Best Picture Settings For Vizio Smart TV (Tested Settings)

Wondering what are the best picture settings for Vizio Smart TV? Look no further and read!

The best video/picture settings for Vizio Smart TV are typically different for each environment, user preference, and most-played content.

Hence, in this guide, we’ll go through all of the Vizio TV picture settings, provide you with in-depth insights, and help you configure them correctly.

What Are The Best Picture Settings for Vizio Smart TV?

Quick Tip: To reach into the picture settings on your Vizio TV, go to Settings → All Settings → Picture, where you’ll find everything we’re about to unwrap.

1. Picture Mode (Calibrated)

The picture modes on your Vizio TV are presets, which are a combination of different display settings designed to enhance your picture for different content/environments.

The picture mode includes brightness, color balance, sharpness, etc…

Available Picture Modes:

• Calibrated – This preset provides a natural and bright-looking screen for those seeking a balanced picture, suitable for watching anything.
• Standard – This is another balanced option, which emphasizes brightness and color to provide an eye-pleasing picture for any TV show.
• Sport – This preset mainly increases the sharpness to enhance the motion, suitable for sports viewing and fast-phased shows or movies.
• Game – Reduces the lag by sacrificing some sharpness and picture quality to provide you with an ultimately responsive picture for gaming.
• HDR – This preset only works when you’re viewing content that also supports the (HDR) High-Dynamic Range feature and enhances the color selection.
• Vivid – This preset optimizes the contrast to make all colors stand out but is not good for most shows as you can encounter unnatural saturation.

The Best Picture Mode?

For most users who want to set up this setting and never touch it again, the Calibrated picture mode is the way to go.

This will provide your picture with true colors, so you can watch each of your movies or TV shows the way they were intended to be viewed.

2. Aspect Ratio (Normal)

The aspect ratio on your Vizio TV is the proportion between the screen’s length and width.

This option will not change the picture quality or color, but if you set it to an incorrect value, you might see black bars on the sides or on top/bottom.

Available Aspect Ratios:

• Normal – This option will show the movies/TV shows in their original aspect ratio of 16:9 (filling the screen) or 4:3 (with black bars on the sides).
• Zoom – This ratio will forcefully zoom the content and fill the screen to avoid black bars when viewing for example 4:3, cropping the picture.
• Stretch – This aspect ratio setting will stretch the original picture regardless of the ratio in order to fill the entire screen, keeping it centered.
• Panoramic – This option is designed to stretch 4:3 content to fill the widescreen of your Vizio TV, but again, trim parts of the picture.

The Best Aspect Ratio:

The best aspect ratio for Vizio TV is of course the Normal mode.

This will not hide any of your content and provide you with seamless streaming for any TV show/movie.

3. Contrast (49-55)

The contrast of your Vizio TV picture will determine the difference between the brightest and the darkest spots.

A too-low contrast will make the image soft, while high contrast will make colors more vivid, hence the best option is in the middle.

The Best Contrast:

The best contrast for most TV shows and movies on Vizio TV remains in the range of 49 up to 55.

Just, avoid meeting the contrast extremes as you may encounter unusual picture color/look.

4. Brightness (50-55)

The brightness, a setting well-known to everyone, generally controls how bright the picture on your Vizio TV screen would be.

Again, the best here is in the middle, based on the environment.

The Best Brightness:

The best brightness for your Vizio TV picture should be in the range of 50 up to 55, but you can go lower at night and higher during the day.

• The brighter the room is the more brightness you would need to see clearly, even in the darkest scenes.

5. Gamma (2.4)

The gamma will affect the brightness of your Vizio TV picture, without interacting with the black and white.

The main target of the gamma option is to emphasize the colors in the middle tones.

The Best Gamma:

A gamma of 2.4 is the ideal solution for watching movies, as the black and dark scenes will be even deeper, while you’ll still be able to see all the details.

This is perfect for your home theater.

6. Color (52-55)

The color setting of your Vizio TV picture is how vivid or dull the general screen saturation would look.

The best option here is again, in the middle, which provides a natural and balanced look.

The Best Color:

The best color setting depends on the color of your content, but if you want to never change this setting again we recommend the range of 52-55.

This is a great adjustment for all content types.

7. Tint (-2)

The tint of your Vizio TV picture is the balance between the red and green colors, which helps in the correction of any color imbalance.

• The positive uplifts the green, while the negatives the red.

The Best Tint:

The best setting for tint would be slightly negative, as more and more content tends to deliver a green color imbalance.

If you set this option to -2, it will lower the imbalance on most TV shows.

8. Sharpness (0)

The sharpness can artificially add edges to the content to make the picture more clearer.

This is not advised, except if your content is very old (SD), in which case this can improve your picture.

The Best Sharpness:

The best sharpness would be 0, which is disabled because adding artificial edges can often bring up artifacts on the screen.

• We recommend increasing the sharpness only when viewing very low-quality movies.

9. Color Temperature (Normal)

The color temperature affects how warm (yellowish) or how cold (bluish) the picture on your TV appears.

The warmth can reduce eye strain and relax your eyes, while cold colors can prevent you from falling asleep.

The Best Color Temperature:

The best color temperature is Normal, but you can experiment with Warm or Cold to check how your content would look like.

Here, there is no “best setting”, it’s up to the viewer’s preference.

10. Backlight (95-97)

The backlight of your Vizio TV is the general illumination behind the TV screen, which you can control via the backlight option.

This option does not affect the brightness or the picture color.

The Best Backlight:

The best backlight setting of your Vizio TV screen is on the high-end, ranging from 95 up to 97, strictly based on your environment.

• The darker your room, the less backlight you need to see.

11. Film Mode (On)

The film mode setting generally enhances the motion in films, which optimizes the refresh rate and provides you with smooth movements.

It targets content running at 24 frames per second.

The Best Film Mode Setting:

The best film mode setting is of course enabled, so you can enjoy wavy playback and smooth movement in your TV shows and movies.

12. HDMI Mode (2.1)

The HDMI mode is a setting allowing you to limit or uncap the capabilities of your Vizio TV HDMI input.

You will only notice a difference in this setting when viewing content through HDMI cable.

Available HDMI Modes:

• HDMI 1.4 – This option supports picture quality up to 1080p, so when enabled you won’t be able to view any 4K content or above.
• HDMI 2.0 – This HDMI mode supports 4K content, but lacks features such as VRF (Variable Frame Rage).
• HDMI 2.1 – This is the highest HDMI mode setting, supporting all types of content and all of the advanced features.

The Best HDMI Mode:

The best HDMI mode is of course 2.1, which is the highest option, enabling you to watch the highest quality content over the HDMI input on your Vizio TV.

13. Color Space Range (Auto)

The color space range of your Vizio TV picture can limit the range of colors or unleash your TV’s full potential for a more vivid experience.

Available Color Space Range Options:

• Wide – The wide color range is perfect for HDR content as it expands the color range for a more vibrant picture on your Vizio TV.
• Standard – The standard color range will limit your Vizio TV picture to the RGB color range, which works excellently with most SDR content.
• Auto  – The automatic color range can switch between Standard and Wide, to provide the best colors as per the currently playing show.

The Best Color Space Range:

The best color space range is of course “Auto” so every piece of content you watch can get the best color range without you having to do anything.

14. Black Detail (Low)

The black detail setting will emphasize the darkest spots in the scene and make the black even deeper than it is.

This can sometimes lead to the inability to see detail in dark TV show scenes.

The Best Black Detail Setting:

The best black detail setting is “Low” as the shadows and dark scenes will be darkened by a tiny bit.

This guarantees that you’ll see the benefits from the option, but be able to see clearly.

What About All Other Options?

Those were the best settings for Vizio TV.

Any other options or individual color configurations such as R, G, or B sub-controls, must remain at their default value.

As for any other settings you may discover, we recommend keeping them “off” or “0” to prevent interfering with the picture.