Computer Shopper - UK (2020-07)

ISSUE389|COMPUTER SHOPPER|JULY2020 71

THINGSYOU DIDN’T

KNOW YOUR TV CANDO

RECORD TO USB

If your TV has aUSB portonthe rear,there’sagood chance youcan

plug in astorage device and use this to recordlive TV to: handy if

your PVR is on theblink or you want to add recording ability to other

TVs in your house. Makesureyou check your TV’s manual for the

exact instruction and thatyou use astorage drive that’sfast enough

and big enough; if you can, plug in apowered USB harddisk.

STEP BACK IN TIME

If you’ve got aTVwith FreeviewPlay built in, you can step back in

time in the guide. When you find aprogramme thatyou missed, and

it has a‘play’ icon next to it, you can select it to launch the show in

the right on-demand app.Freeview Play supports all of the big UK

catch-up services, including BBC iPlayer,ITV Hub,All 4and My 5.

USE YOUR TV AS ABIG MONITOR

If you have alaptop or PC with an HDMI output, you can connect it

directly to yourTVand use it as alarge monitor.You canplay games,

watch videos or use your TV as abig screen for video chats, either

using alaptop’scamerafor recording or through an external

webcam. If you want to use aphone for the same job,check out our

tips on screen mirroring (page 73).

UPGRADE YOUR TV

If your TV doesn’t have the features and apps you want, you can

upgrade with astreaming media box. An Apple TV is expensive but

adds Apple screen mirroring to any model and supports all the

major apps; an Amazon Fire TV Stick is excellent value and gives you

pretty much every big streaming video app you could want, and

thereare regular and 4K versions of the product available.

This setting sets up your television for
the ambient lightlevel in much the same
way as you adjust brightness on your laptop:
you have it bright outside in sunlight in order
to see properly,but turn the brightness down
inside at night. So when you can’t see the
screen clearly,turn up the backlight; if your

screen is searingly bright, say at night-time,

then turn down the backlight.

OLED TVs don’t have abacklight, but the

OLED light control is similar.However,this

control can be disabled by some picture

modes, so you may need to switch modes

to use the setting.

Thequality of your TV will define the

total level of contrast it can display: the

best TV sets can show dark inkyblacksand

bright whites; cheaper TVs can manage

one or the other.You may find thatyou

need to adjust brightness, contrast and

backlight settings afew times to get the

balance right for your TV.

Adjustcolour

TVs let you adjust how colourswill look, too.

Acolour or saturation control defines how

intense colours are: turn the setting down

too far and colours will look muted and dull;

go too far the other way and whatyou’re

watching will look surreal. Unless you need to

change it, leave this setting alone.

Adjust colour temperaturetochange

the white balance, with warmer colours

making whites look moreyellow,and

colder temperatures making them look blue.

Awarmer setting looksmorerealistic.

Adjustmotion smoothing

TVs arecapable of showing at least 50 frames

per second of video,ifnot more.That’s more

than double the rate at which TV and films

areshot (25fps and 24fps, respectively).

TVs can use their extracapability with motion

smoothing, also known as frame interpolation.

With these motion-smoothing modes, your

TV will look at two frames of real footage,

ABOVE:TheAmazon Fire TV Stickprovides access to all of the major

streaming services

LEFT:Tu rn the brightness up too far (top) and you

can see morebut blacks get washed out andthe

image starts to lose its moodiness; put brightness

to anormal level, and you get adarker,more

realistic image

High brightness

Normalbrightness