter what you’re watching!

Where to begin

A beautiful display with plenty of options

Including the HDR options, you’re looking at nearly a dozen picture modes to choose from in your TCL QM7L’s Display menu. That sounds like a lot to choose from and could leave you just saying, “No thanks,” and leaving the TV on one setting all the time. Personally, I leave the TV on one setting all the time, but my viewing habits differ from those of the stereotypical American male. I’ll get into that more in a bit.

According to TCL’s manual, these are the modes you should be able to access, depending on the firmware version you’re running:

Intelligent: Automatically adjusts the best image based on the content and viewing environment.
Vivid: Enhanced colors and contrast.
Standard: Optimized to save power, recommended for daily use.
Sports: Suitable for watching sports content, fast-moving scenes are more smooth.
FILMMAKER MODE: Restore the real film scene and feel the filmmaker’s expression of the image.
Movie: Suitable for watching movies; can enhance picture quality performance for films.

This Google smart TV also supports Dolby Vision, so there are contextual picture mode options that come up when watching Dolby Vision content. Those options are: Dolby Vision IQ, Dolby Vision Dark, Dolby Vision Bright/Light.

With that covered, let’s lay down some guidelines for finding your preferred settings! You know how your smartphone and smartwatch have ambient light sensors that adjust your display brightness according the amount of light in your environment? Well, there are smart TVs that have this same feature and can adjust your display’s brightness based on the light in your living room. What do both of those have in common for me? I don’t like either. I keep adaptive brightness turned off on my mobile devices and my TVs because I don’t particularly care for how well the feature works. Or doesn’t.

So the first thing I do with any TV is turn off all Eco modes and the adaptive brightness feature (whatever the manufacturer calls it). Why do that? Because a lot of those picture modes I mentioned earlier rely on those eco features and adaptive brightness to set the brightness level. Now you can truly customize your favorite picture mode!

My settings preferences

TCL QM7L Quick switch settiings shown at the bottom of the screen

My favorite picture mode, and I use it 90% of the time, is Filmmaker Mode. You should know that it is not optimal for watching live TV and sports, but I rarely watch either, which is why I use it 90% of the time. Don’t worry, though. I’ve gone through the settings, so I’ll tell you which one may become your favorite for watching sports. Now, Filmmaker mode sets up all of those brightness, contrast, color temperature, and black level settings so that what you see is as close to the way the film’s director intended it. I do change three settings in Filmmaker mode: Local contrast, Blur reduction, and Judder reduction.

TCL QM7L Local Contrast setting, set to "High"

To access the settings I’ll cover, go to All Settings from the settings cog on the remote or use the Display menu shortcut. The Local contrast setting is a bit misleading because it doesn’t change image contrast, per se. What it actually does is control the aggressiveness of the backlighting, aka those local dimming zones. This gives you deep blacks even when you’re watching movies in the middle of the day, when your room is brightest. To that end, set Local Contrast to High. I know this will be heresy to some A/V purists, but I enjoy a modicum of motion smoothing in my content, so I go to the Motion Clarity menu and dial the Blur and Judder settings down to 3 or 2. Depending on how bright your viewing space gets, you may also want to set Peak Brightness to High and squeeze out every nit of brightness this good-looking display has to offer.

And that’s it! The TCL QM7L has a beautiful picture out of the box in terms of white balance, chrominance, luminance, black levels, and a few other technical aspects of video signals, so my customizations are minimal.

TCL QM7L Quick switch settings shown at the bottom of the screen

“But what about Dolby Vision IQ, Bright/Light, and Dark?” Like some other settings in the Display menu, using those three modes locks out your ability to fine-tune some settings, and I just find Filmmaker mode better overall. For example, Dolby Vision IQ uses content metadata and defaults to using the ambient light sensor to dynamically adjust your display to your room’s brightness, among other things. No thanks. The only caveat I’ll add is: if your TV is in a dedicated home theater room that’s been purpose-built and the lighting is very dim, give Dolby Vision Dark a try. Just make sure to check those Blur and Judder settings to be sure they’re set to your preference. That would be a 2, for me.

TCL QM7L Picture settings shown with the Sports Picture Mode selected

For sports, you can use the Sports picture mode, but you’ll need to change a few things. One issue you’ll find with motion smoothing is that it can sometimes create what are called “artifacts.”

When you’re using motion smoothing, or in the case of this TV, Motion Clarity, and have it on one of the more aggressive settings, what it’s actually doing is inserting fake frames between the actual frames that the camera is shooting. Remember that film and video pictures are like a flipbook. You draw 24 images of a ball in different positions, then flip through the book to animate the ball. So, if you’re watching a football game broadcast at 59.94fps, Motion Clarity adds extra frames to those 59.94 frames per second, so things like a thrown ball look smoother and have less motion blur. The downside is that if Blur and Judder are set too high, some people say they can see a ghost-like image of fast-moving objects and people.

In this case, try the Custom setting, starting at 4 or 5, then back it down until you no longer see ghosting on fast-moving objects. If you have really keen eyes, you may want to keep backing it down until the ghosting is minimal, not completely gone.

If you decide that you want to play with other picture modes for your sports, in addition to the Motion Clarity settings, take a look at the Color Temperature setting, as it may need a bit of adjustment as well. Stadium lights, cameras, and other video capture equipment tends to be set more toward the blue end of the light spectrum, so you’ll want to go for the Cool setting in the Color Temperature menu. That’s the blue end of things, while the Warm setting takes your on-screen color temperature more toward red.

Final thoughts: display odds and ends

Some random things to be aware of

TCL QM7L Picture settings showing that you can apply your changes globally, or to specific HDMI ports.

Even though this TV sits at the bottom of TCL’s SQD-Mini LED lineup, it still has great features that make it easy to use all the customization settings it offers. All of the picture settings I’ve gone over here can be saved globally or to that specific HDMI input that you’re adjusting at that moment, if you are setting up an external device like a streamer or Blu-ray player. You’ll see that option at the bottom of the Display menu, Picture settings.

When we talk about Motion Clarity, you can go beyond that and enable variable refresh rate so that games that “move faster” than the standard 144Hz refresh at 4K can look better! For example, the TCL 75” QM7L can go up to 288Hz since games move much faster than film and television frame rates. You’ll jump into the settings menu, then look for System settings, and then the Game Master menu. Click on that, then you’ll be able to set any of the HDMI inputs to Auto, On, or Off. Now, when you play a game like Call of Duty, the TV will more closely produce refresh rates that should satisfy many gamers.

When it comes to getting into the Picture settings on TCL TVs, don’t be shy because there’s a reset to defaults function at the bottom of the Picture settings that will take you back to that out-of-the-box state and undo anything you’re unhappy with. Let me know if the comments if these settings worked for you and, if you customized any of them further, what you did. I’d love to hear about it!