Setting up your TV Getting the best TV picture

Our team of experts find the ideal settings for each set

Once you’ve got your new HD TV home, you should adjust the settings to get the best picture. In our experience, the ideal settings for viewing at home are often very different to the manufacturer’s settings, which are often adjusted for the harsh lighting of a showroom. We often find that you get a large power saving too.

After noting the manufacturer’s settings (in case you want to get back to them) switch off any picture enhancement features. Then take the colour control right down to produce a black and white picture. Play a DVD or Blu-ray disc that has a lot of dark scenes and adjust the brightness control so you can ‘just’ pick out detail in the darker areas.

Check our independent expert reviews to find the best LCD TV, plasma TV or LED TV. Which? adds new test results every month.

Contrast

Next, find a bright scene (daylight sky or white shirt) and adjust the contrast until the picture is comfortably bright enough for you, without the picture being completely ‘washed out’. Return to the dark scene and recheck. If necessary, re-adjust this, before returning to the bright scene to check this again. After a couple of tries you should find a satisfactory balance.

You'll find this easier with a conventional CRT TV. With LCD TVs you may find it difficult to get good black levels without ‘washing out’ the bright levels or vice-versa, and you will probably find you have to compromise.

Now find some scenes with close-ups of people’s faces. Adjust the colour so skin tones look natural. Sometimes a television offers various ‘colour tone’ options (e.g. cool, warm, neutral) – typically ‘neutral’ will be the correct setting.

TVs often offer a variety of extra picture settings. Some may be useful, others may be gimmicks. We suggest you try them one at a time to see if they improve the picture.

To find out how we rate each manufacturer for picture processing read our expert HD TV brand overviews.

Use our ideal settings

We may have already done the work for you. If the Which? teams have already tested your new LCD or plasma TV, look down the list of specifications underneath the review until you find ‘Ideal picture settings’. There, you will find the best settings as determined by our experts.

Although these are a great starting point, the lighting conditions of your own room and your individual preferences may mean that your final settings aren't exactly the same.

And don't forget the sound settings: adjusting the bass, treble and loudness levels can often improve things here, too.