They make pre-calibrated TVs, and there are online guides with instructions as to what a particular model should be set to. I don’t think the OP bought a $4k OLED with a $2k-$4k sound system, he probably got a $600 Visio or something. Not only is a lower quality set much less worth calibrating (you will not get as good a results as you would just returning it and getting a high quality set for the extra $400), but it probably blows the OP’s budget.
$500 Samsung at Costco. 50" which is just about as big as I can stand in our small living room.
SamuelA, I’ll take a look at your link. Thanks for the suggestion.
p.s. maybe my title should have been “how to get more out of my new TV.”
Not for any TV manufactured after March 1, 2007. So I think the OP is in the clear there!
You can check the www.rtings.com review site, to see if your TV is there. Along with very comprehensive reviews they also provide seemingly easy to follow settings to get the best picture for the type of viewing you prefer and the environment the TV is in.
I can’t say that the setting guides are perfect, but the past 2 or 3 days spent reading through the reviews has been the impetus I needed to pull the trigger on an early Xmas present, a 4K Vizio M65 is on it’s way to my house. It will replace an old plasma 720p for the next couple of years while I wait for OLED prices to drop 
After having used the digital HD cable service provided by Comcast, I have some complaints compared to the old non-HD (and I think non-digital) service. The picture is all adjusted, and it’s much better now (that “Movie” setting is very good, thanks Jophiel.
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You can’t see the Program Guide without blanking out the entire program picture. Under the old service, the guide only ran across about 40% of the bottom, which was enough for 3 rows of guide info, and you could still see 60% of the program picture. Now there are 5 rows but it still only changes 3 rows at a time, and it takes up the whole screen
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The Info button no longer shows the running time of movies (the actual length of the movie, not the time slot scheduled). Using that feature on a commercial station I could get a good estimate of how much of the time slot was going to be taken up with commercials. If it was over 25% I knew I would get too impatient and wouldn’t bother with that movie. (I’m not sure but I think the new service may include DVR so maybe I can put that to good use; never used one before.)
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Even more trivial, there are a bunch of new channel numbers to learn, and they often don’t correspond to the order they were in under the old service.
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There are a LOT of digital porn channels! Good grief! They expect someone to pay upwards of $13 or more for one porn feature when you can see more than you ever could want on the internet for free? HD porn is not worth it, at least not to me. Yes, I ignore them as I only found them by accident as I was scrolling through the seemingly endless digital channel list. I wish I could make them go away from the guide, if only to speed up my ability to browse.
On your cable remote, just hit ‘Menu’ and it should let you set up one or more ‘Favorites’ channel lists so you don’t have to even see those ‘extra’ channels.
I think this more has to do with Comcast, rather than anything regarding HD vs SD specifically. The guide appears the same to me whether or not I am watching on a HDTV or an older 4:3 TV, with most of the screen being taken up by the guide and a shrunken image shown in the upper right. You still see the whole picture, it’s just smaller. (This is with Optimum.)
For #2, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a guide list both the actual running time (1 hr, 58 mins) *plus *the time slot for the movie (2 hrs, 30 mins)!
I recommend you try cord cutter services. You don’t have to cut it yet, just try out Netflix streaming. Try out Hulu. Try out HBO Go. All of them offer free trials and only charge $10-$15 for a month of access, and all of them offer painless cancellation on their website.
Naturally, since they have to compete, they have basically none of the problems you complain about. Their interfaces are much faster, they have much more efficient listings of their programs, and so on. Try Stranger Things, that show rocks.
Comcast is in a position where it gets paid either way. If you cancel cable, you still have to pay them for access. And Comcast benefits if it deliberately degrades your connection to Netflix or just offers a mediocre service. And, as you have seen, they also offer a mediocre service of their own that costs much more than the online competitors.
I got a new TV and comcast cable box this year and I hate their new UI. The old one was much better. Same for the remote. I don’t know if you can get the old one anymore, but you might ask. I did get a “new” remote for my old TV and it was terrible, so I took it back and got a new “old style like I had” remote.
Concerning streaming from a computer – my laptop has an HDMI out, and I just run an HDMI cable from the laptop to the TV. Use one of the accessory HDMI inputs on the TV (mine has 3) and select that input as the source. I think there’s a button on the remote that says “source.” Whatever appears on your laptop screen will now also appear on your TV.
Yep, but the newer TVs, you can just connect the ethernet port in the back to your router, and then the TV itself can connect to Netflix and so on. When people review TVs, they now have to consider the software quality of this setup and which streaming services are supported. Basically every ‘smart’ tv supports Netflix, but the other services are hit or miss. Or, alternately, there are dedicated streaming dongles you just plug in the HDMI port in the back, so you don’t have to tie up your laptop, and the dongles are usually inexpensive.
Some smart TVs, depending on year & brand, also have native screen mirroring to laptops and smart phones.
I’m not sure how great the connection is or how well it works for streaming, as I never use that feature, but I’ve seen it while playing around my TV’s settings.
Even quicker than setting up a “favorite channels” list, IMHO: press the Menu button and look for something along the lines of “Parental Controls”. It’s fairly common to have an option in there to “Hide Adult Channels”.