Getting the most out of your HDTV

So, you’ve done your research, avoided becoming a sucker thanks to our sage advice and have finally taken delivery of your brand new TV. Before you can start enjoying HD programming, there’s the task of setting it up right, in order to get the most out of your purchase. We first take you through some tips to keep in mind while installing and setting up your peripheral devices for your new addition.

Setting it up
The first decision you’ve got to make is whether to wall mount it or not. If you have a big enough wall that’s structurally capable of holding the weight of your TV, then by all means, go ahead with wall-mounting. For a clean and seamless look however, you’ll have to take extra effort in hiding and routing the cables. Most TVs will come with two standard speaker arrangements – either down-firing or back-firing. You’ll come across some TVs which have speakers on the side, facing you directly and some with a mix of down and back firing but for the most part, there’ll be the former two setups.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

Placing the TV correctly matters a lot

In case you buy a TV with down-firing speakers then it’s best you leave it on the stand. The surface of your table or stand will help bounce the audio waves around the room thereby giving you the effect of a much louder sound. This is helpful if your TV doesn’t have a high enough RMS output. For back-firing speakers, wall-mounting suits it better as you have the wall as a reflective surface. Just make sure your wall is not porous else it will have the opposite effect. Placing the TV up against the wall on a stand also helps in case you don’t want to ruin your wallpaper.

Once installed, make sure you go through some of the basic and picture and audio settings on the TV. Take some time and familiarise yourself with different features, play around with different colour profiles and see which suits your viewing style the best. We recommend turning off ‘Dynamic’ contrast as it’s more often than not a big annoyance. If you’re coming from a CRT or HD-ready TV to a Full HD one then ensure you change the resolution of your DVD, Blu-ray, set-top box or console to 1080p resolution for the best picture quality. Setting the resolution to anything but your TV’s native will give you an inferior picture.

Go wireless
If your HDTV has a LAN jack then chances are wireless dongles are also supported. Running a cable along your perfectly manicured home entertainment setup might not be the prettiest of solutions. Most major manufacturers have Wi-Fi dongles that can be purchased separately. If you have a spare dongle lying around, do give it a try as at times many third party dongles also work with most smart TVs. By connecting to your TV to your home network, you can make full use of the apps on your TV or simply stream pictures, audio, video from laptops, hard drives around the house. This way, you don’t have to have your media physically plugged in.

Make your smart TV smarter!
Most smart TVs out there aren’t really smart as the quality of apps is nowhere close to what you’re used to on Android or iOS. They’re clunky, have limited functionality, there’s seldom updates to it and you don’t have much of a choice. HD media players are a good alternative but are soon being made redundant as even the cheapest HD ready TVs (Samsung in particular) these days feature a USB port with support for a wide variety of video formats, sometimes up to Full HD resolution.

The UGOOS UM2 is essentially a Rs 15,000 smartphone without the cellular radio and display

The latest rage is Android on a stick. Think of Google Chromecast on steroids. It’s the complete Android OS on a dongle that directly slots into your HDMI port. You’ll have full access to the Google Play Store so you’ll have access to all your purchased apps. The dongles vary from different price ranges starting anywhere from Rs 3,000 to Rs 7,500. The higher end offers you quad-core performance that’s on par with Mediatek’s MT6589T SoC that’s found in all the Chinese Android phones, 2GB RAM, 8GB onboard storage as well as built-in Wi-Fi, full-sized USB port and lots more. You can find a whole bunch of them on eBay.in here.

Streaming is key
Once you’ve gone wireless, you can explore various streaming avenues. Setting up a media server at home is the best way for everyone to access movies and music. The easiest way is simply connecting a portable hard drive to your USB-enabled Wi-Fi router. Most routers that have this always have a file sharing feature baked into their firmware. This enables you to view the hard drive as a shared drive over the network. In case your router doesn’t have this, you can look at upgrading to open-source firmware’s like DD-WRT, Tomato USB, Oleg, etc. If you have a lot of media that you wish to share, then an NAS is the best solution. This is a purpose-built solution that can accommodate many 3.5-inch hard drives for multiple terabytes of storage. Thecus and QNAP are two trusted names for this solution and have many solutions for different budgets.

MHL is the easiest way to quickly get content from your phone onto your TV

If not that, then how about using your smartphone to beam content to your TV. Today’s smartphones are more powerful than most smart TVs in the market and can do a lot more too. If you have a high end TV with Miracast support and a compatible phone, you can beam content directly from your phone to the TV or even mirror it. Most phones these days have MHL and for about 700 bucks, you can get an MHL cable, which will allow you to share content from your phone to your TV. 

Amp it up
Slim TVs might look great but more often than not, sound awful. Unless you’re going to spend most of your time watching soap operas or golf, it makes sense investing in a HTIB (Home Theatre in a Box) solution. It’s best to stick to big brands like Sony, Samsung, LG or Panasonic for this. They have 3D Blu-ray HT systems starting from as low as Rs 23,000. In this setup, you’ll get the Blu-ray player and a 5.1 speaker system with floor standing speakers. Make sure you audition them at a store before taking the plunge.

Sound bars offer a decent mix of audio fidelity and size

If you don’t want clutter, then you could opt for sound bars which sit neatly in front of your TV. Bose’s Solo TV is a good example of such a solution.

To sum up

Armed with this knowledge in mind, we hope you’ll be able to enjoy your new purchase more. Remember to keep your TV’s firmware up to date if you have Internet access on it as bug fixes and new features are rolled out from time to time. Don’t forget to share your experience in the comments below of any cool way you’ve managed to get the most out of your television. <span style=“font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: " calibri”,“sans-serif”;="" mso-ascii-theme-font:="" minor-latin;="" mso-fareast-font-family:="" calibri;="" mso-fareast-theme-font:="" mso-hansi-theme-font:="" mso-bidi-font-family:="" “times=”" new="" roman";="" mso-bidi-theme-font:="" minor-bidi;="" mso-ansi-language:="" en-in;="" mso-fareast-language:="" en-us;="" mso-bidi-language:="" ar-sa;"="">

PS: If you do invest in an expensive large screen TV then please do yourself a favour and get a new stand or wall unit made for it. And for heaven’s sake, remove the stickers and plastic covering on the bezel of the TV. It will only ruin the look of the bezel over time as dust and grime settles in.