Club Benefits
Most people plug in their new TCL TV, complete the setup, and start watching without ever touching the settings menu. That's a mistake. Even the best TCL TVs ship with several default settings that can actually hinder picture quality.
Fortunately, fixing these issues takes just a few minutes and requires zero technical expertise. Whether you just unboxed a brand-new TCL or you've owned one for years, these five settings will dramatically improve how everything looks on your screen.
1. Switch to movie or filmmaker mode
TCL TVs offer several picture modes including Standard, Vivid, Sports, Movie, and Filmmaker. Most TVs ship in Standard or Vivid mode, which produce overly cool, bluish images with exaggerated colors.
Press the settings button on your TCL remote, then navigate to Picture Settings, and Picture Mode. Choose either Movie or Filmmaker for the most accurate colors and image quality.
When you first make the switch, the image will look very warm or yellowish-orange. Your eyes have adjusted to the overly cool color temperature of the default modes. Give it 10-15 minutes of viewing time. The warm tones will start looking natural while other modes will seem too blue.
Filmmaker mode is slightly better than Movie on most TCL TVs because it automatically disables motion smoothing and other artificial enhancements.
2. Turn off motion clarity
Motion Clarity is TCL's version of motion smoothing technology. This setting creates extra frames between the original video frames to make motion appear smoother, but it can make movies and TV shows look likedaytime soap operas.
Go to Picture Settings, then Advanced Picture Settings, and find Motion Clarity. Then simply toggle it off completely.
Motion Clarity can make sports appear sharper by reducing motion blur, so you might want to enable it specifically for live sports. For nearly all other content, though, keeping it off produces far better results.
If you think your TV looks weird or the motion seems unnaturally smooth, Motion Clarity is almost certainly the culprit.
3. Disable dynamic and adaptive settings
TCL TVs include several smart features that automatically adjust picture settings based on content or ambient lighting. These sound helpful in theory but create inconsistent, distracting viewing experiences in practice.
Navigate to Picture Settings and Advanced Picture Settings. Look for any settings labeled Dynamic or Adaptive, including Dynamic Contrast, Dynamic Color, Adaptive Color Temperature, and Black Stretch. Turn all of these off.
These features constantly adjust brightness, contrast, and color as scenes change. A dark scene suddenly brightens, then dims again as the camera moves, pulling you out of the story.
The one exception is Adaptive Brightness, which adjusts screen brightness based on room lighting rather than content. To disable this, go to Picture Settings, then Intelligent Settings or Eye Health Protection (depending on your model). Find Adaptive Brightness or Auto Brightness and set it to Off.
4. Adjust brightness and contrast
Finding the right brightness and contrast settings depends on your specific room and personal preference. These two controls work together to optimize how dark and bright areas appear on screen.
Press the Settings button on your remote and navigate to Picture Settings. Then select Advanced Settings (this may be labeled Brightness Settings or Color/Clarity on some models).
Start with Contrast, which controls the intensity of the brightest parts of the image. Play a scene with well-lit areas, then adjust the slider. If set too high, bright spots lose detail and become washed out.
Next, adjust Brightness or Black Level, which controls how dark the shadows appear. Play a dark movie scene and adjust until you can see details in the shadows without them looking washed out or gray.
5. Lower the sharpness setting
This might surprise you, but the Sharpness control doesn't actually add sharpness to your picture. Instead, it adds artificial edge enhancement that creates harsh outlines around objects and can mask fine details.
Go to Picture Settings and find the Sharpness control. Then lower it from the default setting. The image should look more natural with softer, more realistic edges.
TCL's default sharpness settings are often too high, making everything look artificially crisp with visible halos around objects. Reducing sharpness eliminates this digital noise and reveals the actual detail in your content.
You can test the difference by pausing on a scene with fine textures like hair, grass, or fabric. Lower sharpness will show these details more naturally without the grainy, over-processed appearance.
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