Even the best TVs don’t look as good as they potentially can when they’re fresh out of the box. If you have a new Hisense TV, or even if you’ve had one for a while, adjusting these picture settings can ensure it looks as good as possible. 

You don’t need any specialized equipment or technical know-how for these adjustments. Even just picking the best picture mode can result in big improvements in the overall image quality. If you want to go back to the previous settings, it’s easy. None of these changes is permanent.

Initial settings

Once you’ve got the TV connected to your Wi-Fi and opted out (if possible) of any data “sharing” policies, you’ll be good to start adjusting the picture settings. With some Hisense TVs, these will be accessible via the Settings menu under Display & Sound, and then under Picture. Other models use different operating systems, aka the user interface, and put the picture settings in different parts of the menu.

Important note: Your Hisense TV might save any changes you make just to a specific input. As in, if you make adjustments to HDMI 1 for your cable box, the picture settings on HDMI 2 might be unaffected. Look for the Apply Picture Settings option if you want to copy your settings from one input to all of them. You’ll still be able to adjust the settings for each input if you want.

Start with the picture mode

The biggest change you can make to your TV’s overall image is changing the picture mode. This adjusts several different settings all at once, and you can then fine-tune the image from those broad strokes. Many Hisense TVs have a lot of picture modes, but you can break them down into two categories: Vivid (Dynamic), Standard, Sports and PC/Game will have a lot of extra processing, cooler (“bluer”) color temperature and some other features that will look OK with live and sports content, while Theater Day, Theater Night, (sometimes called Cinema) and Filmmaker, will dial back a lot of the extra processing and let scripted TV shows and movies look closer to what their creators intended. 

Sports and other live content will still look fine in Theater/Filmmaker modes, but scripted TV shows and movies won’t look as good in the other, non-Cinema/Theater modes. If you watch HDR content (which is most commonly just scripted TV shows and movies), the TV will switch to an HDR picture mode that has additional settings.

If you don’t want to mess with your picture mode when watching different content, we recommend leaving it in one of the Theater/Cinema or Filmmaker modes. These modes typically have the most accurate, realistic color and best overall image of any of a TV’s modes. 

Other tweaks to make (or not)

Brightness: Some Hisense TV models have separate controls to adjust overall brightness (light output), while other models put them in with other picture settings instead. Local Dimming and Peak Brightness can be left as-is, unless you find that the brightest parts of the image are too bright. If the whole TV is too bright, the Brightness (Backlight level) can dim the entire image. However, be careful what “brightness” setting you adjust. On some TVs, the brightness control only adjusts the dark parts of the image. You don’t want shadows to be too dark, or bright, but more on that setting in a moment.

Gamma: This, to oversimplify a bit, is how bright the medium-brightness objects are in the image. Shadows and dark parts of the image are adjusted with the brightness control. Bright highlights in the image are adjusted using the contrast control (see image below). If you set gamma incorrectly, the entire image can look dim or washed out. Lower numbers typically look a little better in bright rooms, while higher numbers look better in darker rooms. The usual range is 2.0-2.4. I recommend starting at 2.2 and seeing how it looks to you in your room. Dynamic Tone Mapping is broadly similar but specific to HDR content. 

HDR Enhancer: This attempts to make standard dynamic range (SDR) content look more like HDR content. Leave this off.

Contrast: As mentioned above, the contrast control adjusts how bright the brightest parts of the image are. Set too high and you’ll lose all detail in bright objects. Too low and the picture will seem dim. This should be fairly close to correct out of the box, but adjusting it a few steps either way when watching content with lots of very bright objects (clouds, snow/ice, etc) and you should be able to see what looks best.

Black Level: Sometimes called Brightness, this setting adjusts how dark the dark parts of the image are. Set too low and you’ll lose shadow detail. A dark suit or alleyway becomes solid black. Set too high and the image will look washed out. Like contrast, this should be fairly close to correct out of the box. Find dark content (nighttime scenes, Batman movies, etc.) and adjust a few steps in either direction and see how it looks.

Color and Hue: You shouldn’t have to adjust these at all. They should be correct out of the box. The Dynamic Color Enhancer should be off. 

Enlarge Image

Sharpness and Clarity Settings: Some Hisense models have additional sharpness settings in a menu called Clarity. Counterintuitively, you should use these settings sparingly, if at all. Most TVs look their best with their sharpness control set at or near zero. Smooth Gradient can help eliminate the banding that’s visible in solid colors on some content. Noise Reduction and MPEG Noise Reduction can usually be left off as they can sometimes remove grain that’s supposed to be in the image. They might also remove fine detail. Some other settings in this menu we’ll discuss further in the next section.

Color temperature: This is how cool/blue and warm/reddish the overall image looks. With most TVs, warm is the closest to the accurate/realistic setting. With some models you can adjust the specific White Balance, but to do this correctly you need special equipment.

For more on these settings and a few others that all TVs have, check out Instantly Improve Your TV’s Picture by Changing These Simple Settings.

Advanced settings

If you’re willing to dive a little deeper into your TV’s menus, there are some other important settings. Some of these won’t be available on some models.

Motion Enhancement: This setting is why many people think new TVs look “weird” or have “weird motion.” It’s also called motion estimation, motion compensation, MEMC or colloquially, the soap opera effect. To reduce motion blur, the TV generates new images to place in between the real images of the content. The result makes movement in movies and scripted TV shows look like live TV or telenovelas/soap operas. Many people hate this and just assume that’s how TVs look. You can turn it off and should. There is a Custom option that lets you adjust Blur Reduction and Judder Reduction separately. Judder Reduction is what’s mostly responsible for the odd motion.

With sports and other live content, Motion Enhancement won’t look as strange as it does with scripted TV and movies. It can make the TV appear sharper by reducing motion blur. Most non-Theater/Cinema picture modes will have Motion Enhancement turned on.

Motion Clearness: Instead of Motion Enhancement, if your TV has it, try Motion Clearness instead. This uses black frame insertion (BFI) which, as it sounds, inserts a black frame in between the original frames. This can reduce motion blur and improve apparent sharpness. However, it also makes the image dimmer and some people can see flicker. It’s worth testing out.

In addition to covering audio and display tech, Geoff does photo tours of cool museums and locations around the world, including nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, medieval castles, epic 10,000-mile road trips and more.

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