Game of Thrones last night was terribly dark, here's how to adjust that – CNET

The third episode of the final season of Game of Thrones, The Battle of Winterfell, was challenging not only to Jon, Arya and the rest of our heroes. It also kicked the asses of many a TV.

The entire 82-minute episode took place at night. Walls of blackness, a massive ice storm, fires in the night and the fog of war all contributed to the gloom and confusion. And many viewers found themselves leaning forward, trying to make out faces in the shadows, or even worse, distracted by cruddy image quality.

A lot of the darkness is intentional. The episode’s director of photography, Fabian Wagner, told Vanity Fair that he relied primarily on natural lighting, including candlelight and firelight, to preserve the sense of natural darkness. Unfortunately, darkness also demands a lot more from your TV or video source.

In testing TVs over the years, I’ve learned that darkness is much harder on TVs than bright scenes. Black level — the term for the brightness of “black,” which on most TVs is more of a dark gray — creates a better sense of contrast and dimension when it’s darker. That’s why OLED TVs look so much better than many LCDs. Here’s a good example:

Made a side by side comparison of tonight’s episode…my un-calibrated 2015 Sony LCD vs my calibrated 2018 LG OLED. Don’t think I need to identify which is which. pic.twitter.com/HKaZMghkTz

— Adam J (@GiftedNapper) April 29, 2019

Even on the best TV, however, a demanding scene like many of those in The Battle of Winterfell can look too dark, or show artifacts like visible bands from light to darkness or blocks that look like geometric chunks. Here are some issues I’ve seen reported, and what you might be able to do about them.

Image looks too dark

Try changing the picture mode, increasing the brightness control or changing the gamma. Be careful, however, because these changes can rob the image of precious contrast.

Changing the lighting on your room can also help a lot. Any light reflecting off the screen can make dark scenes harder to see. If possible, watch stuff like The Battle of Winterfell in close to complete darkness.

Black levels look too bright 

This is sort of the opposite problem, where washed-out “black” can make everything else look less visible. Again the fixes are similar: play with picture modes, the brightness control and/or gamma. For LCD TVs, you can also try reducing the backlight control.

For more tips check out our full guide on how to set up your TV settings by eye.

Banding or blocking artifacts

I’ve also heard reports of bands along the edges of light as the army of the dead advances, and big blocks of darker color as the Dothraki horde recedes into the night.

In some cases you can adjust out these issues by making these scenes darker — try the “too bright” tips above to start. The noise reduction controls on your TV might help a little. But just as often these aren’t the TV’s fault, so they’re harder to correct.

If you’re streaming, the issue might be your internet bandwidth. Try reconnecting the device’s Wi-Fi or connecting to your router by wire if possible. The bandwidth coming into your home might be a problem too. If you can wait a bit, try watching later, when fewer viewers will be streaming in your neighborhood or nationwide. Here’s some more tips for improving streaming.

The fault might also lie in the specific app or device. I’ve heard from users who said Chromecast had issues while Roku was fine, for example, or the phone app worked well but the TV app didn’t. If possible, try rewatching on a different TV or via a different device.

If you’re using HBO Go or HBO Now to watch Game of Thrones, for example, it might be worthwhile to download the app on a different streamer or game console, if it’s available, and see if that helps.

Or you could just buy a whole new TV better suited for these dark sets, because even though there are only three Game of Thrones episodes left, there is a prequel series coming.

Ultimately you should be able to make the image a little better, subjectively, but in some cases there’s nothing you can do. Happily the action in Westeros will probably move further south soon, leaving the dark of winter behind. That’s good news for image quality on many TVs.