LG C5 OLED Calibration Settings

We used the following calibration settings to test the 65-inch LG C5 OLED (OLED65C5WUA), but they're also valid for the 55 (OLED55C5WUA), 77 (OLED77C5WUA), and 83-inch (OLED83C5WUA) models. The 42-inch and 48-inch sizes don't have LG's Brightness Booster technology, so they don't get as bright as the bigger models do, but most settings should be the same. Our settings apply to most types of content, except for gaming or use as a PC monitor, which requires a few additional changes, listed below.

These settings are meant to provide a starting point; they're not meant to be copied 1:1. They provide the most accurate image in a moderately lit room, but you should adjust them to match your personal preferences and viewing conditions.

For SDR content, you can choose a few different preset picture modes. We used the Dark Space, night picture mode, because it's the most accurate out of the box and allows for the most customization. A Brightness setting of '25' corresponds to about 200 nits on our unit, which is our target for a moderately lit room, but you should adjust this setting to your viewing conditions. For our peak brightness test, brightness was set to maximum with 'Peak Brightness' on 'High'. Below are the settings we used for SDR. All other settings were either disabled or left off. If you're in a dark room, the BT.1886 gamma setting is a good choice, as that's the setting most commonly used during the mastering process.

• Picture Mode: Dark Space, night
• OLED Pixel Light: 25 (200 nits)
• Contrast: 85
• Gamma: 2.2
• Black Level: 50
• Color Depth: 50
• Peak Brightness: High
• Color Temperature: Warm 40
• Color Space: Auto

HDR is automatically enabled for native apps. When you start playing HDR content, a small HDR icon appears on the top of the screen. Once you start playing HDR content, some of the settings change automatically. Below are the settings we used for HDR10. All other settings were either disabled or left off. If you're having any issues with HDR content, make sure make sure Input Signal Plus is enabled.

• Picture Mode: FILMMAKER MODE
• OLED Pixel Brightness: 100 (Max)
• Contrast: 100 (Max)
• Auto Dynamic Contrast: Off
• Dynamic Tone Mapping: Off
• Expression Enhancer: Detail
• Color Temperature: Warm 40
• Color Space: Auto
• Peak Brightness: High
• Sharpness: 0

The TV supports Dolby Vision from native apps and external devices. As with normal HDR content, when you start playing Dolby Vision content, some settings change automatically. Since we don't specifically test Dolby Vision, we don't have exact settings for it, but they should be the same as our HDR10 settings.

The following are the old results of calibrating our unit's white balance to 6500K in HDR using the 2-point method. We don't publish the values we used for our new 20-point calibration.

They are provided for reference and shouldn't be copied as the calibration values vary per individual unit, even for the same model and size as the TV we reviewed, due to manufacturing tolerances. If you want to try them, you'll need to enter all values shown, as all of them are active at the same time. If you have worse picture quality, simply reset them to the default values.

From the base SDR and HDR settings, very few changes are required for the best gaming experience. When you start gaming, it is best to enable Game Optimizer to get the lowest input lag. The rest of our gaming settings are identical to our regular settings for SDR or HDR. There are two settings you can use to passthrough proper chroma 4:4:4. The first is to change the input label to 'PC,' and the second is to enable the '4:4:4 Passthrough' setting in the 'HDMI Settings' menu. Both of these options work the same and lock you out from using the 'Peak Brightness,' 'Noise Reduction,' 'MPEG Noise Reduction,' 'Smooth Gradation,' and 'Real Cinema' settings.

To make eARC work, you must set the HDMI Input Format to 'Bitstream,' Digital Sound Output to 'Passthrough,' and enable eARC Support if your device supports it

For our upscaling test, we set Sharpness to '10' and set Super Resolution to 'High'. Sharpness processing was calibrated with no over-sharpening for low-resolution content. Our low-quality content smoothing test was done with Smooth Gradation set to 'High'.

This TV automatically removes 24p judder from all external sources and from the internal apps when the Real Cinema setting is enabled.

The unit we bought and tested was calibrated on software version 33.10.32.

For information on any other settings or features that fall outside of the scope of our testing, please refer to the user manual found on LG's product support page.