Modern smart TVs are packed with the latest features but often take things too far. Beyond invasive privacy risks, they include many settings that automatically adjust my picture quality and don’t work as advertised.
Some of these features detect the room’s ambient lighting to make the picture lighter or darker. Others use built-in AI features with complex algorithms to adjust the picture, with mixed results. Here’s why I stopped letting my TV adjust the picture quality automatically.
Automatic brightness
Manual is better
Automatic brightness uses my TV’s light sensors to detect my room’s brightness, then adjust the picture accordingly. This might sound good in theory, but it often leads to an inconsistent experience.
The TV makes the same content look brighter or darker depending on the time of day you’re watching. It also tends to overcompensate, making it too bright in dark conditions or too dark in light conditions. I prefer sticking to manual settings and adjusting them whenever I need to.
On my LG TV, I turn off Auto energy saving. To do this, I go to Settings > Advanced Settings > General > Energy Saving > Energy Saving Step. It displays options like Auto, Off, Minimum, Medium, and Maximum. I choose Off. I also turn off the AI Brightness Settings toggle located under AI Service in the General menu.
Automatic Picture modes
Presets often get it wrong
Automatic picture modes are presets meant to optimize the picture for specific content, like movies or sports. The problem is that the TV doesn’t know what content it’s displaying, and it rarely gets it right.
It takes natural-looking scenes, then ramps up the color saturation, contrast, and other settings as it sees fit. It can also make colors so bright that on-screen objects don’t look realistic. Some scenes end up looking cartoonish because of the excessive color and weird skin tones.
I usually keep this mode on for all content and not just movies.
My TV has presets, like Vivid and Cinema. I always leave it on Filmmaker mode, which disables all artificial enhancements and displays movies the way their directors intended. I usually keep this mode on for all content and not just movies, because I like the warm, natural colors.
Changing the picture mode on an LG TV is as simple as going to Settings > Advanced Settings > Picture > HDR Select Mode. Then I select Filmmaker mode from the list of presets.
Motion Smoothing
Motion Smoothing is a love-it-or-hate-it feature that I don’t like, but other people appreciate. It might come down to the content you prefer watching and could be beneficial in certain circumstances.
Motion smoothing artificially adds frames to your content to make it seem more fluid. For example, content filmed at 60 fps can have more frames inserted between the original ones. This creates the soap opera effect where people’s movements look unrealistically smooth and kills the immersion.
Each TV brand has a different name for motion smoothing. LG calls it TruMotion, Sony calls it Motionflow, and Samsung calls it Auto Motion Plus. Most TVs offer different motion-smoothing levels, so you can choose how strong they should be.
On my LG, I go to Settings > Advanced Settings > Picture, Advanced Settings, Clarity > TruMotion. Then I tick the Off checkbox to disable it.
Automatic Content Recognition
Don’t let algorithms change your TV settings
ACR is an invasive TV feature that takes screenshots of your content every few seconds and uploads the data to your TV brand’s servers for analysis. It can also recognize content, like animations or sports, and automatically adjust the image.
I dislike AI algorithms constantly changing my TV settings based on estimations.
The problem is that it isn’t accurate at identifying content and can apply the incorrect settings. I dislike AI algorithms constantly changing my TV settings based on estimations and disapprove of ACR in general. I keep this and all the other privacy-risk features off and have never looked back.
I navigate to Settings > Advanced Settings > Support >Privacy & Terms > User Agreements. Then I untick the Viewing Information Agreement to disable the feature.
Auto Dynamic Contrast and Tone Mapping
More unwanted automatic features
Auto Dynamic Contrast analyzes the picture and automatically adjusts the contrast to what it thinks it should be. It’s best to disable this feature, as it artificially alters each scene and can even cause unwanted flickering or artifacts while it’s running.
Dynamic Tone Mapping automatically adjusts the contrast in real-time when you’re watching HDR content. It does this to compensate for your TV’s capabilities and extend its HDR range. Unfortunately, it can spoil the content you’re watching by giving brighter areas a washed-out look that strips away the detail or makes the blacks too bright.
Both features are easy to disable. Navigate to Settings > Advanced Settings > Brightness. Then open Auto Dynamic Contrast and Dynamic Tone Mapping and set them to off.
