4 things to check ASAP if your TV starts looking too dark

There are a lot of reasons why it might be difficult for you to see what’s happening in dark scenes on TV. Sometimes, it’s as simple as the scene being dark, but that’s not always the case. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to know that your TV’s picture settings play a big role in whether you can see what’s going on or not. Barring some examples, like Game of Thrones’ The Long Night episode from the final season, you’re typically expected to be able to see what’s happening on your screen.

The good news is that many of these fixes don’t take much time, and if everything goes according to plan, you’ll be able to start seeing things on your TV again. If they don’t work, however, the problems might be deeper than just your TV’s settings. It might be time to invest in something better, like an OLED, QLED, or Mini-LED display. Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that.

Change your Dolby Vision settings

It could make a difference

If you have a Dolby Vision-capable TV, you might not be aware that you have two different versions of Dolby Vision to choose from. While I prefer the Dark setting for my watch, sometimes scenes are just too dark. There are a variety of reasons for that, and I’ve found that glare coming in from a window has proven to be the biggest issue.

Switching over to Bright makes everything brighter on your screen, and it might be the difference between you being able to see what’s happening and not. It takes a couple of seconds to swap between the modes, so just see if that makes a difference for you. It definitely helps when I can’t see things, but I still like to keep my mode on Dark as often as I can. However, I won’t fault anybody for changing to Bright if they can’t see anything.

Try a different picture mode

But don’t turn on Vivid

TVs have many picture mode settings baked right into them nowadays, so it doesn’t hurt to try different ones. The Filmmaker mode is one I see often recommended, but that’s actually one of the modes that could be too dark for people. There are several options you can pick from, and one of them might be a better fit for you. I’m begging you to stay away from Dynamic or Vivid or whatever it’s called on your TV.

Settings like Vivid make everything super bright, and that’s not the way anything’s intended to be watched. What’s even worse is that these modes will sometimes have the motion smoothing mode on, and that just creates an overall bad experience for viewers. If you’re looking for something a little brighter than what you’re currently dealing with, just please find something without blown-out colors and motion smoothing.

Turn up your brightness

A simple solution

I like to create my own custom picture settings, and that typically consists of messing with my brightness. In doing so, I don’t have to worry about messing with any existing modes because I’m tweaking things to my liking. This gives me complete control over the brightness, and I’m able to make other adjustments based on how bright or how dark I want things to be.

Obviously, cranking the brightness up to 100 is just going to create some strange-looking images, so I wouldn’t recommend doing that. As you mess with the brightness, you might have to start tweaking the other settings as well to get a good-looking image. If that’s not something you’re willing to do, I’d suggest trying out some other ideas first.

Maybe it’s your cables or devices

It’s definitely possible

If you’ve exhausted your picture settings options and tried adjusting the brightness, it might be something to do with the TV itself. There could be a problem with the backlight not making the screen bright enough. That happened to one of my old TVs, and there’s nothing a setting could do to fix that, but it was also quite obvious that it was the issue.

You can also try unplugging your HDMI cables and trying something else. Maybe your TV isn’t the problem at all, and the issue actually lies with your Roku or Apple TV. In my case, this is rare, but it doesn’t hurt to troubleshoot everything. Anything is better than having to go out and buy a new TV to replace a broken one. Unless you’re fine with the budget options, there’s nothing worse than having to replace a TV on a whim and spend upwards of $1,000 just to get something decent. Hopefully, your problems can be fixed by changing some picture settings. Maybe you even have a spare TV in your bedroom that you could bring into your living room as a replacement. Fortunately, most brightness problems can be fixed by changing some settings, so it shouldn’t be the end of the world.