LG C7 OLED Calibration Settings

We used the following calibration settings to review the LG 55" C7 (OLED55C7P), and these should also be good for the 65" variant (OLED65C7P). These work well with everything except for gaming which requires a few extra tweaks, which are listed below.

The first thing we did was to turn off the 'Energy Saving' since we did not want to screen brightness to change automatically depending on the room lighting.

In the 'Aspect Ratio Settings' tab, we selected the '16:9' 'Aspect Ratio' with the 'Just Scan' option set to 'On' so that our HDMI input would be automatically matched to the screen size without needing to change the 'overscan' setting from the source output setting.

We selected the 'IFS Expert (Dark Room)' picture mode since it was the picture mode that was the closest to our calibration goal.

 In the 'Picture Mode Settings' page, we then increased the 'Contrast' to 95  since it helped the calibration and also gave us a bit more contrast without any clipping of the bright white. We left 'Brightness' to 50, its default value, and set the 'H Sharpness' to 0 and 'V Sharpness' to 0,  because we did not want to add any sharpening. 'Color' was left to 50 and 'Tint' to 0, both their default values since it was the most accurate setting for both.

In the 'Expert Controls' settings page, we set 'Dynamic contrast' and 'Super Resolution' to 'Off' since we did not want to add any image processing. We set the 'Color Gamut' to 'Auto' since when set to 'Auto' , the TV will change the 'Color Gamut' automatically to match the source. 'Edge Enhancer' was left to 'On' as this setting is not active when set to on (this can be a bit counterintuitive). 'Color Filter' was left to 'Off' since we did not need this function (this is only useful if you need to do a calibration with specific pattern and without a color measuring tools). We set the 'Gamma'  to 2.2 as it helped to reach our calibration goal and because it is the standard for most TV shows and movies. This can be changed though, especially if you are losing details in dark scene (if you find that the blacks are crushed), you can use a lower 'Gamma' setting like 1.9.

In the 'White Balance' settings, we selected the 'Warm2' from the 'Color Temperature' settings since it was the 'Color Temperature' the closest to our calibration goal. You can adjust this to your preference if you find the image too warm or yellowish.

In the 'Picture Options' menu, we turned off 'Noise Reduction' and 'MPEG Noise Reduction', but you can turn on these features if you are watching older low-resolution content, as it may help reduce visual noise and compression artifacts. We set the 'Black Level' to 'Low' to match our source 'Output Dynamic Range'. If you are not sure if you have the good setting, when set wrong, blacks will look grayish instead of really deep blacks. We left turned off the 'Motion Eye Care' since we did not want the TV to change the brightness of the TV automatically depending on the displayed scene. The 'Real Cinema' was left to 'On', as this will only affect the was 24p movies will be displayed and should not affect negatively any other content (60p/60i). 'TruMotion' setting was left off, since we did not want to add any motion interpolation. Both those last settings relate to the 24p playback and you can read here to know more about those options,

For calibration purposes, we adjusted 'OLED LIGHT' to 16 to reach our desired luminance of 100 cd/m² and this setting should be good for a dark home theater room or any viewing situation with a low light level. If this setting is still too bright for you, then you can still lower it further to better suit your need. 

For a room with an average lighting, adjusted 'OLED LIGHT' to 47 to reach a luminance of 200 cd/m². This setting should be good for any room with an average light situation, like an office. You can always adjust it to better suit your specific room.

For our bright room setting, we adjuster the 'OLED LIGHT' to 100 (maximum) to get the maximum luminance available,  and this setting should be good for any well-lit rooms with the direct sunlight of light from a very bright lamp. Again here it is good to note that this does not affect the colors, only the luminance of the display. 

It is good to note that this changing the 'OLED LIGHT' settings does not affect the color or the picture quality, only the luminance of the display. 

First thing to do is to turn on 'HDMI ULTRA HD Deep Color' for the HDMI port where you intend to connect your HDR UHD Blu-ray players (or video games console if you are using it as a Blu-ray player), as some players may not detect that the TV can support the full HDMI bandwidth necessary for HDR content.

When in HDR, some settings might be unavailable (gray out) in the menu and this is normal. We are going to list for each HDR10 and Dolby Vision the best setting that we recommend.

When the TV detects HDR10 content, it will give you different 'HDR Picture Mode' options. Both the 'Cinema Home' picture mode and the 'Technicolor' picture mode provide the same performance with the same settings. Use one of these for the most control over picture adjustment, but the 'Technicolor' picture mode has noise reduction disabled by default. The 'OLED Light' Setting in HDR10 mode is set to maximum automatically. This is recommended for HDR10 content, as it will permit the reproduction of the brightest highlights possible under HDR to create the 'Pop' normally seen with HDR content. When in 'Cinema Home' picture mode, the color temperature setting is a bit different, and we found that temperature setting of 'W30' was the most accurate setting, also, the 'Color' setting of 60 is accurate and don't need to be changed.

The 2017 LG OLED TVs now support HDR with 'Active HDR', which is similar to HDR10+ or HDR10 with dynamic metadata. This feature analyses the content frame by frame in real time to adjust the HDR tone mapping curve. This has the advantage of displaying each scene with an optimized HDR effect, as opposed to the HDR with a static metadata, where all the movie was using the same tone mapping curve, resulting in some scene sometimes being too dark or too bright or simply not exposed correctly to have the best possible HDR effect.

To activate this feature on the C7, you need to go in the 'Expert control' tab. In the 'Expert Control' tab, you will need to set the 'Dynamic Contrast' to 'Low'. The 'Low' setting turn on the 'Active HDR without the 'Contrast Enhancement'. We usually don't like to add any unnecessary image processing and this is why we are proposing to use the 'Low' setting here, as the 'Contrast Enhancement' would modify the content in a way that was not intended by the content creator. If you want to test this extra feature, then the 'Medium' setting set the 'Contrast Enhancement' to Low and the 'High' to 'High'.

Note that 'Active HDR' does not work when the TV is in 'Game' 'HDR Picture Mode' or in 'PC' Mode, so we recommend setting the 'Dynamic Contrast' 'Off' under those conditions.

When the TV detects Dolby Vision HDR content, it will also give you 5 'HDR Picture Mode' options. For movies, the 'Cinema Home' picture mode is the best option available since it will give you more control of the settings, again similar to what you have access with 'IFS Expert (Dark Room)' with SDR content and similarly to the HDR10 setting, here the 'Cinema home' is also brighter than the other mode. When in Dolby Vision HDR, the recommended 'OLED LIGHT' setting is 50. Raising 'OLED LIGHT' higher than 50 will raise the 'Gamma', so this can help if you notice black crush (loss of detail in the black regions of the screen).

When in Dolby Vision HDR, since Dolby Vision HDR already incorporate a dynamic metadata, there is no need for an 'Active HDR feature, and thus the 'Dynamic Contrast' behave the same way it does in SDR.

To get the best input lag possible when gaming, you need to set the 'Picture Mode' to 'Game'. Once the 'Game' picture mode is selected, some options won't be available in the setting pages since the 'Game' picture mode disables most of the image processing to give better input lag. Under game mode, the color temperature setting is now a slider giving you a different control from colder to warmer. The gamma selection is also a bit different, giving you the option from 'Low' to 'High2'. In both cases, adjust these to your preference. For the rest of the available settings, you can follow our general settings.

For HDR gaming, simply turn on 'HDMI ULTRA HD Deep Color' for the HDMI port where you intend to connect your video game console or PC and select the 'Game' 'HDR picture Mode' to have the best input lag possible. Some options won't be available to reduce the input lag.

If you want to activate the Chroma subsampling (4:4:4) on the LG C7, you need to set the 'Input Label' to 'PC' for the HDMI port where your device is connected. This setting is available via the 'Input' menu.

From the main 'Picture settings' page, there are the 'OLED Panel Settings'. Inside there is the 'Pixel Refresher' function and the 'Screen Shift' settings. 'Pixel Refresher' is the function that will clear any image retention or other screen issues that can happen when the TV is left turn on for a long period of time. This function needs at least one hour to run and will only start once the TV is turned off. This usually takes care of any image retention. The 'Screen Shift' is a feature that will slightly move the screen at regular intervals to prevent image retention. We recommend to turn on this feature.