Sony X800D Calibration Settings

The following are the settings we used to calibrate the Sony X800D. These should work well for any content, from movies to sports or video games with a couple of tweaks described below. 

For playing games, we first change the picture mode to 'Game', for lowest input lag. If you plan to use it as a PC monitor, set the picture mode to 'Graphics' for clearest text. For other usage, use the 'Custom' picture mode as we do below.

After setting the picture mode, adjust the 'Brightness' to your preference. For our completely dark room, we use a value of 1 but you can increase this without affecting the picture quality.

Our calibration goal is a warm picture, and so we set the color temperature set to 'Expert 1'. If you find the overall picture too dull, you can use a cooler setting. We leave 'Live Color' off to obtain the most true image to the source.

A sharpness value of 50 results in no added sharpness. This avoids introducing any artifacts resulting from over-sharpness. We also leave 'Reality Creation' disabled, but for low quality content  such as TV and DVDs it may help to enhance the image. 'Random noise reduction' and 'Digital noise reduction' will also help to reduce picture noise for low quality content. Leave those options off with high quality signals (PC, Blu-ray or streaming).

To add image interpolation (soap opera effect) and smooth out motion, engage the 'Motionflow' option to one of the preset values, like 'Smooth' or increase the 'Smoothness' slider in 'Custom'. The 'Clearness' setting will make the backlight flash, producing a clearer image but reducing the brightness of the TV. This can be useful to clear motion while playing video games without increasing the input lag.

The following settings can all be left to 'Auto'. 

To get the sharpest text while using the TV as a PC monitor, change the 'HDMI signal format' to 'Enhanced format' and use the 'Game' or 'Graphics' picture mode. To get there, hit the 'Home' button on the remote, scroll down to 'Settings'  then 'External inputs' and 'HDMI signal format'. This is also necessary if you are planning to use an HDR Blu-ray players or an HDR ready game console.