2017 LG OLEDs - best settings without a proper calibration.

[Konsolkongen]

Here are my settings for my LG C7 OLED from 2017 as requested. This thread has been translated from a post I wrote on a Danish forum last year, so some settings might have changed a bit due to firmware updates.

Please note that every single LG OLED from 2017 uses the same panel type and system on chip. So these settings will give the same result regardless of the model you own, be that the B7, C7, E7 and so on.

These settings match a European C7 (Danish to be specific), but they should work well for all regions. I don’t expect there to be much, if any, difference.


The point of these settings is to get as close to a correct and natural looking image as possible. One that doesn’t add hideous sharpening, blows the colours way out and comes as close as possible to a proper white, without the need to do a proper calibration.

These three profiles should cover all needs. Everything has been adjusted according to test patterns, and on my own TV I have calibrated using the D65 standard with an i1 Display Pro colormeter to get as close as possible to an objectively correct image.
Unfortunately, no two panels are the same, so there would be little point in posting my advanced calibration settings here, as it would more than likely not work well on other screens. A calibration requires advanced tools, you cannot trust your eyes to achieve perfect white balance and colors, so don’t mess with those settings.
The difference between a fully calibrated screen and just using the settings below is a slight difference in white balance, and possibly a very minor difference in colour saturation.

If you are used to a TV running with the default out of the box settings, you will probably find that you need time to adjust to these new settings. The picture will probably appear too yellow/red and maybe even too soft. I don’t mean to sound condescending, but this is correct, and you’ve been doing it wrong by leaving it at the default


General information:

The options button on the remote (the gear symbol) can be held down for a few seconds to quickly access the picture options.


SDR gaming and "PC mode":

We will not be using the Game mode for SDR content (non HDR), why? Because the regular Game mode on these TVs sucks. I’m not talking input lag, which definitely is very low, but the white balance settings are lacking, and the colour gamut is locked to Wide which is wrong, and makes all colours far too saturated, and it looks terrible in my opinion.

Luckily on this TV there is a hidden “PC mode” which doesn’t just solve the beforementioned problem by letting the user choose any picture mode and thereby get a perfect picture. It’s also the only way to get RGB 4:4:4 (google it if you don’t know what it is) from your sources, and the lag is exactly the same as regular Game mode. It’s a win-win-win

To access this, you’ll need to hold down the input button on the remote, and an all-black menu will appear. Here you can choose the different HDMI inputs as well as change the name and icon for each.
You choose the HDMI port you wish to change to “PC-mode”, press ‘Edit icon’ and choose ‘PC’. The picture should disappear for a second and return, to indicate that the TV is now in “PC mode”.
Exit this menu, and change the picture preset to either ISF modes (as they are the most accurate out of the box). Change the settings according to the ISF section further down.

Please note that using “PC mode” removes the option for ‘Real Cinema’, so 24Hz Blu Rays will be converted to 60Hz. Meaning that you probably shouldn’t use “PC mode” when watching Blu Rays.


HDR gaming:

This is where it gets a bit complicated, because due to a bug HDR and “PC mode” doesn’t play well together. Meaning that the colours will be super dull and washed out with no way of correcting them. So, for HDR gaming you’ll need to disable “PC mode” by changing the icon to anything but PC.
This doesn’t take long, but it’s still super annoying. I have notified LG of this bug and I hope they will fix it someday soon.

When playing games in HDR you’ll need to change the picture mode to ‘Game’ which differs from the Game mode used for SDR.
This isn’t all bad though, as the colour gamut in HDR Game is correctly set to Auto, and therefore you’ll get much more accurate colours using the normal SDR Game mode.


HDR needs to be enabled for each input:

Hold down the option button on the remote, then General > HDMI ULTRA HD Deep Colour > activate. You’ll need an active source to enable this.

WARNING: Do not swap HDMI cables when the TV is running. This killed the mainboard in my set :p


Black Level (RGB range):

The Black Level setting appears further down and needs to be set according to the source's RGB Range. If this is not set properly it will either lead to “black crush” where details are lost, or it will make the image much too bright.

‘Low’ is the correct setting for RGB Limited Range (also sometimes called ’16-235’).
‘High’ is correct for RGB Full Range (0-255).

‘Auto’ doesn’t always work, as not all sources send information about its RGB range. Examples of this would be the Wii U, as well as the NES and SNES mini, which all outputs Limited range, but the TV doesn’t understand this, and therefore you’ll get a picture that’s too bright. For these sources the ‘Black Level’ should be set to ‘Low’.

On the other hand, something like the XRGB-mini (on older firmwares) and the Gefen VGA to DVI scaler only outputs in full range, and for these sources you should set it to ‘High’.

Thus, it’s a good idea to check your sources to make sure they match the setting on your TV.

Full Range will give you more shades of colours, but really it’s very hard to spot the difference.

A general rule of thumb is that most BD/DVD players as well as consoles are set to Limited Range by default. A PC will output Full Range.




Okay on to the settings:

General settings that applies to all picture modes:

Aspect Ratio settings:
16:9
Just Scan: On - this disables overscan.

Energy Saving: Off
Eye Comfort Mode: Off


SDR settings - TV viewing, YouTube, Netflix, Blu Ray and gaming in “PC mode”:

Picture Mode:
ISF Expert (Dark/Bright Room)

OLED LIGHT: - Set this to your liking. The higher the value the brighter the image. Can result in visible sudden changes in brightness if set too high as a result of the Automatic Brightness Limiter, which protects the power supply for being overworked for too long.

Contrast: 85

Brightness: 50 - Should never be changed. If the image is too bright or you experience black crush with an HDMI source, it’s most likely because ‘Black Level’ does not match the source.

Sharpness (H/V Sharpness): 0 - If this is set higher you will get nasty ringing in the picture. Check the text in the PS4 dashboard, if you raise this setting you’ll start to see ugly black shadows around the white text. 0 is correct.

Colour: 50

Tint: 0

Expert Controls:

Dynamic Contrast: Off
Super Resolution: Off
Colour Gamut: Auto - Auto is correct setting, no matter how exciting ‘Wide’ and ‘Extended’ sounds
Edge Enhancer: On - According to LG this should be on even when doing proper calibration. I haven’t been able to spot any difference.
Colour Filter: -
Gamma: 2.2/2.4 - Set this to 2.2 when viewing in a bright room, or 2.4 for a dark room. Personally I just keep it at 2.4 at all times.

The White Balance and Colour Management System are used only for advanced calibrations. Don’t mess with these.

Picture Options (not all options are available depending on if PC mode is enabled):

Noise Reduction: Off
MPEG Noise Reduction: Off
Black Level: See section about RGB Range.
Real Cinema: On - 24Hz playback from a BD player.
Motion Eye Care: Off
TruMotion: Off - Soap opera effect and what have you. Some people love this stuff. Personally, I hate it.


HDR settings - UHD BD, YouTube HDR, Netflix?:

Picture Mode:
Cinema Home

OLED LIGHT: 100 - Go for broke! This is the point of HDR.
Contrast: 100
Brightness: 50
Sharpness: 0
Colour: 50 - I don’t have test patterns to verify this, so it’s a guess for now. I’ll update once I find out with certainty.
Tint: 0

Expert Controls:

Dynamic Contrast: Low - Why? Because with ’Low’ LG’s ”Active HDR” is enabled which gives a better tonemapping for HDR and generally makes the image brighter. Unfortunately this doesn’t work in ‘HDR Game Mode’, where this setting should be disabled.

Super Resolution: Off
Colour Gamut: Auto
Edge Enhancer: On
Colour Filter: -

White Balance:
Colour Temperature: Warm2

Picture Options:
Noise Reduction: Off
MPEG Noise Reduction: Off
Black Level: See the section about RGB Range.
Real Cinema: On - 24Hz playback from a BD player.
Motion Eye Care: Off
TruMotion: Off


HDR game settings:

Picture Mode:
Game

OLED LIGHT: 100
Contrast: 100
Brightness: 50
Sharpness: 0
Colour: 50 - I don’t have test patterns to verify this, so it’s a guess for now. I’ll update once I find out with certainty. Dark/Bright Mode.
Tint: 0
Colour Temperature: W45-50 - This will move the white balance closer towards proper D65. I have defined this as 45-50 as 50 wasn’t even warm enough on mine, but according to Rting.com W45 was correct on their set. It will vary from set to set, but this interval is most likely where you’ll want it.

The only way to perfectly calibrate the white balance in Game mode is by calibrating the Warm preset in the service menu. But I would strongly advice against this if you don’t know what you’re doing, as some options in there could ruin your TV!

Advanced Controls:

Dynamic Contrast: Off
Dynamic Colour: Off
Preferred Colour: Don’t touch this.
Colour Gamut: Auto
Super Resolution: Off

Picture Options:

Noise Reduction: Off
MPEG Noise Reduction: Off
Black Level: Low (Regardless how you set RGB range on PS4/Xbox One they will output in Limited Range when HDR is activated).
Motion Eye Care: Off



I hope this helps and that it made sense. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

[guut]

Thanks Konsolkongen! This helped me a lot with my C7

[Konsolkongen]

You're welcome! And congrats on getting the TV, it's quite nice

[ASDR]

Thanks for posting this! I'm in the market for a new TV and seems like the 2017 LG OLEDs are the most promising thing so far, but god damn do I hate modern TVs. All of these magic steps one has to do to lower lag, disable useless processing, oversharpening etc. It's like, you had ONE JOB, take the damn pixels arriving at your HDMI input and send them to the panel without fucking anything up or delaying them by 3 frames. I wish you could just buy a TV that didn't have integrated Alexa, remote controls with Netflix buttons and a UI full of ads and flowery marketing terms for useless image processing features with the useful settings hidden somewhere. Basically a display with just something super plain and straightforward wrapped around it like the OSSC. Text-only menu, zero 'smart' features, no processing but the actually required minimum scaling and HDR handling.

[Konsolkongen]

I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. They should offer better out of the box settings and they could stand to loose a lot of the frankly destructive options. But then on the other hand I wouldn’t want them to go too simple either if it means loosing the advanced controls needed for picture perfection.

But this goes for every manufacturer out there

For what it’s worth though I really like the interface and magic remote on the LG. It’s very fast and reaponsive, and YouTube, Netflix and Plex work great.

[Xyga]

They could certainly offer a series of monitors using their TV panels, but they will never make TVs designed like monitors (few exceptions out there though nothing to talk about)
The flat panels industry has been fixated on a single products segmentation model since its early days, I don't believe that will change in the next decades unless some new tech significantly changes the way we build and use displays.
So you can only count on third party manufacturers to build slightly different types of products with the panels they order from the big ones.
Right now in the case of LG, I think the supply is still too low and reserved for the big mainstream consumer market, so I doubt they would either offer an oled monitors line themselves or sell panels to a 3rd party monitors manufacturer. Add to it that all of them know a PC use will increase the burn-in problem significantly and you'll understand it's not happening anytime soon.
So we'll have to deal with messy TV OS settings, over and over.

PS: lol at the input labels trick, it's old af but still working, meaning that LG are reusing designs from at least a decade ago. iirc it's not unique as it works even on some Samsung sets.

[mdd45]

I agree with most of the settings. I prefer color temperature at 0.

Also at HDR game mode after the last updates from lg the screen looks dimmer. So i use colour at 65, Dynamic Contrast at High, Gamut at Wide and Black Level at High. With those settings HDR looks more vivid on my LG B7.

[Konsolkongen]

With a colour temperature of 0 you get a picture that is MUCH too blue so I wouldn't recommend that. I'm aware that LG changed the HDR tone mapping for game mode, and the results are indeed a dimmer screen. However I don't find that it matters too much as long as the games themselves have proper HDR adjustments, which they need anyway as no two TV manufactures do HDR tone mapping the same way.
Properly adjusting the HDR setting in Gears of War 4 resulted in the best and most convincing HDR I've seen to date.
Of course, if a game doesn't support proper HDR settings, then it won't look good at all. But changing the dynamic contrast is not the way to fix this as it completely messes with the white and black levels meaning that you will loose a lot of detail, especially when you set it to high.

The same is pretty much true for the colour gamut value. If you set it to wide you will crush details and oversaturate colours. Please see this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGtBfcokfto

[mdd45]

I agree but those HDR settings are from a late 2016 firmware. Even Lg says to "play" with dynamic contrast if you want a more vivid HDR for the latest firmwares. As for the color temperature i just prefer cold than warmer image... its just my preference though

[Konsolkongen]

Sure

I decided to bug LG about the HDR bug once more. This time I took some photos to show the problem. It's subtle, but you'll never see a proper red colour in "PC mode" :/

https://imgur.com/a/J4AfMjP

[mdd45]

Unfortunately i don't think that LG thinks that dimmer HDR is a bug. They say that these settings make the colors more natural and thats why they don't "fix" this. I tend to believe that maybe is a protection against possible image retention or burn-in....

http://www.lg.com/ca_en/support/product ... 990-others


there are a lot of comments here also: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/40-oled-t ... -mode.html

[Konsolkongen]

I'm not talking about the dimmer picture. That's certainly not a bug but a decision to preserve every details in the image. There's nothing wrong with doing it this way. Sony does pretty much the exact opposite which means that the image is a lot brighter, but throws away A LOT of detail in the higher end, which it has to do because the panel can only get so bright. There is no HDR tone mapping standard, so you can't say that Sony's approach is more correct, but it will of course depend on individual taste what you like better.

This video explains it well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt6IflKAmWg

What I'm talking about is the bug where the colours get dull and washed out when you are using HDR in "PC mode" as I've described in my first post.

[mdd45]

Yeah pc mode is definitely broken. I have my pc on game mode and not on the one with the pc icon.

[Konsolkongen]

I just got a confirmation email from LG Denmark that they have forwarded my email to the engineers. Not holding my breath though as they did this the first time as well.

I'll be sure to update the post if this bug is corrected

[parodius]

So basically as of today you need 3 different profiles to cover everything (possibly a 4th to cope with different rgb ranges with SDR) and you can actually assign different profiles to different HDMI inputs ?

[Konsolkongen]

Yes, each HDMI input can store its own individual settings.

To deal with the RGB range I run two HDMI leads from my Yamaha RX-A1010 (it has two outputs) to the TV. Both inputs are set up identically with the only difference being one set to Low and the other to High. It's faster to change the input rather than have to dig into the menu and change the setting.

[mdd45]

Let's say that it's best to use your hdr gaming settings and to tell the truth they are probably the more accurate, for the hdr games that don't have in-game hdr brightness and contrast sliders like for example horizon zero dawn for ps4 how is it possible to get low lag gameplay and not dim screen?

I think this is like the hdr dim screen problem on Windows 10 until now. Let's hope it is indeed fixed on the upcoming "spring" update.

Or let's hope LG finally fix the pc bugs or make a toggle for hdr gaming mode like it was before the updates and now.

[Konsolkongen]

Using my HDR settings you rely entirely on the games to have HDR adjustments. Changing to TV settings (dynamic contrast) will boost the brightness, but you will crush details as a result.

To me it seems like more and more games support these settings though. Which is great

[nissling]

A general rule of thumb is that most BD/DVD players as well as consoles are set to Limited Range by default. A PC will output Full Range.

The output levels from a any DVD, Blu-Ray och UHD-BD player will always be video levels unless you've messed up the settings from the player. Full range in YCbCr is risky and not legal to the HDMI protocol. Due to this, Rec.601, 709 and 2020 are all bound to video levels.

I'd also like to inform you that for SMPTE you're supposed to have a range from 0 to 109% amplitude. When converted to 8 bit values this indicates that black clip would be at 16 and white clip at 254 (though reference white is 235 of course). The LG OLEDs do fully support SMPTE when using the low black level mode, though I'm rather certain that you're clipping the white level at a lower value with your current settings.

[Konsolkongen]

So what do you suggest I change?

[nissling]

The contrast of course, if you're using a source with SMPTE legal levels. Make sure that you cover all levels (from 16) up to 254. If 254 blends in with 255 you've set contrast too high.

Besides OLED Light at 60 is very high even for a dim room. I've never seen an LG OLED where I'd have to set it at higher than 40 if I'm looking to get 130cd/m^2 or less. And for brightness, none of the LG OLEDs I've calibrated have clipped the black level properly with the factory preset.

[Konsolkongen]

Yes I suspected that's what you meant. But there should be no clipping

I initially set the contrast too high because of the reasons you say, because I blindly followed the test patterns on the DVE BD and the AVSHD 709 disc, which made me believe that 100 was the correct setting.

However, I was corrected on avsforum.com that I should leave headroom and lower the contrast. Several people said that 85 is the correct value for this:
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/139-displ ... gs-69.html

As for the Light, I agree. I don't have it higher than 50 for SDR myself

[nissling]

What matters isn't what people say. What matters is how the set actually performs. On pretty much every LG OLED I've worked on, I've had to set contrast at around 82 to achieve a proper range for SMPTE.

And also, just because there "should be no clipping" doesn't mean that clipping cannot occur. You have to adjust brightness and contrast when needed, and since these two controls only affect the shown levels on the display those can be fully calibrated by eye. That's also pretty much the only thing you can calibrate with your own eyes on a modern display. You could however get some settings like sharpness and geometry right from using proper test patterns but that's a completely different manner.

What kind of source are you using to achieve these settings? I'm using a VideoForge HDMI for all of my calibrations.

[mdd45]

I have played some more today with HDR settings with PC, PS4 (not Pro) and my OLED B7.

I think that what makes big difference in my eyes is to use Limited RGB and not Full on PS4. In this case the blacks are not crashed anymore (Auto Range equals to Full for normal PS4 on OLED B7 which is a capable Full RGB TV). With this change SDR and HDR on limited range are ok as long as you have Black Level on Low. I also have set Dynamic Range on Medium on HDR and off on SDR.

So to sum up on my taste and current state of firmware from LG:

HDR Game mode:
Limited RGB (on PC or Consoles)
Dynamic contrast at Medium on Oled (or off if you play with in game brightness sliders)
Black Level Low on Oled

or

HDR Game mode:
Full or Auto RGB for normal PS4 (for Ps4 Pro i think it is automatically set to limited like on PC when on 4K HDR due to limitation of HDMI 2.0)
Dynamic Contrast at Medium or High (or off and play with in game brightness sliders)
Black Level High on Oled TV

now on to some God Of War.....

[bobrocks95]

I have played some more today with HDR settings with PC, PS4 (not Pro) and my OLED B7.

I think that what makes big difference in my eyes is to use Limited RGB and not Full on PS4. In this case the blacks are not crashed anymore (Auto Range is Full for OLED B7). With this change SDR and HDR on limited range are ok as long as you have Black Level on Low. I also have set Dynamic Range on Medium on HDR and off on SDR.

So to sum up on my taste and current state of firmware from LG:

HDR Game mode:
Limited RGB (on PC or Consoles)
Dynamic contrast at Medium on Oled (or off if you play with in game brightness sliders)
Black Level Low on Oled

or

HDR Game mode:
Full or Auto RGB for normal PS4 (for Ps4 Pro i think it is automatically set to limited like on PC when on 4K HDR due to limitation of HDMI 2.0)
Dynamic Contrast at Medium or High (or off and play with in game brightness sliders)
Black Level High on Oled TV

now on to some God Of War.....

Is it the PS4 or the LG that has HDMI range settings as Low and Auto only? Would be very disappointing if the LG is the problem; everything hooked up to my Sony W700B is set to full (except the Wii U) and is handled correctly.

[mdd45]

I think Lg is Auto (i m not sure if there is a toggle, i will re-check) as it should and PS4 has the options of Limited, Full and Auto. For normal Ps4 though Auto is equal as Full when connected to a Full capable TV.

I've edited my previous post in case you got the wrong meaning...

For UHD resolution Lg OLED has an "HDMI Ultra HD Deep Colour" option for each hdmi port. This must be turned on in order to get HDR working.