The reflections on the TV screen are annoying. Here’s how to get rid of it

In a perfect picture quality world, you would watch all on TV in the dark. The problem is, half of the day it’s daylight outside, and you probably have windows, lamps, ceiling lights, and other light sources in the room reflecting off your TV screen. These thoughts can be embarrassing. In the worst case, they can obscure what is happening on the screen and reduce the image quality overall.

This how-to guide has some obvious tips and some less obvious tips to help make sure that no matter what your room lighting is, you always get the best picture.

The problem: your shiny new TV

Many modern TVs have brighter screens, which act as a mirror to any light source in a room (from windows to lamps). Other TVs have duller screens, which don’t display the same mirror reflections, but ambient light still affects them negatively. Instead of reflecting the light directly at you, a matte finish diffuses this light energy all over the screen. The reflections are subdued, but the black level becomes brighter, so they look more washed out overall.

Whatever TV you have, if there is a light in your room that can “see” the TV screen, you will also be able to see it and this will affect the picture quality.

While there are self-adhesive anti-reflective coatings available online, I would avoid them. There is no guarantee that the picture will be better after you stick something on your TV screen that may or may not come off easily if you don’t like it. They will also reduce glare at best at the expense of overall picture quality, just like TVs that originally came with matte screens.

Embrace the darkness

The easiest way to reduce glare is to turn off the lights, right? Well, sort of. There’s a reason people like to leave the lights on when they watch TV: eye strain. Many people feel pain in the eyes when watching tv in the dark. This is especially true now with HDR televisions. Whether you realize it or not, leaving the lights on can create a more relaxing viewing environment. Unless, of course, that light reflects off the television.

It might seem like a roundabout way to fix anything, but you can dim your TV to minimize eye strain in a dark room. If it works, you won’t need to leave the lights on. No lights, no reflections. Problem solved.

If you have an LCD TV, that’s easy. Most LCD screens have a backlight control, while OLED TVs have “OLED Pixel Brightness”. To verify your user menus: The control is probably set near or at maximum. It’s bright. Turn it down at night for a more relaxing picture and better black levels. Keep in mind that TVs generally maximize brightness when watching HDR content.

Read more: Want better television? Change these 9 TV picture settings

Another option is to get bigger tv, or sit closer (which has the same effect). The reason people suffer from eye strain is that their irises are wide open because of the dark room, but a small area – the television – is much brighter than the surrounding environment. It’s just like someone shining a flashlight in your eyes. With a larger TV, there is more light and your iris will close. That’s the theory, anyway. It’s not like I’m advising you to buy a massive TV to solve a thinking problem. Well, not quite. That would be a pretty awesome TV, wouldn’t it?

Watching television during the day is a whole other problem. You can’t turn off the sun (although if you can, I for one am looking forward to your rule of darkness, future overlord), so we’ll see ways to fix this in a moment.

Use polarization light

If you can’t or don’t want to adjust the TV, or buy a projector and 100-inch screen, there are plenty of other options. Move a lamp behind the tv will increase the ambient light in the room, which means less eye strain, without causing glare.

The technical name for this is polarizing light. You want this light to be as neutral as possible because any color of the lamp will to subtract this color of the TV. A red light will make the TV less red, for example.

You can make your own or buy one online. For what it’s worth, polarized lights are used in most business environments where people sit in dark rooms and watch screens all day. Film and television publishers, for example. There are a lot of options on Amazon that are little more than sticky LED light strips. As I have never purchased an LED product from Amazon that matches the color claimed, I would approach them with caution. Color, or the lack of it, is crucial here.

Move stuff

Another option is to mount the screen on a wall mount that swivels. So when you get the reflection, you can move the TV around slightly so that the reflection is reflected elsewhere (and you can’t see it). Several companies make wall brackets that do this. A few things to keep in mind. Most LCD screens appear less well off-axis (or off-center). If you rotate them you will see them off-axis and the image quality might suffer.

The other option is to simply move the lamp so that it does not reflect on the screen. I guess you’ve tried it already, so we’ll continue.

Not set to a location? Here is our guide to find where to place your TV. (Spoiler alert: It shouldn’t be over a fireplace.)

Get remote controls for lighting

A slightly more elaborate step is to make the lighting in your room more controllable. Smart lights, sockets and switches allow you to control individual lights or groups of lights and connect them to Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri. Then you can just say “Ceiling lights off” or something similar to turn off the offending lights without leaving your couch.

You can also attach remote control sun visors.

Put sun shades on windows

If you have a lot of windows you are fighting the sun and your TV is not going to win. Sure, today’s brightest LCD screens can be viewed in many bright environments, but you don’t get the best picture quality with so much light in the room.

I have a different problem. i use a projector in place of a TV, and any amount of light washes the screen. I bought blackout curtains from Lowe’s for around $ 70 for a pair of large windows. They even look nice. Although, as you can guess, I probably have a different idea of ​​what is “nice” than most people.

Motorized sunscreens, indoors or out, are a big help in more ways than one. I live in Southern California and the west side of my house cooks all afternoon. I put on exterior sun shades and, not to sound like a testimonial, my house is now a lot cooler, temperature wise anyway. It is also darker indoors with much less direct light and therefore less glare.

Lots of companies make sun shades so a trip to your local Lowe’s or Home Depot will surely be more helpful than I can add.

I’ll say this though: if you get the motorized variety, check if they can be linked to a home automation system or whatever smart system you use. Most smart products are tied to Alexa, but fewer also play with Google and even fewer with Siri.

Ultimately most TVs in bright rooms will suffer from some sort of glare, but hopefully with these tips your TV will suffer less.

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In addition to covering television and other display technology, Geoff organizes photo tours of museums and cool places around the world, including nuclear submarines, massive aircraft carriers, medieval castles, cemeteries. planes, etc.

You can follow his exploits on Instagram and his travel video series on YouTube. He’s also written a bestselling sci-fi novel about city-sized submarines, as well as a sequel.