Hidden Roku trick instantly improves your picture based on how bright your room is – it only takes four clicks on remote

DON’T leave your television’s picture quality to chance – there’s a Roku setting that can help.

An easy-to-miss feature of Roku TVs improves the look of what you’re watching based on the brightness of the room.

Roku

Unless you’ve dived into your TV’s settings, you might have missed Picture Modes.

This is a list of modes that you can put your Roku TV into, each of which changes the screen settings in a different way.

Roku explains: “Your Roku TV system has multiple preset picture modes that adjust the appearance of the image to suit your preferences and viewing environment.

“Changing the picture mode can provide enhancements, especially given the wide range of input signal types from devices like cable and satellite boxes, Blu-ray players or game consoles and the quality of those signals.”

HOW TO CHANGE ROKU PICTURE MODES

First, you’ll want to start streaming a movie or TV show.

Then press the star icon on your Roku remote.

This will bring up the TV settings menu.

Then go to Picture Settings > Picture Mode and select your vhoice.

Note that your TV will store picture mode settings for specific video inputs (like your HDMI ports).

ROKU PICTURE MODES REVEALED

There are several Picture Modes that you can choose from.

You might want to leave it on Auto, which will automatically adjust your settings based on what you’re watching.

There’s a Low Power Mode that is designed to save energy.

And there’s a Sports Mode too, which is optimized for fast-paced action shots.

Roku

Then there are three specific modes geared to different levels of ambient brightness in your room.

Here’s how Roku describes them:

• Standard: Good for everyday viewing in moderate to bright rooms.
• Vivid: Intense and brilliant picture for use in rooms with a lot of light
• Movie: Ideal for darker rooms to view the movie as the director intended

On top of that, some Roku models will also have a mode designed for playing video games.

Roku voice commands – the official list

Here are some voice commands to try with your Roku mobile app, as revealed by the TV giant itself...

• Find a specific movie or show
  “Harry Potter”
  “find Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”
  “show me episodes of Silicon Valley”
  
• Search for your favorite actors or directors
  “Halle Berry”
  “search for comedy movies with Will Farrell”
  “find all Martin Scorsese films”
  
• Browse popular genres
  “show me comedies”
  “find thriller movies”
  
• Find content in a genre on a channel
  “show documentary films on Sky Store”

• Launch a streaming channel
  “go to YouTube”
  “launch Prime Video”
  “BBC iPlayer”

• Playback commands
  “fast forward”
  “rewind”
  “pause”
  “stop”
  “resume”
  “continue”
  “skip”
  “next”
  “replay”
  
• Closed captioning commands
  “turn on closed captioning”
  “hide the captions”
  “show captions during replay”
  “turn on captions during mute”
  “what’s my captions setting?”

• Move forward a specific amount of time
  “forward 15 minutes”
  “skip 5 minutes”
  “fast forward 3 minutes”
  “go forward 10 minutes”
  
• Move backward (or rewind) a specific amount of time
  “go back half an hour”
  “rewind 30 minutes”
  
• Restart video from beginning
  “start over”

• Search for content
  “play Taylor Swift”
  “play Daft Punk on Spotify”
  “play S-Town on TuneIn”
• Interact with your streaming service
  “thumbs up/down”
  “like/dislike”
  “what song is this?”

• Switch devices
  “switch the input to HDMI 3”
  “switch to antenna TV”
  “switch to Blu-ray player”
• Change over-the-air broadcast channels
  “channel up”
  “channel down”
  “tune to NBC”
  “find channel 7.1″
  “previous channel”
  
• Launch or hide Live TV Channel Guide
  “open live tv guide”
  “open channel guide
  “hide channel guide”
  
• Adjust volume levels
  “turn the volume up”
  “volume down”
  “mute”
  “set volume to 50%”
  “set volume to 5”

“Roku TV models that support THX Certified Game Mode have an additional Gaming picture mode,” Roku explains.

“That assures you that video games appear as the game creator intended, providing vivid colors, crisp details, and better contrast, all while maintaining fast response times.”

You can change your Picture Mode settings at any time, so try different options out and see which you prefer.