- It's not your eyes
or the brightness of your screen.
This is a very dark episode of HBO's "House of the Dragon"
on a $650 TCL LCD television.
What are we even looking at?
This is that same scene on a $3,000 OLED Sony TV.
Better, kind of.
At least you can make out this person
and these blades of grass but still.
HBO's hit show looks like it was afforded everything
but a lamp.
In the world of entertainment,
there's a dark TV problem
and HBO's "House of the Dragon" isn't the only culprit.
It just happens to be the most recent.
For years, viewers have criticized many
of television's biggest shows for being too hard to see.
- [Viewer] Why did that episode
of "House of the Dragon" look so bad?
"Stranger Things" season four, too dark.
I can barely see it.
- If your intentional creative decision
is that people can't see the TV show that you're making,
then you're making a podcast, all right?
(audience chuckling)
- So why is this happening?
Is it the way the shows are being filmed?
Is it your TV settings?
Or is it the TVs themselves?
Turns out, it's a combination of all those things.
To better understand why things appear so dark,
I gathered a lot of TVs
and recruited Kevin Miller.
- So I'm a calibrator, both of professional companies,
post-production facilities in Manhattan.
- [Kenny] Kevin is serious about TV display settings.
He adjusts them so screens show exactly
what the creators of shows intended.
- I calibrate TVs like this in people's homes.
- [Kenny] To Kevin, it's not about how the shows are shot,
it's all about the TVs.
What's his argument?
- It's not the content
because the content is an artistic decision
made by the director.
- [Kenny] HBO responded similarly
after the Driftmark "House of the Dragon" episode.
"House of the Dragon" showrunner, Ryan Condal,
pointed a finger at the streaming services themselves
for some of the issues.
Sure, but if we can't see the creator's work,
why even watch?
Kevin and other experts I talked
to attribute the poor viewing experience
to technical issues on your TV.
Here's how you may be able to fix some of them
and at least see some of those darker scenes.
The first reason you might be experiencing issues
with those dark scenes: your TV.
More specifically, its screen.
- OLED has the best black level reproduction
of any display device ever made
and that's because it's an emissive technology.
A light gets shot off to create black.
Look at the difference between a $2,200 OLED TV
and a $650 LCD with LED back-lit technology.
Both are using default settings.
This, of course, is an extreme example meant
to demonstrate the difference
in how OLED and LCDs display blacks.
Higher-end LCDs can do a better job
than what you are seeing here.
(screen beeping)
And to be fair, the camera can't reproduce exactly
what we saw.
But if you're in the market for a new TV
and wanna see every shade of black
in a variety of environments,
it's hard to go wrong with an OLED.
Just prepared to spend more money.
But don't worry, you don't necessarily need
to buy an expensive new TV.
Do you have a light switch?
- Any ambient light in a room
will obscure shadow detail in dark material,
even a light-colored surface like the wall if it's white
will reflect light from a display.
- [Kenny] The fix is relatively easy.
You've gotta go into full Dracula viewing mode
and get as close to creating
your own home movie theater as possible.
In an interview with Deadline,
the "House of the Dragon" showrunner said
the show is calibrated
with that sort of environment in mind.
Also, make sure you're viewing your TV head on
or within about 45 degrees to either side.
Then there's picture settings,
most often found hidden in one of your TV's submenus.
- The first thing you wanna find
is the most accurate best picture mode.
- [Kenny] Yes, purists like Kevin will direct you
to TV settings made for film,
like this Sony TV custom Dolby Vision Picture Profile
or Filmmaker Mode but they will appear darker.
If you wanna lighten everything up,
try looking for bright presets
or using the Vivid Profile,
which is available on most TVs,
including Sony, LG and TCL.
And on Samsung units,
the dynamic setting is tuned
for brighter, more highly lit viewing environments.
One of the many tools Kevin uses to calibrate
requires a Blu-ray player and a special disc.
But because this is 2022
and few people have time for that,
(door creaking)
you can use a calibration tool on YouTube
though a purist like Kevin
would never be caught dead using one.
- No, definitely not.
Nothing against YouTube.
- Find one of these black level tests on YouTube,
load it up in full screen and adjust your brightness
or black level until you can just barely see the box
next to the reference black.
Then lastly, if you're still unsatisfied with how dark some
of these shows are, you can try turning off HDR.
In my testing, the SDR version of "House of the Dragon"
was considerable brighter and easier to view.
On most streaming devices,
including Apple TV and Google Chromecast,
the HDR toggle is found in the settings menu.
So is this issue likely to go away any time soon?
Probably not.
Now that showrunners are making television shows
that feel like movies,
they're also giving them the same cinematic treatment,
despite the fact that we're just watching them
in our living rooms.
Fortunately, "House of the Dragon" season two
hasn't even begun filming yet,
so you've got lots of time
to prepare your TV viewing for next season.