I have a 1 year old QN65 Samsung TV. Recently, I have been investigating cutting the cord with Verizon Fios, and am looking at various options. Currently I have a Fire TV 4K Max and a Apple TV 4K as well as a HD Homerun 4K Flex unit with DVR service.
My issue simply is this: anything other than the Fios box has a significantly darker picture that I cannot make brighter. In fact, anything accessed via the Samsung menus, e.g. Fios, or any other app loaded and the HD Homerun via the DLNA connection has a much brighter and clearer picture.
On both my Fire TV and Apple TV I have the same apps loaded that I do on the Samsung, as well as the HD Home Run app. Even with the brightness turned all the way up to the max (50/50), the picture is significantly darker than anything accessed on the Samsung menus and that brightness is only set to 30/50. I have tried various things including turning off the Adaptive Picture and other settings. Anything else connected is darker and I am unable to fix it.
I have since removed the Fios box which was on HDMI 1 and I have tried the Fire TV in HDMI 1: no change in this brightness problem. If I compare identical pictures on the HDHR app (via Fire or Apple) vs the DLNA, the DLNA is brighter and I cannot brighten the picture from any other device.
I can answer my own question here. With the Fire TV, there is a video setting Always HDR or Adaptive. I changed it to Adaptive and the brightness issue went away.
For the Apple TV there is a video setting for HDR. I changed it to SDR and fixed the brightness issue.
