Must have accessories for improved system performance

There are about forty adjustments to the color, contrast, and other parameters of a TV. I used to work for Sharp. So, I had a professional product design guy... give me the "perfect settings"... it was like +1, -8, +31, -8, 1, 5, -8.... on and on. 

It is virtually impossible to actually evaluate the picture quality unless you can compare carefully calibrated monitors. We had a whole room of every brand you can think of, and our Aquos... these guys analyzed the picture of our competitors. 

Typically in the showroom they are set to DEMO. Because, showrooms are bright. and people react to intense colors... so, in this mode they look horrible at home. Then when home they have movie, and sports, and a couple other high level settings. But under advanced... there are dozens of adjustments... so the only way to get the most out of your TV is to get it professionally adjusted. Meaning... you probably need to choose a brand from professionally compared TVs or you are going to be comparing apples and oranges because of the settings. 

@plain_fan @ghdprentice  Thanks for sharing your thoughtful comments. Good advice. I discovered that for commercial movie theaters the DCI or Digital Cinema Initiatives value color space (minimum 2K pixel area and maximum 4K pixel area), aspect ratio, and resolution.

“Would image clarity or definition be #1? Color quality? Contrast? Lifelike depth of field perspective?”

All of the above. With a modest sized dedicated basement theater, I tried to attain them all. I would add black level, high dynamic range (HDR), and ultra-high definition (UHD) content or Apple’s Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

In order to take advantage of the highest quality content in a projector based system, total light control and a dark bat cave environment is important.

I start with a JVC DLA-RS3100 4K, laser based projector, a Panamorph DCR-J1 anamorphic lens to get more light while still running the JVC at medium laser, a Stewart StudioTek 130 G4, 115” x 49” (125”) screen, and a  Lumagen Radiance Pro 4242 video processor with its Automatic Aspect Ratio Detection & Selection and Dynamic Tone Mapping for HDR Content with Accurate Color Rendition to name a few features.

I also have one of if not the best JVC and Lumagen professional calibrators in the country local to me and take advantage of his expertise.  I even had him calibrate my LG 77CX OLED TV while he was at it.

Impressive post. Indeed complete light control is essential.