You did it: You took the plunge and bought an amazing new TV set. Maybe it’s your first 4K TV, and you’re stunned by the crystal clearness of the images. Maybe it’s a TV for your backyard barbecue area, and you need to know how to make sure it can counteract the massive amount of ambient light.
Thirty or 40 years ago, you’d be lucky to get any adjustable settings in a TV. It was what it was. But as TVs became more technologically advanced–and literally housed tiny computers inside–the number of options, pre-sets, and digital tricks that can be toggled on or off has exploded. So, how do you calibrate your TV to ensure an optimal picture in any setting? Read on to find out.
What should I consider when calibrating my TV?
There are a number of factors that make calibrating a TV more complicated than simply putting the numbers to recommended values or using the existing pre-set modes. How far or close are you planning on sitting? How bright or dim is the room usually going to be when watching? Are you going to wall-mount your TV or put it on an entertainment center or TV table? How will any sound system or speakers be arranged? Will you have other accessories like LED accent lights attached to the TV? Will you be hanging your TV outdoors?
This is why while there are recommended settings available on the internet (see below about that), those may not be the optimal settings for your experience. You also might have personal elements of your vision (sensitivity, poor vision from certain distances, color blindness) that make your ideal settings different from the recommended ones. The only way to ensure that you produce an image that looks great to you is to adjust specifically for your eyes.
Where do I go to change these settings?
All the calibration settings are in one of the menus of your TV’s built-in options. There should be a “menu” button on your TV’s remote. Usually, settings are nestled and grouped together rather than all being one big list. Look for “picture” options to change most of the settings discussed below, but keep in mind there might be lists within lists of options. Some settings are on/off, while others are a numbered scale.
What can be adjusted?
Here’s a quick rundown of the things you can adjust on your TV and what they mean. Keep in mind that some companies use different terms for these options, but what we’ve listed are the most common.
| Option | What It Does | Recommended Adjustment |
| Picture Mode | Pre-sets for various types of media | Customize to your eye and create your own pre-sets if possible |
| Backlight | Determines how much light emits from behind the panels of an LED TV. OLED TVs will have something different or will only have a “Brightness” setting | Adjust to your viewing; pick an image with mild contrast to make sure you’re not washing out images with too much light |
| Brightness | Determines how deep the black is; higher numbers can make the black appear gray | Leave this to the number from the “Cinema” or “Movie” pre-set |
| Contrast | Determines how much white shows through; higher numbers can wash out the image | You can usually leave this one alone, but modern screens can handle a lot of white without washing out so boosting it is also fine |
| Sharpness | Determines how much different shades will blur into each other | Too much sharpness can “warp” images a bit, so keep this mid-to-low |
| Color | Determines how saturated colors are | Default “Movie” or “Cinema” values usually look best |
| Tint or Hue | Determines the amount of red and green in an image, altering the appearance of colors | Default “Movie” or “Cinema” is usually correct |
| White Balance | Determines the basic color values to make sure that whites appear white | Don’t mess with this; the default is correct 99% of the time |
| Motion | Creates “in between” frames digitally in lower frame-per-second video (30fps) to speed it up to 60fps or more in higher-refresh rate screens | This one is up to personal preference, and this menu item has a lot of different names (but the word “motion” is usually used). I personally hate this setting except when used with live broadcasts, especially sports. It makes things look smooth, like they’ve been overprocessed with AI (because they have), and can make a really great-looking movie look like a cheap soap opera. I recommend turning this off. |
Some other settings might exist in your TV, but these are the common ones.
If you can create multiple calibration presets for your TV, or adjust existing presets, I recommend adjusting most regular, recorded programming to the “Cinema” or “Movie” pre-set. This is usually the best place for most TV viewing, and if you only want to set it and forget it, this is the one to change.
Creating another preset for live programming (particularly sports) is also a good idea. This is the only situation where using the “motion” technology to add digital frames in between the broadcast image might result in the image looking better. In all other situations, it usually makes the image look cheap.
[Related: What is TV Refresh Rate? From 60Hz to 120Hz and beyond.]
Gaming definitely needs its own settings, and most 4K and 8K TVs will default to a “Gaming” setting when switching over to a game console HDMI input. While it’s good to adjust this setting on your TV based on your favorite games, individual games often let you adjust a lot of these values on a game-to-game basis if you don’t want to mess with the TV preset, or if the games’ visual presentation is different enough to warrant different settings. For example, a dark horror game like Resident Evil might want different settings than a brighter, faster-moving game like Fortnite.
What are some recommended settings for different TVs and environments?
By searching for your TV’s brand and model number and “recommended settings,” you can find a number of resources that tell you what options to turn off or on and what values to set for things like brightness or sharpness. These are good places to start, but ultimately what “looks good” is subjective, so you might want to play around and adjust even further from these recommendations to find what works best for you. It’s fine if your eyes don’t “like” the recommended settings. Your eyes are the ones that need to be happy with how your TV looks.
What about sound?
If you have a surround sound system, your system will need to calibrate to know how to deliver sound to you so that things feel balanced based on the location of your speakers. Luckily, this process is usually automated. You just need to connect your system, then go into the sound system options and initiate a system calibration. The speakers will emit a sound (usually at a frequency you can’t hear) that on-board mics will use to pick up and adjust the sound settings to balance the system properly. Some TVs do this with their built-in speakers as well, mimicking surround sound even with a stereo set-up. You can also go in and adjust sound settings individually as well.
Last Words on TV Calibration
In the end, the only person that needs to be happy with your TV is you, and keep in mind that most presets on TVs and recommended settings are under the assumption that you’ll be doing couch viewing (about 6 to 10 feet away from your screen) in a darkened room. If your set-up is different, it might necessitate considerable adjustment of the screen to get an image that makes your eyes happy. As for making your wallet happy, if you’re looking for good TVs and accessories, check the list below for our recommendations.
