Hisense H8C Calibration Settings

We used the following settings to calibrate the Hisense H8C. These are good for any content, from watching movies to TV shows or gaming with only minor adjustments described below. 

For playing games or using the TV as a PC monitor, set the 'Picture Mode' to 'Game'. Otherwise, set the picture mode to 'Theater' as it is closest to our calibration goal and allows more advanced settings to be adjusted.

We set the 'Brightness' to 50 and 'Contrast' to 45. This provides a large dynamic range, without washing out the image. You should leave it at these values, and adjust the 'Backlight' if you find the image too dim or bright.

We leave the 'Color' at 46 as it provided the result closest to our calibration goal. The 'Aspect Ratio' can be adjusted to your source, but for most people the 'Direct' setting will be best.

In the 'Backlight' menu, we disable 'Local Dimming'. We found it to be ineffective for this TV, as there aren't many local dimming zones. We set the 'Backlight' to 31 for our completely dark room. You can adjust this to your preference without affecting the picture quality. We also disable the 'ECO Sensor' as it causes the backlight to adjust depending on the surrounding environment.

In the 'Advanced Picture Settings' menu we leave the 'Tint' and 'Sharpness' at 0 to obtain an image that is true to the source. We leave 'Ultra Smooth Motion' off, but you can enable this if you like the soap opera effect in movies.

We also leave 'Noise Reduction' off, to avoid losing details in high quality content. If you watch lower quality content such as DVDs or cable you can increase the 'Noise Reduction' to reduce artifacts.

We disable 'Adaptive Contrast' to get the most true image, as the producer intended. Our calibration goal is for a warm image so we set the 'Color Temperature' accordingly. If you find the image looks too red or dull, you can use a cooler temperature.