How to pick a TV picture mode | Standard, Vivid, Sports, Movie, ISF, Dolby 

Hey everyone! I tried to make this video as accessible as possible to the largest audience as possible. For those of you who like to get deep into settings, we could talk about that, too! Let me know as a reply to this comment what your top questions are and I’ll see what we can do!

I spend more time fiddling with my settings than actually watching a movie, it drives me nuts 😂😂😂

"promply turning of power saving mode" is the most powerful thing I did to my TV, huge improvement. Kudos to this guide.

There is such thing as option overload. I’m feeling nostalgic for the days of just brightness and contrast adjustments!

I’ve been watching you for a few months now and I must say my interest in televisions and the technology that comes with them has grown excessively. I currently have a 75 inch Q60a Qled Samsung it’s all I can afford lol! I love the tvs you guys post im a total sucker for a great looking picture and I must say these videos don’t help my obsession 😂 love what your doing it’s great and thanks for explaining everything your great hope you get to 1 million subs soon!

Just turn on vivid mode and change your white balance to a warmer one. Both bright and """colour accurate""" I have seen every other mode in my lg C1 ok? I like vivid for some reason, the cinema mode makes it look like everything is yellow. I feel like my TV got jaundice. But lately I have been noticing the blue tint in my vivid mode. So I gone to my picture settings, increased the oled pixel brightness and made the white balance to cold 10 which made the whites look neutral, at least to my eye. BTW I don't care what the director of the film intended the colour to look like, I will just prefer whatever looks good according to me I'm the calibrator to my eye so idc. Long message whoever read gets hatsoff

I'm late to the party but just bought a TV so here I am 6 months later. Thank you Caleb, this was quite helpful. When my new TV arrives, I'll be sure to cast Vivid & Sports modes straight into hell in your name lol... I haven't bought a new TV in a while, so all of these are still a bit daunting but watching this video gives me more confidence in at least being able to fake my way through the set-up.

Well done and well explained was waiting for something like this for all the people out there that aren’t quite sure what they should do with their settings.

@caleb Been watching your videos for some time now, ever since I bought an LG B2 OLED a few months ago, and connected it with a JBL Bar 1000 for some cool home theatre setting. I thought I should mention this: Apart from all the information you give out that's been super useful for a not-an-expert-but-likes-to-tinker-with-settings kinda person like me, the thing I have most enjoyed, almost as much as the information itself, is your casual but wonderful sense of humour. Makes watching your videos all the more fun, and not just useful (which it also is aplenty). So here's a shoutout to you: Thank you for taking the trouble to make these videos. You have made a difference to my life from across the other side of the planet, and for that I'm grateful. Cheers Roy, from far-away India.

Caleb, your videos are always super helpful. I have one suggestion to make: When I first started with adjusting picture settings on my tv's it took me a while to catch on to the fact that you have to be watching a show that is broadcast or stream in the mode that you want to be adjusting, such as Dolby Vision, HDR, SDR, etc. And that once you make settings adjustments for that mode, the tv(hopefully) will revert to the settings you previously made for that mode. I realize that for most people that watch your videos and actually make picture setting adjustments, this information might be literally innate knowledge, but for those of us that were starting out make custom adjustments, it really took a while to come to that realization.

Great video… good delivery and pace and above all useful info presented in an understandable way.

Very good video and applies to almost every TV :) I have a QN90B from Samsung and my personal preference for both SDR and HDR is Standard Mode as it is generally brighter. I also like it because I like to add a little bit of sharpness which helps with HD content in my opinion. The only things I change depending on what I am watching are Color tone and Color space. Standard color tone is sometimes too blue and cold so I switch to Warm1 (personally I would like something in-between). And Native color space sometimes has very unrealistic green colors so I switch it to Auto. In the end it depends on what your eyes are used to and how the content you are watching has been edited (post-processing can make a huge difference in how an image look).

Honestly I appreciate this. I used to love vivid mode because it's bright but with newer TVs it looks way over done. I'm getting my first oled so videos like this help explain why certain seeing exist.

This is our first smart tv,had no idea I could change picture settings. Thank you for your information.

I just got an LG C2. I find standard mode with the colors turned to warm are the best for me. Filmmaker mode was nice. But it completely kills all that HDR pop. I like the colors to pop but not too too much. So standard with a few adjustments seems to be the best .

Vivid mode is fine just relax

Can't say enough how great this channel is - Thanks Caleb!

Thanks for the information. I use to use Vivid when I first bought my 4K OLED TV. Based on a previous vlog of yours. I started using Cinema. But I strongly disagree about occasionally using Vivid. When I watch a 4K stream or BlueRay and 4K DVD, especially with animation, Vivid is what I use. I find the color is brilliant and the picture looks almost like 3D. I use Cinema for everything else. After buying a 4K OLED TV, I feel that Vivid has some uses and shouldn’t be dismissed entirely.

The best setting I have ever found in a TV is the natural motion setting in clarity section on my LG nanoscreen. It's like you are on the set with the cast, amazing depth! I set this up under my standard setting.

Subscribed. Your videos are very grounded. Helpful with things that matter. And my little brain understands your words!

I use movie mode most of the time as my TV and gaming rigs are in a room with blackout curtains, and then turn on and off Game Mode as needed. Keep in mind I am using a TCL 43" UHDTV as both my TV and computer monitor. So when watching stuff on any number of the streaming services I use, I just turn game mode off, then, when I go in and play World of Warships or fly in DCS: World or Microsoft Flight Simulator, I just turn on Game Mode for the reduced input lag, and aside from an almost unnoticeable drop in picture quality, the input lag drops considerably which is great for fighting games, first person shooters and great for the fine inputs needed to hover a helicopter.

Thank you so much for this video bro, I'm really into tvs and elections and stuff, but I've always had a hard time trying to figure out all of the pre sets and which ones changed which things and all that, but thank you so much for clarifying all that for me, I never realized vivid mode was trash, and had it in 90 percent of the time, thanks!

Great video...with some great ideas. You are spot-on with your recommendations! And your suggest to "play around with the settings..." if the best advice you can give...Thanks for your time.

Another excellent video. We'll see where the options go in a year or two, but Dolby Vision done correctly is amazing.

I use calibrated calibrated dark movie mode and whatever picture mode I think is best for a specific brand of TV. Once you have some experience with using picture settings you can find a picture that you like to watch. I haven't had any of my TV's calibrated but I do know how to use the TV picture settings to my advantage. As far as color temperature I've found that warm is really the best. I'm another one of those people who don't really like motion settings and like a natural picture as possible. But everyone has their own preference for tuning up their own TV's

You should choose whichever looks best for you. On my oled LG I like the Isf modes for both games and movies. Looks great. On my Panasonic lcd I chose cinema for movies with warm 2. And standard mode for video games with warm 1. Sharpness 0 for everything. Everything else off. There’s not 1 choice for everything.

Tried all those settings, Dolby Vision FTW!!!

always pick vivid. It blows your eyes out baby

Thank you this is a great starting platform can play with your suggestions to improve further.

Embarrassingly, the first thing I did while watching this video was switch out of the vivid mode. Then again, I have a Vizio tv that's over 10 years old and both its picture and life is nearing the end. I found and subscribed to your channel about a month ago and plan on upgrading to a Hisense QLED with a Vizio M512a-H6 sound bar in the next month or two. Your videos helped a lot in picking my next tv. I can't comment much on the picture modes you discussed because mine included modes like golf, basketball, game, video and custom. One fun note. I adjusted the settings for my custom mode to a high-contrast, dark black and white to watch modern movies with a noir feel. It went well with Logan.

Tbh, I have to watch almost everything in vivid on my tv just so I can see what is happening - certainly when watching movies or tv shows through my Android streaming box. Standard, Cinema modes et al, are all so damn dark.

Don't forget your 4k player has picture modes that need to be adjusted. I noticed on playing The Fog for example was to Dark. Then I remembered to go and set the LG 4k players picture mode. You need to do this unfortunately ever disk you play because it resets to Standard picture mode. This fixed the darkness problem. The better the TV is better in general but you need to still check this setting. Good Video.

Yes, it was helpful. Going through your TV "pick your pic" videos. I am armed and ready to do it. Thanks.

Thank you for the suggestions It was very helpful.

I used to fiddle with picture settings constantly, trying this reviewer's settings or that reviewer's settings and I just got tired of the constant fiddling and never being satisfied. So I decided to simplify my watching by resetting all the settings first, then carefully choosing which factory picture mode looked best to ME based on the content I was watching. I settled on Standard for watching sports during daytime hours (Sony's is very good) and Custom for movies any time after setting Custom close to Cinema Pro with just a touch of motion smoothing. I'll occasionally switch to Cinema Pro or Cinema Home for movies. For sports at night in a dark room I'll enable Light sensor. On my old Sonys I turn the Black Level down to 40 (from 50) for the deepest blacks. And you're right, Vivid and Sports are just too cold and obscenely bright for my taste. HDR and Dolby Vision bright for daytime and dark for nighttime. I wish I had an ISF Mode on my sets.

Kudos for getting to 1M! And thanks for the data. (Also, thanks for not showing yourself from the side when you're not even talking to a live audience, which I find phony and annoying when people do it.)

My C1 65 lives on Vivid mode with two clicks down on the saturation. Looks spectacular!

Vivid mode does have its uses. I've found it helps when watching old faded color movies! Movie mode gives a yellow cast that I dislike.

I have IMAX Enhanced on my Sony, love how that looks.

I typically use Custom, cinema, ISF. These typically are close to the ideal setting. I've been calibrating my tv's since early 90's where I used a ISF calibration laser disc. Today's tv's are very good, and you can really get away with just using cinema mode and call it a day. I will say Sony has always had the best color setting since their XBR CRT's.

Very, very helpful. Thank you.

Very helpful. I have a 2016 65" Samsung 4K, and I've been locked on vivid almost from the beginning. I saw one of your other vids, you advised turning to Cinema Mode, which I did. I hated it, too "warm", actually too dull and yellow, BUT I held out as advised. It's not bad after a week! I've jiggled up the contrast, pulled back a tad on the back light. It doesn't pop the way Vivid does, but it's a much better picture now than I was expecting. I'm not thrilled with the sports mode, but I like the idea of the higher picture refresh rate - 120 vs 60fps. But the color isn't great. I'm gonna boost the jiggle and the jutter speeds next and see what happen. Sadly, I've fallen in love with that SONY 77" OLED that my wife says I can't have. Gorgeous picture in the Big Box Warehouse store with the ultra bright florescent lighting. You just might be saving me a lot of money, and making my wife a happier woman with these vids. Thanks for the help!

Avatar in Vivid looks mad Beaut!

Onkyo AV receivers with Audyssey have a picture setting that includes ISF Day/Night, plus other picture settings. Combined with the available pictures settings on your TV, the picture is at it's absolute best for your taste. It's a shame that Onkyo decided to switch to AccuQ, which in my opinion, is horrible. Thanks for this enlightening video, because I just upgraded my TV from the Samsung F8000 to the Hisense UG7, and while it doesn't have as many picture settings as the Samsung, the picture is decent, and I've learned from this video how to tweak the picture to it's best.

A few days ago I again sampled the "Retail Store" demo mode on my 2019 Samsung Q90R. It was stunning and reaffirmed that this TV usually looks wonderful, and can provide about as nice a picture as I have ever seen! After I put the TV back into "Home Use" mode, I examined the changes to the settings that the demo mode had made. The TV was in Dynamic Mode. Hmmm. Just sayin'. I do use Standard Mode during the day and often Movie Mode at night having watched so many RU-vid videos that say Movie Mode, and now Filmmaker Mode, is the best way to use the TV. But until I got this TV in 2020, I always used whatever high-contrast "dynamic" mode was available. That may have been appropriate until even just a few years ago when TVs gained a brighter picture; but nonetheless, Dynamic Mode is still impressive.

Thanks for going thru all of this. On the LG TV I had been using Game Mode with several adjustments, because it looked really good to me, and still does in a way. Ironically, I have never played games on the TV and never will. Then I discovered Cinema Mode after reading about and found that it's really better, since I mostly watch movies from every period on the TV. It did take a while to get used to Cinema Mode but I'm glad I settled on it.

Yes. Very helpful. I need to keep exploring my settings

I find standard to be the best! Once set there I fiddle a little with color, contrast, backlight, tone etc.

Helpful for general info. It would be great if the menus for the 5-6 most popular TVs were actually walked thru showing modes and what other “tweeks” are best and where to find them. Also mention how they work with diff inputs and if the settings follow the inputs.

Thank you for making the argument for Warm50/ D.65 white point. I had no idea how conditioned I was into watching a cold, blown out picture. Shout out to HDTV Test for really illustrating it using the snowy mountain Fellowship of the Ring.

I am a vivid mode chick. The other settings are too dark

Standard Mode is always the best to me. Other modes do not come close.

Love your content, subbed 😂

Thank you for the information.

I have a Hisense U7G. I use Standard Mode and manually turned off just about everything. Motion Smoothing, Noise Reduction etc. My Contrast & Brightness are both set at 50. My Color is set at 43 & Sharpness is set way down to 7. I used many RU-vid TV setup sites at 4K and HDR. Even the blackest blacks show detail like shadows etc. That was hard to get just right. The color is as vivid as you'll ever see naturally or as mild on some videos, had to compromise. Can't stand glowing color. It's as bright as it can get without it looking washed out or blooming. I hope these ideas help you to set up your own TV. Plan on spending MANY hours going back and forth and remember, changing one setting may change another setting, like brightness affects the contrast setting etc. Good luck and happy viewing.

Actually, Vivid Mode has a purpose. At least for me it does. Since it is garbage at a default, one thing it's good for is as a starting point for very bright sun lit rooms. I just adjust things down, contrast, saturation etc and it becomes a great Daytime mode. The other modes just seem too dark in a bright room. Same concept of adjustment, just starting from the other end of the spectrum.

I love sports mode for watching soccer / baseball. Much easier to see the teams and don't care if the color isn't perfect. It's great for sports.

Thanks for your suggestions I got my colors back.........

Dynamic for all (samsung)

Thanks I needed this

With all of the changes to picture mode that is exactly why I stick the standard and do a little changes here and there

I select Movie/ Cinema mode just to make sure all the so-called 'enhancers' are turned off in the advanced picture section. Then, I center all the basic adjustments( Contrast, Bright, Color, Tint, sharp). Next I use HD Video Essentials Blu Ray, or, Spears & Munsil patterns online - the highest res versions I can find, to set those basics to their ideal settings. My Samsung has a blue only mode for accurately setting the color and hue. What I end up with is what believe to be as accurate a picture as possible up to before a grayscale job. Guests seem to notice how realistic the picture is, particularly when it feels like the news anchor is sitting right there, or, it's like looking through a window at a sporting event.

Caleb... Caleb... Caleb... I have a 85inch Neo QLED! I absolutely love having my TV in Dynamic, Always have and always will! You take those harsh comments back! 🤣

It is known from Sony TVs that the customer mode has the most accurate setting out of the box. in this mode you can of course tweak even further and turn off certain 'improvement settings' or sometimes set it to low.

very helpful video tq.but what is the best picture setting for sony tv(x900h) custom or cinema.plz do make a video featuring sony tvs picture setting and processing capabilities especially clarity setting

I have vivid mode and it’s perfect. Don’t like cinema, sports , standard or any of the other. Vivid mode has perfect color.

I just recently got a Sony A90K and was having a heck of a time removing all motion processing. Just turning off everything I could find wasn't working and it wasn't until someone suggested I try 'Game Mode' that I found the solution. I had to go in and tweak the colors to my liking, but the motion was *so* much better. The difference was amazing. So much for 'Cinema Mode'. 🙄

Dolby vision bright on my Hisense H9G is sublime.

Every house I go to I grab the remote fix their picture settings and they are shocked at how good their TV looks

I love your channel. I bought the Sony 75X950G based on your recommendation. I will get the 85 QD Oled by Sony if it ever comes out.

For a lot of people I see, getting them to go from Vivid to Standard is progress... I don't know about the latest high end TVs, but for most "LED" LCDs I suggest getting in the settings and turning down the Backlight if possible and room brightness permits. Better dark levels and much better chance of the thing holding up more than a few years and not turning purple. Give it some actual Brightness not Contrast if needed to bring out the signal. Oddly most of the dark modes and even Eco have max. backlight settings, planned obsolescence?

This my comment … today TV’s have to many adjustment, that are not need!! There is a television broadcast standard that’s used to broadcast television signals (that’s over the air directly from the station’s transmitting antenna, or via cable or satellite provider, etc.). All that said, the standard NTSC (Analog), ATSC (Digital) give you what your suppose to have in a television signal! I worked in television transmission for 26 years before I retired in 2007! There have been adjustments in television sets from the very first B/W TV’s to todays flat panels, for what reason, personal preference! Yes, most people just take the TV out of the box and watch it as is! Most people that know me and want me to adjust there TV for them are usually amazed at the results after I’m through! Enough said and I’ll shut up now!

Great information.

Does this apply to watching cable broadcast tv? Everything mentions movies and gaming

Dolby Vision Dark is my go-to mode.

Picture modes such as vivid vs. standard vs. the remaining noted are very subjective. Also from experience (a lot longer in this world of TVs than you) it depends on the TV. I have one sony set to vivid anther to cinema. I sometimes believe it may have something to do with the size and location. My 65 looks better in vivid, but it is a larger room, TV positioned further away from standard viewing locations, whereas, the 55" is in the bedroom, I am closer and cinema looks better. Plus you have differences in broadcast between cable, vs. digital reception vs. satellite vs. 1080 vs. 4K vs. via different type of DVD (1080, 1080 upscaled to 4K, 4K). That all needs to be taken into account. (Won't go into medical reasons such as someone with cataracts would most likely like standard mode better due to the darkening of the eye due to the cataract, and that is only one of ee problems people might have, it is one I had years ago and I had adjusted the TV at the time to Standard; after surgery to remove the cataracts, I then played around and standard for me was way TOO bright. My belief is the person needs to sit with the same lighting and get something on TV they normally watch and scroll through the settings and look and see HOW THEY LIKE THE SETTINGS THEY HAVE PICKED. You do a great job of explaining many of the technical items on a TV such as arc vs. earc etc., but again, this item is very subjective to the actual viewers, and I saw no proof of your statements on settings that apply to ALL TVs sold. They all interpret these modes differently. As for what they ship with, of course most will ship in standard mode...the name standard implies that is what many will like and is a starting point. Only makes sense to ship in standard mode. Explain the difference, but when you give YOUR opinion it is NO longer a reviews or very informative. To be totally informative, NO opinions are wanted, only facts.

Modes on TCL QM8 are different entirely. Each can be adjusted independently. I bough the QM8 after watching your review. All modes look terrific depending on external light .

Informative!

really good video!

For those that own a Sony, custom is the most accurate picture mode and is closer to the creators intent. Cinema mode is not as as it also adds things like Dynamic Contrast Enhancer, Live Colour and motion interpolation (soap opera effect) which I find distracting….

Thank you

hello your advice is great greetings

Hdr-effect mode on my LG 65CX Very nice to watch normal tv

On my 65A90J I immediately went for Custom Mode and chose the best settings for color accuracy. Checked well-known forums and RU-vidrs as a resource for these settings. I checked Standard/Bright/Vivid too just too see what I may be missing in brightness (much) but since it's a OLED and I always watch in a dark room I'm more than fine with and even prefer the "not 100% brightness" setting. For my parents TV I have to choose Vivid but then have to turn down the blue a lot so that snow looks white instead of blue. They don't really care about color accuracy or 4K UHD 100 Mbps Blu-ray or Dolby Atmos. They keep their lights on and use the TV speakers.

I have a question what is your option on LG up8270 the 86 version . Haven’t seen any review on this model everything is the up8000 model . Big difference bettyhe two

On my Sony, I always use Custom when looking at anything other than daytime TV - such as watching the news and so on, where I use Standard. Always served me well. Didn't see anything about IMAX Enhanced Mode in the video, though - I'm still not sure what it does as I see little difference from the Custom I usually use.

Just purchased Sony 65’ A90J . Each picture mode feels appropriate for different views. Should I have it professionally calibrated?

My Sony A8H has two motion settings I'm confused about. Motionflow, and CineMotion...what's the difference?

helpful. Thanks.

So one thing I'm struggling with a bit. The tv keeps changing profiles depending on the kind of content I'm watching. For example, if I were to watch an HDR ready show on netflix, it suddenly changes the profile of the tv to vivid mode etc. Same with playing games on ps5. Should I set the mode for to filmmaker mode for almost, if not all content, or should I be letting the tv change to vivid mode for hdr content?

What are the best sets for someone that does not watch many movies just primarily sports and tv shows and a little Warzone on occasion? Is OLED more of a movie watchers tv?

What year did all these options become available? Our Samsung 55” Smart TV from 2013 doesn't have them.

I just got an LG G3 last month, but over the last few WEEKS I’ve been messing around with the settings almost every day, amounting to probably dozens of hours spent in the menus, not only to try and get it right, but also to understand everything and… well, getting it right (or close to). It also doesn’t help that settings are set per… whatever, per app or per “environment”. Like when you have this particular TV on its “Gallery” mode, that has its own set of settings. So if you try to tweak things there and then go back to the Home menu, it won’t carry over, it will have its own settings. Same for when you go into apps or change the HDMI-channel. - And look, I love the flexibility, but that means I need to go through all settings a whole bunch of times, then re-checking if it’s all set right, and that per profile as well. And the fact that menus are kind of clunky and slow to navigate doesn’t help. Anyway, I’ve narrowed it down to using about 3 profiles, that is Power Saving, just with everything on “neutral”, except no motion-smoothing for any profile (though de-blurring is fine, cause it doesn’t give the smoothing-effect and I kind of doubt it does much at all), then “Standard” quite neutral as well, but with lower processing, and then Filmmaker Mode full-on, but also definitely tweaked (cause it kinda sucks, even in the dark, in my accurate opinion). One thing that makes it more once again is when it switches to any HDR-mode: It has its own profiles yet again. Filmmaker Mode actually disappears and Cinema-modes appear, as well as the “isf”-ones, at which point everything started over again. - I almost rage-quitted using the TV, but anyway… 😆 Oh, and yea, Game Optimizer for consoles, but also tweaked a lot. Definitely don’t just leave that at neutral. None of the profiles actually, unless you just really want to trust those “movie modes”.

Yes informative! 🔥

Danke für das Video)

I have a LG up8770 82 inch I love vivid mode.

Great video man! I have a question that never seems to be asked, can you lower the panel brightness on filmmaker mode for both SDR and HDR without compromising it's inbuilt colour accuracy?

I have Sony 43x7500h ,pls suggest me what should be the HDR settings? As HDR looks washed out

Could you please tell me what you would set a LG 77 evo G1 picture ser up to?

I was perfectly happy with Standard Mode not until I upgraded my TV in 2018 to the Samsung NU8000 and 'discovered' Movie mode