Change These 5 Settings on Your Sony TV Now

Sony is widely considered to make some of the best TVs you can buy, mainly because of its incredible image processing capabilities. But even with all this processing power and pedigree, if you stick to the out-of-the-box picture setup of your new TVs, you’re missing out on Sony’s best performance.

You don’t need to spend hundreds of extra dollars to get a truly great image: you just need to make a few key changes. And we’re here to tell you what it’s all about. Be aware that some settings may not be relevant to your TV, depending on its age. Additionally, while Sony TVs might change once the company’s joint venture with TCL launches, it shouldn’t affect the two brands’ current models.

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Also read: Best TVs of 2025

Turn off Eco settings

• Turn off power saving
• Eco settings can significantly limit brightness

To meet energy consumption goals, most TVs come with Eco settings enabled, and Sony TVs are no different. And as nice as they are for saving power, Eco settings invariably degrade picture quality, particularly brightness, making your new Sony TV look less than its best. It’s like adding a 55 mph speed limiter to a Ferrari.

Access the Power & Energy menu in the TV’s Google OS System menu: All Settings > System > Power & Energy. Select Power Saver and toggle Power Saver to Off. As you can read in the submenu description, Power Saving will “adjust the brightness and panel control to reduce the TV’s power consumption”, meaning the TV will never reach maximum brightness. Any adjustment that is completely out of your control can potentially adjust the image in undesirable ways, at least as far as accuracy is concerned. Which brings us to…

Disable Ambient Optimization Pro

• Disable Ambient Optimization Pro

Newer TVs – Sony or others – have a built-in ambient light sensor. The goal is to read the ambient light brightness and color temperature in the room and dynamically change the image on the screen. On a Sony, this feature is called Ambient Optimization Pro, and while some people like it, it compromises your TV’s accuracy and takes away from its performance. Open Settings, click Display & Sound, scroll down to Ambient Optimization Pro, and turn off automatic adjustment based on ambient light.

See also: Instantly improve your TV picture by changing these simple settings

Select a precise picture mode in SDR and HDR

• Switch Picture mode to Professional or Cinema
• Be sure to check with SDR and HDR signals

Now that automation settings won’t get in your way, it’s time to select your picture mode for different types of content. To get the most accurate image possible, be sure to select Professional (which used to be called Custom a few years ago), which cuts out a lot of extra processing. Cinema Picture mode is very close to Professional and is also a good choice, but it is geared more towards watching movies in a darker room and still includes some processing.

Sony has also partnered with various services to offer calibrated modes for those services. These include Netflix Calibrated, Prime Calibrated for Amazon Prime Video, and Sony Pictures Core Calibrated. IMAX Enhanced is another one for IMAX Enhanced content found through Disney+. These can provide a great experience on these specific services and are worth a try, but I would still recommend sticking to Professional mode for the most part, as these specialized modes may still include the options mentioned above by default, such as ambient light adjustment.

Also be sure to add HDR content, both HDR10 and Dolby Vision, so that the TV selects the appropriate picture mode when it detects this content. For HDR10, I recommend the same mode as SDR – Professional or Cinema. Dolby Vision can be Dolby Vision Dark or Dolby Vision Bright. Both offer excellent image accuracy, so choose based on the brightness needed in your space.

If you configure your gaming picture mode for the lowest input lag while gaming, be sure to change the color temperature to Expert 1 for better accuracy.

Adjust the TV brightness for your room

Over the past few years, a lot of attention has been paid to TV brightness as brands race to create the brightest TV ever. And while the ability to get more brightness is always a welcome improvement – brighter images paired with inky black levels create incredible contrast – having a TV’s maximum brightness isn’t always the best solution for every situation. A room with lots of ambient light needs a brighter TV, so in this case I would increase the brightness slider to maximum. But if you’re looking for SDR reference quality in a dark room, the light output should measure 100 nits, which requires the brightness slider to be moved down to the lowest setting. Most modern TVs are much brighter in SDR mode, and this setting is a matter of preference. You can easily skip this step if you want.

“If the brightness is going to be different depending on the ambient light in a room,” you hear yourself asking, “then why not use the Ambient Optimization Pro that we disabled earlier?” This setting dynamically adjusts the brightness And color temperature, which can be annoying and lead to inaccuracies. Keeping this disabled and changing the brightness yourself keeps performance static and consistent.

A nice piece of text included in Sony’s settings menu provides clarification when you adjust SDR or HDR mode. Settings such as brightness, contrast, and gamma will include either (SDR) or (HDR). For someone who likes to tweak settings, this is a nice quality-of-life inclusion that other companies would do well to adopt.

In addition to the Brightness setting, further down the Picture Settings menu is Peak Luminance, which adjusts the TV’s local dimming. This can be set to Off, Low, Medium or High to adjust the maximum light output and affect flowering performance. Newer Sony TVs generally have good bloom limiting, so I recommend keeping Peak Luminance set to High for the most spectacular HDR performance.

Check your HDMI settings for external device connections

Many people assume that if you connect an HDMI 2.1 device to an HDMI 2.1 port on a TV, you’re done and dusted. But that may not necessarily be the case. All TVs have the ability to change the HDMI signal format to ensure compatibility with older devices. Often, TVs come with the HDMI ports set to the most compatible setting – HDMI 1.4 – so that customer service lines don’t have to deal with calls from new customers complaining that their old soundbar doesn’t work properly with their new TV. The downside is that your gaming console, for example, may not be sending a 120Hz signal to your TV because the HDMI port isn’t configured for it.

If you open the External Inputs menu (All Settings > Channels & Inputs > External Inputs), there is an HDMI Signal Format submenu that allows you to adjust this setting for each individual HDMI port. Generally, there are two settings: Standard Format (the HDMI 1.4 setting) and Enhanced Format (for HDMI 2.0), with Enhanced being the one you want, as it enables 4K/60Hz signals on that input. Some HDMI inputs may include a third option: depending on the year and model, it may display in either enhanced (advanced) or enhanced (4K120) format. This will (surprise, surprise) allow this port to accept signals from a gaming console or PC at 4K resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate. If you’re setting up an input for gaming, be sure to enable VRR as well.

There are some additional settings you can adjust to your personal taste, such as Motionflow (Sony’s motion interpolation) and CineMotion (for jerkiness). Sony’s Reality Creation is also a great feature to use for upscaling low-resolution content. But as long as you check and adjust the five settings listed above, your Sony TV will impress and dazzle for many years to come.