[Chadifus]

I was referred here from display calibration. My tv is a 2019 32lm57bpua 32 inch Lg. 720p resolution.

I cannot for the life of me get my games to look correct ( like developers intended.) I understand this tv is low end and only 720p but theres no way its supposed to look this awful. Skyrim looks absolutely horrible on xbone ( regular) . Elder Scrolls Online looks so bad that I only do short pvp rounds. I use Isf bright room and Isf dark room for my display. Game mode isnt necessary as I have very little input lag.

Xbox is not on full its on limited brand new Hdmi cord as well.

Factory Default settings. Backlight 80
Brightness 50
Contrast 80
Sharpness 10
White balance Warm 2
Black level Low
Gamma 2.2

With defaults my games look too bright and too dark at the same time just horrible.

My settings so far.

Backlight 50-58
Brightness 58
Contrast 58-67
Sharpness 8
White balance warm 1
Gamma 2.2. Etc.

I cannot find anyone or anywhere that has found the " best settings". Please help thanks.

 

[sgupta]

Something weird is going on here:
- You said XBOX is in Limited (Standard). Is it also set to 8-bit? (That shouldn't make much of a difference in theory, but just in case, it's the best setting to use on the XBOX for the most accurate RGB Limited).
- Are you sure your TV is looking for a Limited signal?
- Are there any settings for your HDMI port like HDMI Enhanced or HDMI Deep Color? If so, they should be Enabled (but if already Enabled, you could try Disabled just to test).
- I think that should be the correct Black Level, but I'd still try changing it just to see.
- I'd still recommend trying out Game Mode to eliminate the possibility of any other processing.

 

[Chadifus]

Thanks for the reply. Im not sure how to see if my tv is looking for a limited signal. How do I tell? To be honest I thought if you set the xbox to standard the tv would display standard or limited by default.Im just absolutely amazed in how complicated gaming on tvs and consoles are nowadays when it comes to picture display. I just got done playing Skyrim in 1.9 gamma and black level high in full rgb mode. It looked great everywhere even in day and night cycles. It was only when I entered a barrow that I realized utterly that this was NOT correct either. My games on either standard or full ( to be expected on full), look too bright or too dim. Too dark at times or just washed out all at once. My Hdmi ports are xbox regular port to either Hdmi plain or Hdmi Arc. Tv only has 2 hdmi ports. Im blown away by this whole thing. I just want my games to look like they are supposed to so I can enjoy them. I only play Eso or Skyrim strictly and Ive gotta say this is absolutely disappointing. What gamma should I use?

What color temp?
Whats an Ideal Contrast and brightness ratio? How fars too far when it comes to brightness or contrast? Whats the ideal backlight setting for dim rooms? I stay in 8 bit but upscale to 1080p on my xbox. I know my tvs native resolution is 720p but theres no way a simple upscale makes my games look just awful no way at all.

 

[sgupta]

Things are definitely more complicated than they used to be, no doubt about that.

It shouldn't matter what HDMI port you're plugged into. I tend to plug into ARC because I use ARC with my receiver, but assuming they're both the same bandwidth (you could check the manual, but I couldn't find any of this information online), it shouldn't really matter.

Most TV's are indeed looking for a Limited Signal unless a setting has been changed to tell it otherwise. If it looks bad with the XBOX set to either Standard or PC RGB, we can rule that out as your problem. You should set the XBOX to Standard and 8-bit. Then we need to work on TV settings.

I would start with Game Mode and the *default* settings for it. Don't mess with contrast or color or any of that for now. You can dial those in once everything else is looking more or less proper if you want, but they could be throwing off testing these other things. Out of the box default settings should be decent. If it looks wrong, there's something more going on. If it doesn't look right, do me a favor and run through the Calibration routine in the XBOX Settings. Don't actually calibrate - just step through all the screen and see if you can see everything they say you should (or shouldn't). Let me know your results.

The two settings I'd play with if it DOESN'T look right straight off are:
- Black Level, as this can result in the type of thing you're seeing if it's not right...but the default SHOULD BE for Game Mode.
- I can't see your menu, but somewhere in there (might not be Picture...could be General or somewhere else), there MIGHT be settings to enable HD Deep Color, or Enhanced Mode, for the HDMI ports. That should be ON if it's not already. If you can't find it, it may not apply to your TV. I tried to find a list of settings for your TV or the menus, but I couldn't. If you want to take a picture of them, feel free.
* You could also try a different HDMI cable and the other HDMI port if things still look bad, just to rule those out. I doubt that's the issue, though.


Now as to your individual settings:
- Gamma is subjective. Most people tend to prefer 2.2 or 2.4, 2.2 for a brighter overall image (but sometimes a bit more washed out) or 2.4 for more "pop" (but some shadow detail can get lost). I personally prefer 2.2 myself as I like to see more details over sheer contrast.
- Color Temperature tends to default to a cool temperature for game mode on LG's (at least, the LG I had in 2016). That said, most people who calibrate always go Warm approaching 6500K. I'm not sure on that TV if that would be Warm1 or Warm2. I'd see how the default looks to you for Game Mode first.
- Contrast and Brightness should honestly be pretty good at their defaults, as should Color and Sharpness. I would get the rest of the picture looking right before touching these, as you can easily mess these up without a source to calibrate by. You could use that XBOX Calibrate stepthrough to make some adjustments, but I'd only do that after you've got the picture looking more or less right. It definitely should NOT look awful, even at defaults.

Don't worry too much about the scaling. The TV should be able to scale 1080P to your 720P native fine.

Hope this helps! I'll do my best!

 

[Chadifus]

First of all thank you for such an in depth response and the time spent on my situation.

So I have the xbox on standard, Hdm1 Arc.

Tv is on game mode.


Defaults changed quite a bit.

Backlight 95

Brightness 50

Contrast 95

Sharpness 10

Color Temp Warm

Black level Low

Gamma 2.2


Upon xbox calibration without truly calibrating.

Black level at 50 is 5 clicks to being within range (55)

Contrast at 95 on xbox calibration is one click to makong the sun disappear. It looks as though by default that this contrast is two or three clicks too high.

Then again Im no expert at this.

Color defaults to 55.

 

[sgupta]

First of all thank you for such an in depth response and the time spent on my situation.

So I have the xbox on standard, Hdm1 Arc.

Tv is on game mode.


Defaults changed quite a bit.

Backlight 95

Brightness 50

Contrast 95

Sharpness 10

Color Temp Warm

Black level Low

Gamma 2.2


Upon xbox calibration without truly calibrating.

Black level at 50 is 5 clicks to being within range (55)

Contrast at 95 on xbox calibration is one click to makong the sun disappear. It looks as though by default that this contrast is two or three clicks too high.

Then again Im no expert at this.

Color defaults to 55.

Okay, this is a good start. When you say "Black level at 50" and up it to 55, I assume you are meaning Brightness. BTW, a good way to calibrate Brightness in my experience tends to be to go right up to the screen and do it closer than you would sit. You shouldn't be able to see the closed eye AT ALL, even right next to the screen (it should be the notch up that makes it totally disappear even if you're basically pressed against the screen), but you should be able to see the open one.

Contrast at 95, if the sun is just visible, is perfect and that's right where you want it - again, the notch where it JUST becomes barely noticeable on the screen.

Color at 55 is normal for game mode; a lot of manufacturers tend to do this to give games just a bit more pop. Personally, I like that and would keep it at 55, but you could adjust down to 50 if you like.

How do games look now? Are you still seeing the same issues, or is it better?

 

[Chadifus]

Its not any better. If im out in the open world its not bad but when I enter a cave the walls are not right. The lighting is way too bright no detail in shadows shelves look splotched with too bright and then too dark in some spots on the same shelf. If I drop the backlight and the contrast down closer to 68 things begin to clear up but its not bright enough to light up the whole cave. Like you can see the whole cave but it just looks crushed. Places like Bleakfalls Barrow I know are old graphics but this is just awful even to those 2011 standards.

What in the world could possibly be wrong? Could it be my xbox? Is it going out maybe? It is an original xbone after all. I need to find the calibration settings someone has found on this tv but I cant find ANYWHERE that has them.

 

[sgupta]

Its not any better. If im out in the open world its not bad but when I enter a cave the walls are not right. The lighting is way too bright no detail in shadows shelves look splotched with too bright and then too dark in some spots on the same shelf. If I drop the backlight and the contrast down closer to 68 things begin to clear up but its not bright enough to light up the whole cave. Like you can see the whole cave but it just looks crushed. Places like Bleakfalls Barrow I know are old graphics but this is just awful even to those 2011 standards.

What in the world could possibly be wrong? Could it be my xbox? Is it going out maybe? It is an original xbone after all. I need to find the calibration settings someone has found on this tv but I cant find ANYWHERE that has them.

Hmmm... While of course I can't see what you're seeing, whatever you're experiencing does *not* sound like calibration settings. It sounds like a mismatch between the console and the TV. That said, I would think the Calibration menu of the XBOX would be significantly off as well if that were the case, so I'm pretty confused by what's going on. If the Calibration screens look right, games should look right.

Here are the things I'd try (in the order I'd try them):
- Make sure TV firmware is up to date.
- I'm assuming you already looked for HDMI Deep Color or Enhanced and either turned it on or didn't find it?
- This really shouldn't be it, but try turning Black Level from Low to High and see if it helps. (If not, put it back where it was.)
- Try turning off any Dynamic features (Dynamic Contrast, etc.). If they're already off, you could try turning them on to see if they help, but generally you should still be able to get a good pictures without these. (The exception might be Dynamic Tone Mapping, though some gamers do like Dynamic Contrast.)
- Try the other HDMI port, just to rule that out.
- Try a different HDMI cable, if you're able.
- If you can try outputting the XBOX to a different display, that would be worth seeing to to make sure it's not the XBOX, though if it never looked right on this TV, and it did on your previous TV, I doubt that's the source of the problem.

Regarding calibration settings, for whatever reason, I can't find anything for this particular model either. Sorry. =/

 

[Chadifus]

I could not find enhanced or hdr selection settings. Tv is up to date. If I change black level to high I can see everything but it looks as if theres too much gamma or something like its all washed out.Maybe calibrate using xbox to high black level? Or keep low black level and turn on energy savings to low?

Yea remarkably I cannot find anyone who knows this tvs picture settings.

 

[sgupta]

I could not find enhanced or hdr selection settings. Tv is up to date. If I change black level to high I can see everything but it looks as if theres too much gamma or something like its all washed out.Maybe calibrate using xbox to high black level? Or keep low black level and turn on energy savings to low?

Yea remarkably I cannot find anyone who knows this tvs picture settings.

Energy savings should be completely off. If any energy saving functions are on, that could be messing up your picture. Also, if there's any ambient light sensor, turn that off as well.

That seems to tell me Black Level is probably correct at Low with your settings. Typically on LG, I believe:
Standard/Limited Colorspace = Low
PC RGB = High

Calibrating to the wrong color space would do you no favors.

 

[Chadifus]

All of that is off. Everything still looks bad. So I did my best with high black level. Thanks for all your time.

 

[sgupta]

All of that is off. Everything still looks bad. So I did my best with high black level. Thanks for all your time.

Yup; sorry we didn't have better luck. I guess the next step is trying to contact LG and see if they have any advice - it's worth a try at least.

 

[Chadifus]

Edit: Although Im sure its not dialed in correctly, Ive gotten my picture to be more than acceptable. Kinda crazy how I did it. So on low black level I calibrated using xbox. Picture looks horrible.

Not using calibration on high level, I simply switched to high level with low level xbox calibrations. Turned down contrast to 76 and matched the backlight with contrast. Brightness is at 49.


The changes are pretty extraordinary. Skyrim looks amazing and so does Elder Scrolls Online. Not perfect but very playable.

Its almost as if my tv needs high black level. Thanks again for all your help.

 

[sgupta]

Edit: Although Im sure its not dialed in correctly, Ive gotten my picture to be more than acceptable. Kinda crazy how I did it. So on low black level I calibrated using xbox. Picture looks horrible.

Not using calibration on high level, I simply switched to high level with low level xbox calibrations. Turned down contrast to 76 and matched the backlight with contrast. Brightness is at 49.


The changes are pretty extraordinary. Skyrim looks amazing and so does Elder Scrolls Online. Not perfect but very playable.

Its almost as if my tv needs high black level. Thanks again for all your help.

That's very weird, and I can't explain it, but I have seen some weird things happen with Black Level before on some OLED sets. I'm glad you got things looking pretty good to you, at any rate!

 

[Piker84]

Edit: Although Im sure its not dialed in correctly, Ive gotten my picture to be more than acceptable. Kinda crazy how I did it. So on low black level I calibrated using xbox. Picture looks horrible.

Not using calibration on high level, I simply switched to high level with low level xbox calibrations. Turned down contrast to 76 and matched the backlight with contrast. Brightness is at 49.


The changes are pretty extraordinary. Skyrim looks amazing and so does Elder Scrolls Online. Not perfect but very playable.

Its almost as if my tv needs high black level. Thanks again for all your help.

Your TV's maximum contrast ratio is probably so low on that budget TV that that is what is likely the cause of your lackluster image quality. Contrast plays the single most important factor in picture quality on TV's. I looked up the model and for it's price there's no way it would put out a very good picture. I'm glad you found settings that are tolerable, but I truly think you would have been better off buying a used 1080p plasma TV for their incredible contrast ratio. You would be much happier with the picture quality. It's still an option if you are in the return window on that LG. I'd prefer a used plasma over an entry level LED any day.

 

[Chadifus]

Yea this tv isn't very good.

I found this setting is the only way things look even remotely good.

Backlight 38 to 40

Brightness 51 to 53

Contrast 68 down to 66.

White balance Warm 1

Black level Low.

What are your recommendations for someone like me who has to do with this tv for now? The last guy was a good help too. But you mentioned contrast ratio being low? Does that mean that my contrast is not gonna be high? And is that why my backlight must be below 50?