call all game of Thrones fans watch Dragon House On HBO: your tv may benefit from turn up. The much-anticipated prequel series is now honorably airing 4K HDR, the second episode starts tonight. first episode, heir of the dragonwhich is visually stunning, you may have noticed it in more than one way.
House of the Dragon cinematographer Fabien Wagner also directed a number of GoT episodes – including Season 8’s infamously dark third episode, long night
, aka the Battle of Winterfell.when Audience complains
Because the episode looked too dark for them to follow the action, Wagner blamed the TV.
“A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don’t know how to adjust their TVs properly,” Wagner said in a 2019 interview Lights for this episode.
Fast forward to this May, Wagner Posted a trailer for “House of the Dragon” on his Instagram With the caption “…and it’s not too dark!!!!!! Even if you watch it on your iPhone in broad daylight 😳🤘.”
Wagner might (ahem) throw shadows, but either way, I’d be willing to bet that some viewers will find parts of “House of the Dragon” too blurry on their TVs. As a TV commentator for CNET, I’ve watched the dark — er, “movie” — scenes I share, and I can tell you he’s right about one thing: A poorly tuned TV can ruin the experience.
To prevent this from happening while you’re enjoying episode 2, check out my tips below, which are from my update but are very similar to mine original suggestion.
turn off the lights
Like almost everything on the big screen, Dragon House looks best when the room is dark and full of characters.
Turning off the lights in a room is one of the best ways to improve the picture. Any reflected light from the screen will make dark scenes harder to see and even wash out bright scenes. Try watching at night, or at least draw the curtains and turn off as many lights as possible. If you must have some light in the room, it’s best to place it behind the TV so it doesn’t hit the screen directly, and to dim it as much as possible. Bias lighting is your friend.
read more: Get rid of annoying TV glare with these 5 tips
Choosing a mode like Cinematic Movie is the easiest way to get an accurate picture.
David Katzmeier/CNET
Choose from Movie, Movie or Calibrate Picture mode
All TVs have picture mode Affects almost every aspect of an image: brightness, color, gamma, black level, image processing, and more.
Sound complicated? Relax, you don’t have to adjust any of these things individually to get the best picture quality. The most accurate picture mode on any TV is almost always the one called Cinema (on LG), Custom (Sony), Cinema (Samsung, TCL) or Calibrated Dark (Vizio). Just select it and your TV will look its best in a dark room.If your TV has filmmaker mode,This is also a good choice.
Cinema mode looks duller and less impactful at first than modes like Standard or Vivid. But in almost every case, they show the most realistic colors and are tuned for dimly lit rooms – which usually means lower light output, stable contrast, and correct shadow detail. Movie mode isn’t for everyone, so feel free to cycle through the other modes as well. Some of the best TVs have brighter modes that are still accurate.
Many TVs have smoothing settings, such as Auto Motion Plus on the old Samsung TV seen here, which controls smoothing, aka the soap opera effect. Turn it off.
David Katzmeier/CNET
Turn off the soap opera effect
On many TVs, Cinema Mode will maintain one of the least complete cinematic effects: the soap opera effect, which introduces smoothing that makes the action look buttery rather than cinematic.you need to close it to keep 24 frame tempo Dragon House (and many other things). If you don’t believe me, Trust Tom Cruise.
Not every TV has the video processing that results in the soap opera effect, so if yours doesn’t, you’re in the clear. But most high-end models do, as do many popular mid-range TVs (like the TCL 6 series). Unfortunately, each manufacturer buries it deep in the TV settings menu and calls it something different. LG calls it “TruMotion,” Samsung calls it “Auto Motion Plus” or “Picture Clarity,” TCL calls it “Motion Smoothing,” Sony calls it “MotionFlow,” and Vizio calls it “Motion Control.” Here’s how to find it and turn it off.
Other settings to try
Feeling adventurous? There are countless other settings available for your TV, many with esoteric names and functions. Adjusting any of these settings may or may not improve the image to your eyes, and using one scene to adjust for reference may make others look worse.
Happily, every picture mode has a “reset” feature you can use if you go too far and mess up something. Here are some settings and what they do.
Backlight: This adjusts the light output of the LCD TV. For dark rooms, you will generally want it to be lower, as it will wash out the image if it is too high. Note that some TVs refer to the backlight setting as “brightness,” or “OLED light” on OLED TVs.
brightness: This adjusts the brightness of Blacks and shadow detail. Increasing it can make dark areas like the background in The Battle of Winterfell more visible, but too high can wash out the image again.
Compared: This controls bright details, setting it too high will make them invisible. It’s usually best to leave it alone.
Colors and shades: The other two, at least in movie mode, are usually best left alone. If the image doesn’t look saturated (or too saturated), you might want to move the hair color up or down, but doing so in one scene can ruin another.
Gamma: There are usually several settings here, all of which affect the appearance of dark areas. We recommend starting with 2.2.
Local Dimming: if you have a LCD TVs with this feature (often called “Xtreme Black Engine Plus” or something annoying like “local contrast”) You’ll want it on to increase contrast and improve black levels. The lowest local dimming setting looks best on most TVs I’ve reviewed, but feel free to cycle through.
What about compression artifacts?
Many of the complaints about Game of Thrones cite banding along the edge of the light as the army of the dead advances, chunks of dark color as the Dothraki horde retreat into the night, and other issues. The same problem may also arise in House of the Dragon.
Unfortunately, these issues are usually not the TV’s fault, so they are more difficult to correct. Most are caused by video compression, the technology used to stream video to your TV, and there’s usually nothing you can do about it.At least not until Blu-ray come out.you have another Blu-ray playercorrect?
In some cases, you can adjust for these issues by making the scene darker (for example, by lowering the brightness control). Noise-canceling controls on your TV may help.
The problem might be your streaming bandwidth. If possible, try reconnecting the device’s Wi-Fi or wired connection to the router. Bandwidth entering your home can also be an issue. If you can wait a moment, please try again later, when there will be fewer viewers in your community or across the country.here are some more Tips for improving streaming.
No matter what TV you have, a few tweaks can often make the picture a little better, whether you’re watching House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones, or any other movie TV show or movie.
