Ryan brings you his top tips on which TV settings to change for the Super Bowl, but these features apply to watching any live sports on your TV. Whether you have the best TV for watching sports or not, these are the TV settings for the best picture during the big game. Ryan demonstrates on a Samsung OLED TV so there might be some that are specific to Samsung TV best picture settings, but you’ll find that most TVs have comparable options for reffing your picture.
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TechTranscript
00:00In this video, I'll be taking you through all the TV settings to change for watching sports,
00:04whether it's for a big game or you're just looking for some helpful tips and tricks to
00:08make the most out of watching live sports on your TV. For the sake of this video,
00:13I'm demoing all the settings to change on the Samsung S90D OLED TV, a TV I actually gave
00:19Editor's Choice Award. That's to say, some of the things I'll talk about are picture settings
00:23for Samsung Smart TVs, but in general, every major TV brand has some version of these same
00:28settings, even if they're branded a bit differently. So not only will I link a great deal for this TV
00:33in the description, but I'll also include some links to some brand-specific settings guides.
00:38Now's a great time to make sure you're subscribed to this channel so you never miss a new video from
00:43me and the team. Better yet, drop a comment if this is your first time here. Back to TV settings for
00:48watching sports. The first setting I recommend changing right away is switching the TV to
00:54daylight cinema. Or if your TV doesn't have that, then simply cinema mode. I know it's tempting to
01:00enable the sports picture mode, but believe it or not, it isn't the best one to use when watching
01:05football or, well, any sport for that matter. For almost any TV we've ever tested in the lab,
01:10cinema mode is the most accurate picture setting. It gives the most accurate colors, which means no
01:15toxic waste-looking neon grass or oversaturated jersey colors. You might notice a yellowish hue that
01:21wasn't there before. Don't worry. We're going to fix that next. Maybe you've noticed that movies tend
01:27to look better with a warm sepia tone. Your TV's cinema or movie mode will usually add in an extra
01:33tinge of sepia to really make the effect pop, but it doesn't have the same effect on sports. I mean,
01:39you don't want to feel like you're watching through a cooler of yellow Gatorade. To fix this,
01:43all you have to do is change the white balance of the TV, usually found in the advanced settings,
01:47back to either neutral or cool. Cool shifts the colors to more of a bluish hue, which can make
01:53jerseys look extra crisp, while neutral is more of a natural balance in between. I suggest playing
01:58around with both to see which one looks better to your eyes specifically. I can't believe I'm telling
02:03you this, but in the instance of watching sports, some motion smoothing isn't all that bad. The key
02:09word here is some. What you're going to do is go into the advanced motion settings on any Samsung,
02:14LG, or Google TV, and change the motion smoothing settings to custom. Make sure to reduce judder to
02:20the lowest setting no matter what. Judder attempts to stabilize the fast-moving action, and that sounds
02:26like a good thing, but in practice, it makes people look plasticky. I always turn it off. But then set
02:32blur reduction up to its highest setting. Blur reduction reduces ghosting that can occasionally
02:37pop up when the ball is moving through the air. Although some sports are transitioning to 4K broadcasts,
02:42most you'll find you'll be watching in an upscale 1080p resolution. That means you might want to go
02:48into the settings of the TV to boost the sharpness. Sharpness essentially helps define the edges of
02:54objects, and though it's never going to look as good as having a higher resolution, it can help a bit
02:59during sports. With that, play around with brightness. My main piece of advice is not to go overboard with
03:04brightness, but tapping up the brightness makes small details easier to see. 65 or 70 percent of the
03:11maximum brightness should be a happy medium. I can't talk about the best TV settings for watching
03:16sports without talking about sound. I know you might be tempted to use the TV's dynamic sound
03:21setting to recreate the sound of the stadium in your living room, but if you're stuck using your
03:26TV's built-in speakers, then it's going to be very hard to hear what the announcers are saying,
03:31especially if you're watching the game with a bunch of people in the room. Make things easier by
03:36turning on the amplify setting or change the sound mode to dialogue. Some TVs have further settings
03:42to make voices sound clear, but any of these should make the announcers easier to hear and the game
03:47easier to follow. These are just some of the ways I recommend improving your picture and sound
03:53settings for watching live sports on your smart TV. I suggest you play around with the settings to
03:58find what works best for you, but hopefully I've given you some help on where to start. Let me know in
04:03the comments section if there's any settings I missed, and again, make sure to hit that subscribe
04:07button so you know when the next episode of Setup Essentials goes live. My name is Ryan Epps.
04:13This has been Tom's Guide. Thanks so much. Take care.
04:26Oh, oh, oh. Smell you. I smell you. Great, thanks. Thanks for smelling me.