You’ve Set Up Your Smart TV All Wrong—Fix These 5 Settings
2 min read
Summary
Smart TVs are excellent pieces of technology but there are some common default settings that you should tweak to improve your experience and boost privacy.
A number of smart TV defaults allow the TV to spy on your viewing habits, send the information to advertisers and content providers, and this information is used to target you with personalized ads.
To stop this, turn off automatic content recognition, also turn off voice recognition if you do not use it regularly, and review the terms you accepted during setup as you can often opt out of the worst data collection offenders.
The picture and audio settings often need adjusting as well.
It is worth switching picture modes to cinema, movie, or filmmaker modes, depending on what your TV uses, as these dial down the exaggerated processing of the default mode.
Gaming should always be on game mode to minimize input lag and you should avoid dynamic modes as these overcrank the brightness and colors.
Audio output should be switched to PCM if you are using the TV’s speakers or a basic soundbar, but if you have a dedicated sound system you should use Bitstream.
Another setting issue that people often miss is the network band, as your smart TV supports both 2.
