The Importance of TV Calibration

Good morning everyone, I decided to write about the importance of TV calibration for your gaming console or PC; it doesn't matter which one you own, this applies to ALL of them. I was looking to buy a new 4k TV because my current TV was not looking up to par, even when I thought I had adjusted my TV accordingly, going as far as looking up what the optimal settings would be for my TV, but it seemed like I never got the results I was looking for.

Earlier this week, I was going through the settings on my Xbox Series X, and I took a hard look at the Calibration settings. I said, "well let's try it with the Xbox TV calibrator". I followed the onscreen instructions, and it took some time. I'd say I spent anywhere from 20-40 minutes getting the calibration correct. Anyhow, for the time I took to get it right, the rewards were well worth it. In addition, it most likely saved me from spending money on something I didn't need. Also, I feel like I'm playing on a whole new console; it's a refreshing feeling!

I am not too worried about what people may think, however I know for a fact that most gamers never calibrate their TV with the calibrator instructions provided by the console, hey I sure never did. But, as a strong suggestion to everyone reading this post, if you are having issues with your TV or monitor, look into the calibration menu to help yourself adjust your TV settings. I promise that you won't regret it, but be prepared to spend some time on it and have a bit of patience.

Well if we're going to go into the subject of calibrating, you might as well advise people to have your display calibrated properly by a professional calibrator.

Spoiler: Its worth it.

What you're doing isn't proper calibration. Real calibration will give you significantly better results.

Using your console's 'calibration' or just googling TV settings is more likely to ruin the image than improve it, due to panel variances. But you can of course be very very lucky and happen to have a panel cut from the same sheet as the one who did a professional calibration.

and the calibration needs to be done after the display has been installed where ever its going to end up in and for a specific lighting if we really want to get to the tidbits

The player of StarField can use Dolby Vision not necessary to calibrate bc Xbox support this 100% thank you Phil!!

@howmakewood: Yeah correct on both points.

And apparently, I recently learned it should also be done after 50-100 hours of use as apparently the colours change / "break-in" from new, and take dozens of hours to 'settle in'.

Its pretty complex stuff, costs a lot but is downright a bargain if you're buying high end TVs and especially high end projectors.

A simple console 'calibration' is nothing fancy at all lol. It's like the bare minimum you should do.

I paid for Best Buy to send a pro and calibrate my tv after purchasing. Tbh I’m not sure if it made a huge difference or not but the way they explained it to me in the store sounded good and I already had a good deal on the tv so I just went with it.

Just get an LG oled TV. The best tvs on the market that have a perfect picture out of the box, no calibration needed. My girlfriend has a mini-led TCL and oh boy I spent many hours to calibrate it. Eventually the picture quality was able to approach an oled TV, but only approach. I never had to calibrate my LG oleds though. These are just the best tvs with the best picture quality out of the box.

Yup, just go into settings and turn off eco mode and the LG is ready to go.

It really was that easy.

Yeah, a well calibrated tv is nice. I have a particularly bright living room (gonna get blackout blinds when I remodel), but my OLED looks gorgeous still. I was worried you'd miss details but was shocked with the results.

Sony TVs come calibrated out the box very near accurately. I only slightly tweaked Vivid and game mode on my X90J every other mode was perfect out of the box. Also your girlfriends TCL mini-led was probably 1/3rd to 1/2th the price of your LG OLED. To be able to approach OLED is good enough for most people on a tight budget hence why TCL and Hisense are starting to become more than just budget brands but actually rivaling LG, Samsung and Sony in picture quality. The Hisense U8K and TCL QM8 are making the big 3 look bad this year with how their image quality is just as good if not better than the big 3 in some ways or all ways but being much cheaper.

Are professional calibrators really that good? A lot of calibrators and TV experts I see basically just make their TVs look as dim, dull, and warm as possible. They hate Vivid/dynamic mode with a passion and circle jerk to film maker mode which in my opinion makes it very hard to watch most movies unless you're a pitch black room. What's the point of buying TVs with QLED, MiniLED, and Full Array Tech and high brightness levels if you're going to just turn it down almost all the way to the point you lose the color volume and popping.

Either way I just calibrate my TVs how I think look best and change the mode/settings depending on what movies and games I'm looking at.

@NoodleFighter: Of course they are good, what kind of a question is that. It's like asking if plumbers are handy or if a baker knows how to make bread. They're the best in the world at what they do.

and of course they hate vivid/dynamic mode with a passion. Those modes all look horrible.

TVs / movies are meant to be viewed in a dark environment. I have 100% lightproof black out blinds, and not a single light source (no RGB or LED strip bullshit of course) so my room is completely pitch black.

my OLED image is stunning, vibrant and poppy. While also being accurate.

Vivid just looks disgusting.

Gamers are generally clueless about what makes an image good. Just look at all these ReShade mods and people playing COD in vivid mode with 100 contrast 100 saturation and people on tiktok/youtube/twitch keep asking "how did you make your game look so good"? - it looks garbage. COD isn't supposed to look like Fortnite.

It's mostly direct sunlight on glossy monitors that will affect things.

For example I haven't gotten an OLED monitor yet as most of them are glossy and I have direct sunlight in my room.

Also I tend to play more SDR games on my OLED if there is truly a lot of light creeping in as HDR is just so much better in a darker room.