Saturday, March 30, 2019

Settings for TV Calibration

A few months ago we upgraded our main TV by buying a Vizio P Series 55" set. It has vastly better picture quality than the almost 10-year-old Toshiba set that it replaced (and the Toshiba was fairly decent for its time and we're still using it).

The Vizio comes with several presets for different types of content; out of the box, the Calibrated setting seemed to be the best. But the picture wasn't quite right, so I started looking up information on how to calibrate a modern TV. 

The most important thing was to eliminate the "soap opera effect", which is caused by the TV interpolating frames to reduce motion blur. In practice, it's not that noticeable on streamed content or cable TV, but plays hell with the picture quality on DVDs or Blu-Rays. This article covers how to turn of motion smoothing on major brands.

I made other minor tweaks to brightness and contrast levels and so far, I haven't felt the need to make too many more adjustments. I found these other articles helpful.


The Vizio set isn't perfect. The speakers are barely adequate and if you're serious about sound, you'll want a soundbar or full home theatre system. I haven't used the SmartCast features much at all since many of the included options (Hulu, for example) aren't avalable in Canada. We use a 4K Chromecast instead. The remote control is awkard, but there is a Vizio Android app that is easier to use.

For the price, the Vizio has a remarkably good picture, and I have no hesitation in recommending it.

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