I just got my M50 at BB Black Friday. This TV is ALOT different than my 46" edge lit Samsung that had a shinier screen (most of the TV was glass). I am guilty of watching my now dead Samsung on the equivalent of Vivid... perhaps I made some adjustments to it initially, but I never fussed with it much over the years. It was very bright, sometimes at night glaring, but I was used to it and just never messed with it. I thought the Samsung color reproduction was reasonable and the HD focus, like for beard stubble on a man's face was very sharp. My new M50 TV out of the box looked terrible on Vivid. Colors were way off. When I started researching, most experts think Vivid is a joke. I guess the joke had been on me!
I didn't really like the other standard M50 settings all that much either. I researched competitive brands/models PQ on line before I bought this Vizio model TV. The Vizio M series got PQ higher ratings than mid range Samsung's and other higher cost units, so I knew there must be something I needed to adjust. I was a little discouraged with the picture when I first started the Vizio up, to be honest.
So I researched a lot on-line, which is where I found this forum. I learned more specifics than I knew before, like Contrast is really "shade of black" and to adjust that first, that "Brightness" is "shade of white", and do second, and that a high backlight setting (like I was used to on my Samsung) really doesn't accurately reproduce color or picture quality, its' just brighter like in the store. I found that sharpness really only has to do with the edge of lines and I had it set way to high.... I may still have it set too high (?). Also, that a lot of "special" settings on modern TV's are sometimes better left off.
Finally after doing a lot of playing around, for a couple of days in different lighting conditions, I found that I needed two basic sets of adjustments to use routinely, one for when my small beach condo living room is very dark or near dark at night, and another for during the day when that room is flooded with light. I made adjustments from "Calibrated" for my daylight picture, and made custom adjustments to "Calibrated Dark" for my nighttime setting.
I also found by trying several other calibration settings I found on-line, that none of them worked well for me. I think where you have light sources relative to your TV location and angle is a huge factor. It took me a while to get used to my new settings not being so crazy "loud" and "bright" as I had been watching my Samsung TV before. But I like these settings and the darker, more subdued picture now. I find myself knocking the backlight down 1 or 2 points just to see how I like it. As I've got used to the "dimmer" setting, it now seems quite bright! In a nearly completely dark room my custom "Calibrated Dark" looks better than anything I have ever seen!
I did not use any test patterns, rather I found scenes with lots of shades of white, or of barely discernible black shades, some with lots of lines or hard edges, or lot of bright red or orange for color intensity. So these are my current settings that I may tweak a little more. Each were done independent of each other, starting from the factory settings. Funny how some of my adjusted settings came out the same.
For the experts here, let me know what you think please. I think my PQ color and "lower pop" is much more realistic now than my Samsung ever was, however I am still unsure why I feel my Vizio, even with all these adjustments, still has what I would call a "softer" looking picture. Almost a little less HD, for lack of a better description. Maybe it's the matte screen?
"Daylight Calibrated" is first setting, Calibrated Dark is second
Auto Bright: off off
Backlight: 85 46
Brightness: 40 46
Contrast: 45 45
Color: 55 63
Tint: 0 0
Sharpness: 35 35
Color Temp: Normal Normal
Black Detail: low low
Active LED: on on
Smooth Motion: off off
Clear Action: off off
Signal Noise*: low low
Block Noise: low low
G. Low Latency off off
Film Mode: Auto Auto
Gamma: 2.1 2.2
* Signal Noise and reduced sharpness helped how my non-HD Charter Cable channel and other menus look better I think. They looked horrible before my changes. Now they look pretty decent for what they are.
I may try to reduce the backlight and make small Brightness and Contrast adjustments to my Daylight "Calibrated" settings... but remember my room is very bright with sunlight, and there is an end table light almost right in front of the TV. The TV sits in a corner next to large sliding glass doors.
It has taken me a while to get used to a "darker" image than I had been looking at for years. Also, I have backed down my color settings a lot. I was getting a lot of bloom, bleed, not sure what to call it on orange especially and some reds, where an orange dress or sweater looked like a neon light without fabric texture detail. With these settings I can see the fabric and shadow detail, but on some scenes my blues, and oranges are still very bight... but I kind of like it that way.
I'm telling ya, when it's dark or close to dark in my living room, these settings for "Calibrated Dark', at least to my eye, are AMAZINGLY good - like cinema quality! It's incredible for a 50" $500 TV!