Sony A8F OLED Calibration Settings

These are the settings we used to calibrate our Sony 55" (XBR55A8F) and we expect them to be valid for the 65" (XBR65A8F). The following settings are good for any content, from movies to TV shows and gaming. For Gaming, some minor adjustments need to be made to get the best input lag and they are listed in the gaming section.

It is important to note that on Sony TVs, each input requires its own settings. This means that the settings applied to HDMI 1 won't automatically transfer to HDMI 2. Also, note that the A8F does not remember different settings for each content type. If you have different settings for HDR and SDR content, you will have to change them each time.

The first thing we did was set the Power saving option to Off to make sure that the TV doesn't dim the brightness of the screen.

To achieve our target luminance of 100cd/m² in our totally dark room we set the 'Brightness' to 9. Most people will find this too dim, you should set the 'Brightness' to match your room lighting as it has no effect on the picture quality.

For movies and TV shows, we selected the 'Custom' Picture mode, as it is the closest result to our calibration goal. For home use, if you don't intend to calibrate your TV, you could also use the 'Cinema Pro' picture mode, as it offers a very good picture quality, especially for watching UHD HDR movies. We also disabled 'Auto picture mode', as we don't want the TV to change the picture mode.

We turned off the 'Light sensor' as we don't want the TV to change the luminance levels based on the ambient light. We also left the 'Color' setting at 50, its default value as this controls the color saturation and we didn't want the TV to alter the saturation level of the displayed content.

In the 'Brightness tab, we set the 'Contrast' to 90 to have a better range of contrast and also because it helped us to complete our calibration. The 'Gamma' to was left to 0, and the 'Black level' to 50, their default values. The 'Black adjust' and 'Adv. contrast enhancer' were left turned off, since we did not want to add any image processing. 'Peak luminance' was set to 'High', so as to not limit the brightness of the TV. 

In the 'Color' tab, we left at the default value the 'Color' (50) and for 'Hue' (0). We chose 'Expert 1' for the 'Color temperature' as this was closest to our calibration target of 6500K. If you find the color temperature to be too warm (reddish or yellowish) you can set it to a colder temperature. 'Live Color' was also left turned off, once again because we do not want to add extra image processing and aim to display the content true to what the content creator intended.

In the 'Clarity' tab, we left 'Sharpness' untouched at 50 (there is no added sharpness at 50). 'Reality Creation' was also left turned off, but it could be turned on when watching older, low-resolution content as it can improve image quality. You can adjust the 'Resolution' slider depending how much effect you want to be added. The 'Mastered in 4K' option is a feature that will optimize the upscaling of supported 1080p Blu-rays movies that are listed as being 'Mastered in 4K'. This feature is only available on supported Blu-ray discs played through a Blu-ray player. 'Random noise reduction', 'Digital noise reduction' and 'Smooth gradation' were all left disabled, but those could be useful to improve the quality of older and low-resolution content. 'Smooth gradation' is especially useful if you see a lot of color banding with 8-bit content (this is typically most noticeable in shots of the sky) since it will smooth out the 8-bit gradation to make it look better, with less visible banding.

In the 'Motion' tab setting, we left the 'Motionflow' and 'CineMotion' turned off for the calibration process, but if you like motion interpolation (also named the soap opera effect), you can adjust the 'Motionflow' setting to 'Custom' and increase the 'Smoothness' slider. The 'Clearness' option controls the black frame insertion feature of this TV and it can help to clear up fast moving objects. This can be particularly good to use while watching sport with fast-moving action. If you are watching a movie via 60p/60i sources (cable or satellite feeds) and notice some judder, simply set 'Motionflow' to 'True Cinema' and 'CineMotion' to 'High' to reduce judder.

Not much needs to be changed for HDR content on the A8F.

In the 'Video options' tab, just verify that 'HDR mode', 'HDMI video range' and 'Color space' are set to 'Auto', and then the TV will change automatically to the correct settings to match the type of content you are watching.

When gaming with a video game console or PC (in SDR or HDR), first choose the 'Game' 'Picture mode', and copy the settings previously mentioned for the 'General settings. Note that the TV will keep in memory the changes made in each 'Picture mode', so you must set them one time for each, but after you won't have to reset them every time.

If you connect a device that needs to use the full HDMI bandwidth, like a video game console or a PC set to output at 4k@60p 4:2:0 10 bit, 4:4:4 or 4:2:2, you'll need to connect them via the HDMI port 2 or 3 and set the 'HDMI signal format' to 'Enhanced format', via the 'External inputs' setting pages.

Since OLED panels are susceptible to temporary image retention, and the possibility of permanent burn-in, there are two options available on the A8F to help reduce this. We recommend leaving 'Pixel shift' 'On', as this will shift the entire screen left and right by a few screens to help reduce image retention. This is usually not noticeable unless you are using the TV as a PC Monitor, in which case you might lose the first two or 3 columns of pixels on the edge of the screen.

There is also a 'Panel refresh' option, which will try and remove any built-up image retention on the panel. Sony officially only recommends running this once per year, as they say it can reduce the life of your panel.