When you buy a new smart TV, you expect a quality viewing experience as soon as you turn it on. Still, you may be accidentally accepting lower picture quality, unreliable connections, and privacy issues by keeping the default settings. The best performance gains are already inside the device you own. By following these steps, you can fix these distortions, stabilize streaming, stop the data tracking, and speed up your TV to what is now standard in the industry.

Disabling motion smoothing

Fix that weird soap opera look

Credit: Cory Gunther / How-To Geek

If you watch a movie on a new smart TV, and it looks strange, you are likely seeing motion smoothing. This setting creates the soap opera effect, which makes movies look like they were filmed on a basic home camera. Most shows are shot at 24 frames per second to create natural motion blur. Since modern TVs have refresh rates of 60Hz or 120Hz, they use motion interpolation or MEMC to bridge the gap between these rates.

The TV processor guesses what images should go between the real frames and inserts artificial ones to make them appear fluid. Although it helps reduce blur in live sports, it ruins the texture of fictional shows by making them look hyper-realistic.

You can fix it in your settings. Brands use different names for this, like Samsung Auto Motion Plus, LG TruMotion, Vizio Clear Action, or Sony Motionflow. You can also switch to Filmmaker Mode or Cinema Mode to turn it off automatically and get a natural viewing experience.

Switching to a wired Ethernet connections

Stop the buffering for good

Credit: 

Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek

Wi-Fi is convenient, but it is typically unstable and prone to interference from items like microwaves, walls, or a neighbor’s network. When the signal drops, streaming services lower your video quality, which causes pixelation and audio glitches. Plugging an Ethernet cable directly into your TV provides a more stable connection.

Using a physical cord makes your data transmission immune to the environmental issues that affect wireless networks. Most smart TVs use 10/100 Mbps Ethernet ports. While that is not gigabit speed, it is an advantage for reliability. Services like Netflix and YouTube only need between 15 and 25 Mbps to stream 4K content, so a steady 100 Mbps connection gives you plenty of bandwidth.

A wired connection also reduces latency, so movies start playing the moment you hit the button. You also will not have to deal with typing in Wi-Fi passwords with a clunky remote again.

Calibrating picture settings

Get better colors without eye strain

New televisions don’t typically come configured for the best viewing at home. Manufacturers ship them with brightness and color saturation set very high by using modes like Vivid, Dynamic, or Standard. These settings are meant to catch your eye in a bright store, but they’re too harsh for a typical living room.

They wash out details in shadows and cause eye fatigue, particularly if you watch in a dark room. Switching your picture preset to Filmmaker Mode, Movie Mode, or Cinema Mode is one of the easiest free adjustments you can make. These presets change colors and contrast to realistic levels and use a warmer color temperature that feels more comfortable.

They also turn off unnecessary post-processing, like artificial sharpness that creates halos around objects. Using these settings makes sure you see the movie as the director intended without the artificial look designed for retail displays.

Turning off automatic content recognition (ACR)

Stop your TV from spying on you

Modern smart TVs track your viewing habits through a technology called Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR. This feature monitors the content shown on your screen, which includes sources like cable boxes, gaming consoles, and laptops connected with HDMI cables.

It operates by capturing audio fingerprints or taking screenshots as often as every 500 milliseconds. Certain brands analyze 7,200 images every hour to build a profile of your habits. When the TV identifies the content, it combines that information with your IP address and location to sell to data brokers.

Companies use this to build household profiles for targeted advertising. You can stop this by adjusting the ACR settings, although brands tend to use unclear names for them. Samsung calls this Viewing Information Services, LG refers to it as Live Plus or Viewing Information Agreement, Vizio uses the term Viewing Data, and Roku calls it Use info from TV inputs. Your TV will work without these settings and may even run better.

Setting up smartphone remotes

Use your phone for easier typing

Losing physical remotes happens often, and typing passwords or movie titles with them is tedious. You can address this by downloading the official remote app from your TV manufacturer. Apps like Samsung SmartThings, LG ThinQ, Roku Mobile, or the Google TV app connect to your TV over your Wi-Fi network.

Setting them up takes less than 90 seconds, provided your phone and TV are on the same network. These apps provide a full digital keyboard, which lets you type credentials and search queries quickly. They also include touch navigation and swipe controls that are faster than pressing buttons on a physical remote.

Since the apps use Wi-Fi rather than infrared signals, you do not need a direct line of sight to the TV. You can even use the voice assistant on your phone to open apps. This gives you a backup controller in your pocket so a misplaced remote does not interrupt your evening.

Don’t settle for default settings

You only need a few minutes to fix these settings. Manufacturers set these devices to look good on store shelves and to gather your data. TVs should be focused on showing your entertainment services instead of showing you targeted advertisements or suffering from pixelation. This checklist works for all major brands and helps you avoid the flaws that come with factory settings. You should stop accepting the default configuration and get the display performance you paid for.

7/10

Brand

TCL

Display Size

85-inches

Dimensions

74 x 42 x 2.3 (without stand)

Operating System

Google TV