Shocking list of SEVEN telly mistakes you’re making that totally ruin the picture – even posh 4K TVs will look rubbish

EVEN the fanciest TV models can have their pictures sabotaged by your dodgy settings. If you want to make sure your telly looks as good as possible, there are some features you'll want to take a look at. Some might need increasing or decreasing – and others should be switched off completely.

Keep in mind: your main TV settings affect everything that you watch. That's true even if you're plugging in a Fire TV Stick, watching via an app like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, or just watching regular telly. The Sun has picked out seven common TV setting mistakes that you'll definitely want to avoid.

Here's what you should be watching out for. But bear in mind that these settings might have different names depending on the model of your TV. So look out for similarly titled settings, rather than exact matches. #1 – Motion Smoothing. When your TV is playing video, it's actually just showing pictures really quick. Many TVs have a "refresh rate" of 60Hz – so the image is refreshed 60 times a second.

But lots of movies are produced at 24 frames per second, which doesn't match. Motion Smoothing inserts fake frames to bring movies up to 60 frames per second for a smoother look. But cinema fans say it's rubbish, makes films look like TV soaps, and should be switched off. Hollywood tends to agree.

#2 – Noise Reduction. Noise is common when you're watching older telly on your fancy modern TV. It's those visual artifacts that make the image look "noisy", although some people see it as characterful. Noise reduction attempts to smooth this out so you have a nice clean image – and a little bit can be useful.

But too much noise reduction can make your TV's picture look way too soft. So check it and bring it down, if needed. #3– Eco-Mode. Modern TVs often come with some kind of eco-mode or energy saver setting. It reduces the power that your TV needs to run, making it a great way to slightly reduce your electricity bills.

But Eco-Mode usually means reducing the brightness and contrast. This can make it look dim (which is especially bad if you're watching in a bright room), and leave colours looking weak. Switch it off if you're watching a blockbuster. Please. #4 – Vivid Mode.

Vivid is another mode that might seem good, but has its downsides. It tries to make your telly's picture pop more – so expect to see boosted brightness and saturated colours. But it can often go way too far with saturating colours, making everything look garish and horrible.

You'll probably find that most content looks just fine without Vivid switched on. However, you might like it on old telly where the image can look naturally washed out. Here's an easy guide to what 4K means... Picture Credit: Samsung. #5 – Dynamic Mode. Dynamic Mode is a tricky one, because it can work brilliantly – or terribly.

It's a little bit like Vivid in that it's trying to make the picture look better. But this can sometimes go too far, leaving you with something that looks ugly and inaccurate. #6 – Sharpness. Sharpness is meant to make the edges of objects on your screen more clear.

This can be handy if an image is very soft and you want everything to look nice and defined. But if sharpness is put up too high, it can create noise and strange artifacts around images. So if you're using the Sharpness setting, keep it nice and low – and only make very small changes.

#7 – Colour temperature. Finally, there's colour temperature. Used by a skilled telly expert, this can be a handy tool – but it's probably not worth touching as a regular user. So if you've played with it, set it back to normal. That's because colour temperature affects how warm or cool your TV's picture looks.