how should a 4k?HD tv picture actually look

[Tony Starks]

I've had my Panasonic 4K (Non HDR) TV a while now and am curious about what sort of picture I should be going for to get the best out of it.

You've got the 'Standard' & 'Dynamic' picture styles which make everything look like an episode of the young and the restless and I found some Calibration persons settings for the 'Cinema' (day) & 'True Cinema' (night) modes which is totally different and more like tv and Films have always been.

So. which direction should I be heading for my picture style. The fake look is really distracting, but is this the way film makers intend their films to look?

[FurtiveFreddy]

Tony Starks said:

The fake look is really distracting, but is this the way film makers intend their films to look?

Of course not. The 'fake look' is the TV manufacturer turning everything up so in a TV showroom, their set will pop out more. Trouble is, they all do it, so all the sets have too much saturation, vividness, blown whites and unnatural colour and it ends up looking completely rubbish when you get it home.

The usual advice is to do a bit of googling on the Av forums and find what base settings those in the know recommend for your particular set, then tweak it to your taste.

The next step is to carry out a basic calibration yourself by downloading some standard test patterns and adjusting brightness, contrast, colour so they are displaying at the correct levels.

The more advanced approach is to carry out a complete calibration which sets the correct levels for all the colours across the entire brightness range. That needs special tools and software so only the real enthusiasts do it, but believe me, it makes a real difference if done right.

Remember, every TV coming out of the factory will need slightly different settings than the next to get the best out of it, because the manufacturing tolerances are such that it's impossible to make them all exactly the same. So if you copy the settings from your mate with the same TV, you won't necessarily see the same picture. But it will probably be a lot better than the one you are seeing at the moment.

[varsas]

As well as said above, the 'fake look' you are describing could be what's usually known as 'soap opera effect', created by motion interpolation on the TV. The TV attempts to add extra frames into the video you are watching to smooth it out...the problem is that it sometimes creates strange artifacts (hazing around moving objects) and, more noticably, smooths out motion....which we aren't used to when watching films so it looks odd. Is it what directors intended? Well, it's not how the film would look in the cinema, but then they are constrained by the technology...who's to say Martin Scorsase wouldn't have filmed Goodfella's at 40 frames/second had that been the standard. 25 frames/second really is quite low. The issue is made worse by the 'sample and hold' technology LCD/OLED TV's use (as opposed to Plasma/CRT/film-based projector) making panning shots look jerky when shown at 25fps.

[Alucidnation]

My best advice is to stick the set in normal and adjust from there to your liking.

Don't bother with any of the calibrations settings as they are not anything that would need adjusting for normal viewing. I used the settings for Lynsey from a YouTube vid and it was almost unwatchable.

Some reviewers were even perplexed as to why they were included.

So, i put everything back to default and just tweaked the usual colour etc.

Try not to over think it.

[PixelpeepS3]

depends on the tech imo...

I find LCD tvs awful to get right, dark scenes are too dark unless you crank the brightness/contrast and then the OSD melts your retina when you push menu by mistake.

Easiest tv i've ever had to get to a picture that i find perfect in ALL situations is my old panasonic viera 47 inch plasma - which is still going strong after 8 years but 'only' 1080..

We have an LG 4k smart LED which looks much better than the panasonic on certain frames, but nothing in others..

makes me sad sometimes lol

[Alucidnation]

I managed to pick up a new end of line Panasonic 65DX902B cheap which was a bit of a leap from the previous 55" we had.

Fantastic TV, but as i said, i did make the error of listening to all the 'experts' and went down the route of tweaking every last setting as suggested.

Big mistake.

[varsas]

Alucidnation said:

I managed to pick up a new end of line Panasonic 65DX902B cheap which was a bit of a leap from the previous 55" we had.

Fantastic TV, but as i said, i did make the error of listening to all the 'experts' and went down the route of tweaking every last setting as suggested.

Big mistake.

Of course you should have your TV as you want it. You mention copying settings, but as has been said what is correct for one TV might not be right for your panel, in your environment. A properly calibrated setup may well be too dark in a room lit up by sunlight, for example, some people like motion interpolation etc. However, the OP asked what it was supposed to look like. There are standards for how material should be displayed; how red that rose looks, how bright that candle appears etc and some people ('videophiles') like to get as close to that as is reasonable so that they can experience what they are watching in the way in which it was intended.

[jinkster]

We bought a 42 Samsung LCD 4k UHD curve tv a few months ago from John Lewis for about £500.

In the shop the picture quality was dreadful - with the exception of the TV's been sold for £1500+

It was only until it came home and I plugged in the Sky Q system that the TV came into its own - it is fantastic and I'm really happy with the picture quality.

[Tony Starks]

Thanks guys, well I'm glad that horrible fake look isnt what I should be aiming for lol