10 ways to get the most out of your 4K TV (and 1080p, too!)

Cords and Ports

Not all HDMI cables and ports are created equal. The cabling side of things is pretty simple here. Use the cable that came with your HDR-capable device, such as UHD Blu-ray player, an Xbox One S or X, a PlayStation 4 Pro, or a Roku Ultra. If that’s not going to work, then you’ll want to update your HDMI cable. When I bought my first 1080p set a decade ago, we were at HDMI 1.3. The spec for HDMI 2.1 was set in early 2017. The current spec, HDMI 2.0, asks for almost four times as much bandwidth as HDMI 1.3, while the upcoming 2.1 asks for ten times as much. that’s not even getting into all the other capabilities that additional bandwidth enables. The cables might look the same, but an old HDMI cable simply isn’t capable of  doing what new ones can do. It’s tempting to hoard old cables, but you need a new cable for a device.

Once you have the right cable, you’ll want to check the ports themselves. Consult your television’s manual for this. While some sets might support HDR on all ports, many will support it on just one port, or on all but one port.

Turn on HDR, and beware HDR+

You’ll likely need to turn on HDR manually – it won’t be on by default. If you’re playing HDR content, such as a UHD Blu-ray, your television should typically pop up a message to the effect of “now playing HDR content.” If it doesn’t, make sure the HDR setting is turned on for that input.

Meanwhile, though, you’ll want to look out for faux HDR settings. On my Samsung KS8000 set for example, this setting is called HDR+. What that does is simulate HDR content by cranking the backlight of the set way up and making it “feel” better, the same way motion smoothing does.

Similarly, calibrate a TV input after you’ve turned on HDR. The HDR input settings may be different than the non-HDR settings and enabling that setting may reset the other options back to defaults.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/12/02/4k-1080p-tv-calibrate-tip-list/