Is it me or are tv screens getting darker?

Lots of dramas on TV seem to be filmed in the dark! DH and I watched The Devil's Hour on Amazon Prime this week and we struggled to see what was going on. Nobody ever seemed to put the light on and if a light was on in a room, it was a little table lamp which only illuminated one corner.
I've tried all the picture settings on my television, they're all the same.

My TV is quite new but I get exasperated by scenes where lights aren't turned on and it's too dark to see what's happening.

My TV settings are too dark. I'm forever having to go to the picture setting and changing it from eco to standard or even sports setting so I can see what's going on. It's a smart TV so seems to adjust itself to the ambient light level which varies all the time. It's v frustrating.

All kind of reasons for this but leaving aside that Barnaby and sidekick tend to like stumbling around in the dark with a torch instead of just waiting an hour for some daylight ...

A lot is to do with digital compression in modern broadcasting. This article explains.

www.popsci.com/how-to-calibrate-tv-dark-content/

Watch the video which explains why on-screen action slows down picture quality, how different televisions deal with "true black" and why turning up the brightness doesn't solve the problem as is it's just making the black brighter.

OLED/QLED sets are the answer but they come with a price tag.

Northface we have a new oled smart tv and we hate it! I wish we sent it back to JL. It is a smart tv but our old tv was much better as one click for subtitles. The picture is good for majority of things but we still cant see what is happening in dark scenes. I know we are very fortunate to have a new tv but i really wish we kept our old one.

I agree it is very difficult sometimes and I find myself loosing interest in dark and gloomy programs.

Drives us mad. Apparently it adds to the atmosphere - so I have been told by a grandson who works for a film company. Not sure if he was joking when he said “ the darker the better - lovely”.

Yup - We have our screen on Vivid - helps. And a lot of the time we use subtitles as the speech is so poor. Interestingly, we often turn them off for 'old' dramas and comedies - much clearer speech.

I totally agree with what has been said. My TV is also OLED, Smart and fairly new and I also hate mine.

I am partially sighted and all this darkness means I can see zilch. When a message is on a phone, I cannot read it so although I have subtitles on permanently I lose a lot.

I have been watching the 1946 film of 'Great Expectations' recently, and many of the scenes are supposedly filmed in the dark yet despite flickering firelight and a whole room lit by one candle, full of atmospheric shadows, you can see the actors clearly, (and hear every word.)
I was watching the recent drama about Kim Philby, and apparently it had a brownwash (?) to make it atmospheric. I don't remember life through a brownwash in the 1960s.

A lot of filming is done in the dark or gloom.
It's supposed to add to the atmosphere I think, but it just makes it difficult to watch.

DH is watching some dog programme on C4 at the moment ' the picture is lovely, clear, bright, the grass is green!

We have a smart TV, about four years old and no problems with either ‘dark scenes’ or sound?
But I do agree with people on screen bumbling around in the dark and not putting the light on, irritating.

NorthFace

All kind of reasons for this but leaving aside that Barnaby and sidekick tend to like stumbling around in the dark with a torch instead of just waiting an hour for some daylight ...

A lot is to do with digital compression in modern broadcasting. This article explains.

www.popsci.com/how-to-calibrate-tv-dark-content/

Watch the video which explains why on-screen action slows down picture quality, how different televisions deal with "true black" and why turning up the brightness doesn't solve the problem as is it's just making the black brighter.

OLED/QLED sets are the answer but they come with a price tag.

We bought the LG Oled when it first came out. We sent it back after a month. LG didn’t quibble.
At that price it was very disappointing. What you see in the shop is a nature video set up by LG. It was stunning, that’s why we bought it.
They are still having problems.

upsie.com/tv-warranty/common-lg-tv-problems

It's supposed to add to the atmosphere but just adds to aggravation in my opinion. I have been known to shout at the TV sometimes because of this..

My kids bought me a smart TV and I still like my old one better
But it was so kind of them but it rarely does what I want it to do grrr

My grumble is more to do with mumbling actors. I assumed it was my hearing until recently when my teenage granddaughter stayed with me for a couple of nights. We watched some of our favourite tv dramas together and several times we rewound the tv to try to decipher what had been said.

You need to change the settings on your TV. Make sure that there is no energy saving or eco mode on and also make sure that the gamma is set to 2.2.

ChatGPT can give you instructions on this if you provide your brand and model of TV. Make sure to log into it for better repsonses.