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KS8000 settings for gaming at 4k/HDR

Hostile_18

Banned
Let me know if you see any obvious crush. I wouldn’t mind comparing more, I’ve dialled in as far as I could with the games I tested but there may be more wiggle room. I accept a certain amount of crush (minimal) as it’s going to be a trade off as there is no TV that is perfect yet. Once I got those deep blacks and great hilights I just couldn’t go back.

I played around for hours yesterday and this morning with loads of games. Bearing in mind I'm strictly a novice so take my findings with a grain of salt lol.

I found the blacks don't actually get blacker at least on my set (IMO). The surround areas get brighter around the black so that does add to a perceived level of extra blackness. I found your settings worked well on most games but not as flawlessly (and arguably accurately) as with leaving dynamic contrast off. Final Fantasy 15 for example is far, far too white/bright.

I did make some alterations to my settings though. From Warm 2 to Warm 1. And sharpness gone completely (once I recognised it's effect in game I couldn't go back lol.

Here's my final settings I'm happy with, for anyone's reference :)

Backlight 8 (20 HDR)
Brightness 45
Contrast 100
Sharpness 0
Colour 50
Smart LED off (High HDR)
Colour Tone Warm 1
Gamma 0
Colour Space Auto
 
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Hostile_18

Banned
Or it may be MicroLED. Or (I've been revisiting Monty Python as it is now available in Netflix) something completely different. As of today, OLED is the champ, and still relatively expensive. But a couple of years more - who knows. Emissive displays are the future for sure, can't beat those infinite contrast levels. But what the eventual technology will be that replaces current LED-LCDs remains to be seen.

Lots of options thats for certain. Given I can't really go past 65 inchs unless I win the lottery I'm happy to have this tv for a long time. A 10-20% better picture to me probably isn't worth the upgrade cost alone. Unless the tv breaks of course, which is a different story! 😂
 

Dibils2k

Member
I played around for hours yesterday and this morning with loads of games. Bearing in mind I'm strictly a novice so take my findings with a grain of salt lol.

I found the blacks don't actually get blacker at least on my set (IMO). The surround areas get brighter around the black so that does add to a perceived level of extra blackness. I found your settings worked well on most games but not as flawlessly (and arguably accurately) as with leaving dynamic contrast off. Final Fantasy 15 for example is far, far too white/bright.

I did make some alterations to my settings though. From Warm 2 to Warm 1. And sharpness gone completely (once I recognised it's effect in game I couldn't go back lol.

Here's my final settings I'm happy with, for anyone's reference :)

Backlight 8 (20 HDR)
Brightness 45
Contrast 100
Sharpness 0
Colour 50
Smart LED off (High HDR)
Colour Tone Warm 1
Gamma 0
Colour Space Auto
like you i tried his settings, and like you in most games it just made things way too bright. for example in FIFA the real madrid shirt just turned to blob of white instead of being able to make out sponsor icons, crests etc
 
like you i tried his settings, and like you in most games it just made things way too bright. for example in FIFA the real madrid shirt just turned to blob of white instead of being able to make out sponsor icons, crests etc

Fifa has HDR sliders to fix that issue as I noticed it but dialed it in, I’m not so sure about FFXV though.
 
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carsar

Member
If you want brighter HDR -try HDR with HDR+ mode.
overall picture is brighter(like sony's HDR tonemapping) and looks more natural then DC.

HDR+ looks like left TV, movie mode looks like middle TV.

p.s. it seems like MS has broken HDR support again. If I set HDR in windows, I get 8-bit with dithering and RGB instead of true 10bit and 422.
Games display srgb color range instead of dci-p3.
As I understand -they did it for better hdr monitor support(which have display port for rgb +10bit), however TV users
 

Boss Man

Member
I turned my backlight way down for SDR content and it’s made a very positive difference for me. It takes getting used to because of the Walmart electronics section “Pop!” effect, but I went all the way to 0 and slowly brought it up (like 5 mins to let my eyes adjust before changing) until it didn’t look too dim. Turns out backlight of 2 is enough for my living room, and colors look a lot better now. I haven’t tried this with games yet though, it’s still on 4 for my PS4 input.

Also, anyone experiment with Smart LED for SDR content? I’m not sure why it shouldn’t be on.
 
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Panther84

Member
I turned my backlight way down for SDR content and it’s made a very positive difference for me. It takes getting used to because of the Walmart electronics section “Pop!” effect, but I went all the way to 0 and slowly brought it up (like 5 mins to let my eyes adjust before changing) until it didn’t look too dim. Turns out backlight of 2 is enough for my living room, and colors look a lot better now. I haven’t tried this with games yet though, it’s still on 4 for my PS4 input.

Also, anyone experiment with Smart LED for SDR content? I’m not sure why it shouldn’t be on.
For sdr I turned off smart led, I could notice the screen brighten and dim even on low.
 
For sdr I turned off smart led, I could notice the screen brighten and dim even on low.

The screen will still brighten and dim even when Smart LED is off, but the whole screen dims, not just certain sections. Overall this is less intrusive but at the cost of black levels depending on the scene. I totally notice it as well, but I appreciate darker blacks more than the uneven lighting bothers me.
 

Panther84

Member
The screen will still brighten and dim even when Smart LED is off, but the whole screen dims, not just certain sections. Overall this is less intrusive but at the cost of black levels depending on the scene. I totally notice it as well, but I appreciate darker blacks more than the uneven lighting bothers me.
Hmm what smart led setting do you use for sdr material?
 
Hmm what smart led setting do you use for sdr material?

I use Low for everything except HDR where I set it to High. I totally understand turning it off though. Depending on the content it can be obvious when a certain section of screen lights up. This is much more noticeable if you are viewing it from an angle as opposed to dead on.
 

Panther84

Member
Inspired by that video and all of the reasoned disagreement in it's comments, I decided to do some experimenting of my own last night using the One X. It turns out that my receiver also displays the format of incoming signals with greater detail than the TV does (which is a shame, btw) so I experimented with the various X settings and wanted to share my findings.

First, some groundwork. From what I understand, normal SDR games (i.e. not HDR) are rendered in 8-bit RGB format. Movies and other video sources are usually stored and broadcast in 8-bit YCC format. The amount of bits basically translates to the amount of colors that are available. You will also see notation for YCC for the amount of color data that is transmitted to the TV (aka color subsampling) ranging from 4:4:4 (best) to 4:2:0.

HDR content, both for games and movies (UHD Blu-ray) is all 10-bit YCC format. Due to bandwidth limitations for HDMI, these sources are 10-bit 4:2:0. By default, the Xbox will automatically switch from RGB 8-bit to YCC 4:2:0 10-bit when an HDR video or game is playing. Now for what the confusing Xbox settings do:

Color Space: This ONLY affects normal, SDR output. If you change this to 10-bit, it has zero effect on HDR games (which are always 10-bit by default). It simply converts your normal 8-bit RGB game signals to 10-bit YCC 4:2:0 before sending it to the display. This will not add any additional colors, and could in fact lead to loss of some color detail since you are not feeding the TV the default RGB signal. It's an extra conversion step that is totally unnecessary for most users. Why is it even there? Well, some TVs may have problems switching modes. You've probably noticed that when you go from SDR to HDR and vice-versa that the TV blanks for a second as it adjusts to the new format. Some TVs may have problems with this transition, so changing this setting to 10-bit would mean that the TV is receiving the 10-bit YCC 4:2:0 signal all the time. The KS8000 doesn't suffer from this issue so I believe the correct setting for the KS8000 is 8-bit (24 bits per pixel).

Allow YCC 4:2:2 checkbox: As I stated earlier, current HDR material is encoded for 10-bit YCC 4:2:0. Your Xbox won't magically add more color data, so why is there a 4:2:2 option? Again, this setting is for lesser TVs that have problem accepting a true HDR 10-bit YCC 4:2:0 signal. According to my tests, what actually happens when you check this box is that YCC output from the Xbox, including in HDR titles, instead of using 10-bit YCC 4:2:0, will instead use 8-bit 4:2:2. This represents a loss of colors and is unwanted. The KS8000 does not need this help so the checkbox should be cleared. (EDIT - It's also possible this could help if you have HDMI cables or other devices in the chain that are not performing adequately.) BTW, if you want to replicate my tests, be aware that the output format will not change on running HDR software. You'll need to quit completely out of any game using the Xbox quick menu and restart before changes will take effect.

TL;DR: I now believe the correct Xbox S/X settings for the KS8000 and related sets are Colorspace: 24 bits per pixel (8-bit) and UNcheck the Allow YCC 4:2:2 option.
Just wanted to say thank you for thoroughly explaining these settings. YouTube videos had me going in circles but you're explanation was straight and to the point.
 

Dibils2k

Member
The screen will still brighten and dim even when Smart LED is off, but the whole screen dims, not just certain sections. Overall this is less intrusive but at the cost of black levels depending on the scene. I totally notice it as well, but I appreciate darker blacks more than the uneven lighting bothers me.
i can let you guys know a way to turn this off but it requires going into service menu and not everyone is willing to do that
 

Dibils2k

Member
What are the pros and cons of doing that?

well the cons are i think it voids your warranty (i dont know how they know), you could change a wrong setting and brick the tv(hard to do if you follow my step by step), it resets all your settings, blacks wont be as inky as there is no dimming of backlight (unless you turn on Smart LED)

pros is you get rid of the annoying backlight fluctuation... and that was enough for me lol especially since i use subtitles alot and in dark scenes the change in brightness was unbearable. using Smart LED can eliminate it abit but that introduced alot of blooming which is also ugly
 
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Hostile_18

Banned
I've finally stopped messing about with my settings and found the perfect compromise for me between accurate and still having that pop. Been happy with the settings for weeks now;

Backlight 14 (20 HDR)
Colour 50
Brightness 45
Contrast 100
Sharpness 50
Smart LED High
Dynamic Contrast Off
Colour: Auto
Colour Space: Warm 2

Higher backlight takes away the Dim picture without having to add in Dynamic Contrast. Sharpness honestly adds so much that the occasional artefacts don't really matter. Textures look SO MUCH better with more detail, text looks clearer, the whole image looks strong. Smart LED makes the blacks stronger.

Honestly the picture looks amazing now to me while still been highly accurate to what the creators intended.
 
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kagigod

Neo Member
well the cons are i think it voids your warranty (i dont know how they know), you could change a wrong setting and brick the tv(hard to do if you follow my step by step), it resets all your settings, blacks wont be as inky as there is no dimming of backlight (unless you turn on Smart LED)

pros is you get rid of the annoying backlight fluctuation... and that was enough for me lol especially since i use subtitles alot and in dark scenes the change in brightness was unbearable. using Smart LED can eliminate it abit but that introduced alot of blooming which is also ugly

I have a question about the service menu: for PC mode, is it possible to change color from Native to Auto? There doesn't seem to be a way in the regular menu.

Thanks
 

Panther84

Member
I've finally stopped messing about with my settings and found the perfect compromise for me between accurate and still having that pop. Been happy with the settings for weeks now;

Backlight 14 (20 HDR)
Colour 50
Brightness 45
Contrast 100
Sharpness 50
Smart LED High
Dynamic Contrast Off
Colour: Auto
Colour Space: Warm 2

Higher backlight takes away the Dim picture without having to add in Dynamic Contrast. Sharpness honestly adds so much that the occasional artefacts don't really matter. Textures look SO MUCH better with more detail, text looks clearer, the whole image looks strong. Smart LED makes the blacks stronger.

Honestly the picture looks amazing now to me while still been highly accurate to what the creators intended.

Just realized these are pretty much rtings calibration settings but with higher backlight and sharpness. I found their settings the closest to a calibrated picture without the use of instruments.
 

A.Romero

Member
What do you guys use to clean your screens?

I've seen reports online saying that water or regular screen cleaner leave smudges due to the moth eye filter.
 
What do you guys use to clean your screens?

My advice is to not clean it unless it's a visible problem from a normal seated distance. Don't clean it as part of a routine or just because of dust or spots that you can only see when 2 ft from the screen or looking at it from an odd angle. The anti-glare coating is somewhat fragile.

If it does actually need cleaning, then very gently clean the dirty area only with as little pressure and as little liquid as possible. I have a monster screen cleaning kit I got with a TV some years ago and it still works really well, though I'm sure water and a generic microfiber would work. Just very gently and with very little liquid.
 

A.Romero

Member
My advice is to not clean it unless it's a visible problem from a normal seated distance. Don't clean it as part of a routine or just because of dust or spots that you can only see when 2 ft from the screen or looking at it from an odd angle. The anti-glare coating is somewhat fragile.

If it does actually need cleaning, then very gently clean the dirty area only with as little pressure and as little liquid as possible. I have a monster screen cleaning kit I got with a TV some years ago and it still works really well, though I'm sure water and a generic microfiber would work. Just very gently and with very little liquid.

Thanks for the info. I have waited since December without cleaning it but there are some spots I can see from seated position.

I hope it's not much to ask but what are the components of your screen cleaner? I have one too but I want to make sure the chemical composition is at least similar.
 

Melubas

Member
So I have an annoying problem: When I set my HDMI inputs to, for example, game mode (when you press up while hovering over the HDMI input in tv menu), it automatically switches the input type to HDMI (with the HDMI symbol). So I have to keep switching it every day. This is super annoying and I don't know how to fix it. It does it most with my Switch but it happens that it switches my PC from game mode to PC mode randomly, and my PS4 from game mode to regular HDMI mode. Anyone know how to fix this?
 

Hostile_18

Banned
Did we ever reach a consensus on if dynamic contrast should be used during HDR?

I ask because in bright day light scenes in The Witcher 3 and Spiderman it just appears too dim to what you would expect to see on a bright summers day with it off.
 
Did we ever reach a consensus on if dynamic contrast should be used during HDR?

I ask because in bright day light scenes in The Witcher 3 and Spiderman it just appears too dim to what you would expect to see on a bright summers day with it off.

Been rocking high dc with a lower contrast setting for months now and love it.
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
I think it's a matter of taste. I prefer to not use dynamic contrast. You can also alter Smart LED to something other than high in HDR if it's making the screen a bit too dim. Since the KS8000 only has edge lit dimming it relies on the Smart LED trick (dimming large parts of the picture) to have a better contrast but that obviously has some downsides of making some things too dark compared to newer TV's with FALD (full array local dimming). It's probably also a matter of a games specific HDR implementation.
 
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Panther84

Member
Did we ever reach a consensus on if dynamic contrast should be used during HDR?

I ask because in bright day light scenes in The Witcher 3 and Spiderman it just appears too dim to what you would expect to see on a bright summers day with it off.
It all depends on the game and how they use hdr. I fiddled around with many settings and I can see why dynamic contrast should be off but for me personally I settled with high dynamic contrast. Just do what your eyes like best, there will always be the great debate of dynamic contrast on/off for the ks8000.
 

nowhat

Member
Did we ever reach a consensus on if dynamic contrast should be used during HDR?

I ask because in bright day light scenes in The Witcher 3 and Spiderman it just appears too dim to what you would expect to see on a bright summers day with it off.
I keep it off. But WRT Witcher 3 and Spider-Man (respect the hyphen!), the HDR implementation is just not so stellar - compared to something like God of War they pale in comparison (quite literally even).
 

Hostile_18

Banned
Quite a range of answers. Been looking at a few scenes on Spider-Man (did it lol) and you do seem to lose detail if the dynamic contrast is on. Some scenes do look better with it off and others with it on but I think I'll stick with what was intended by developer (with it off) :).

Edit: my other concern with DC on is the lighting of sets seems over blown. Rooms that are dark at the far side of the room are fully lit up with DC. Obviously there are plenty of instances in games where a room is meant to be dark. Still at the end of the day I don't think you can go far wrong with any setting apart from high tbh.
 
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Dibils2k

Member
if you want picture to not be crushed in whites and blacks then you dont use DC

One thing i would want to know is, does turning off Smart LED in HDR mean the bright brights wont be able to reach as high. Smart LED is causing annoying flashing in the Fifa 19 menu and its annoying. HDR in Fifa overall looks poor, wish every game had a toggle to turn off HDR as some of the implementations are terrrible
 
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Panther84

Member
if you want picture to not be crushed in whites and blacks then you dont use DC

One thing i would want to know is, does turning off Smart LED in HDR mean the bright brights wont be able to reach as high. Smart LED is causing annoying flashing in the Fifa 19 menu and its annoying. HDR in Fifa overall looks poor, wish every game had a toggle to turn off HDR as some of the implementations are terrrible
I hear you man. Your settings I enjoy the most when I don't use dynamic contrast.
 
if you want picture to not be crushed in whites and blacks then you dont use DC

One thing i would want to know is, does turning off Smart LED in HDR mean the bright brights wont be able to reach as high. Smart LED is causing annoying flashing in the Fifa 19 menu and its annoying. HDR in Fifa overall looks poor, wish every game had a toggle to turn off HDR as some of the implementations are terrrible

You can counter crushed whites and blacks by dropping your contrast down to around 80-85
 

Hostile_18

Banned
Can anyone recommend a tv that will be a worthy upgrade to this in 2018? Any OLED's that won't break the bank? Got itchy feet after two years. 😊
 

Hostile_18

Banned
Richer sounds have it at £1499, which is pretty good. I got the b7 juneish for similar price after returning my ks7000. My god what an upgrade, you wont be disappointed if you get the lg.
Edit. £1489.

Wow ones I was looking at were 2,000-2300. Selling my KS8000 for 400, no idea it's worth just had enough with the build quality and issues (3 repairs in 2 years).

Think this is going to get me to pull the trigger.

Edit; just realised you might not be talking about the 65" version. I'll look now.
 
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Wow ones I was looking at were 2,000-2300. Selling my KS8000 for 400, no idea it's worth just had enough with the build quality and issues (3 repairs in 2 years).

Think this is going to get me to pull the trigger.

Edit; just realised you might not be talking about the 65" version. I'll look now.
Yeah sorry its the 55". Didnt realise you were looking at 65", I'm just a peasant on 55" :(
Edit. Where you get the sammy from? You could always try the mis-sold route due to lack of smart things dongle. Look at the samsung forums for info. Should be a thread titled ks refund or something similar.
 
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Hostile_18

Banned
Reliant Direct I think. Yeah I'm happy to move on, had it just over two years.

I've seen the LG OLED 65B7 for 1999.00 which I'm leaning to or LG OLED 65B8SLC for 2299. Would either be a big upgrade?

I'm using my own sound system btw.

Anything else in a similar price range for 65inch? Is it still the case LED wouldn't be close performance wise for that money? I know peak brightness is less on OLED?

Sorry for all the questions lol.
 
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Reliant Direct I think. Yeah I'm happy to move on, had it just over two years.

I've seen the LG OLED 65B7 for 1999.00 which I'm leaning to or LG OLED 65B8SLC for 2299. Would either be a big upgrade?

I'm using my own sound system btw.

Anything else in a similar price range for 65inch? Is it still the case LED wouldn't be close performance wise for that money? I know peak brightness is less on OLED?

Sorry for all the questions lol.
I think just going to oled over the ks range is a big upgrade full stop. With regards to brightness i find the oled plenty bright enough, but the contrast and lack of light bleed is the big differentiator. I'm same as you, as I have a separate sound system as wel, so no crappy tv speakers :) What setup you got?

Not sure on differences between b8 and b7, but b8 is newer so should get support for longer. It doesnt seem that much more for the newer set but would depend on what has changed or been upgraded to see if it is worth the extra. Would recommend having a look www.avforums.com for some reviews etc. As it is uk based.

After joining the oled club I would struggle to go back to led which probably answers the question regarding other led tvs in same price range.

When you do buy, I would recommend richersounds due to their after sales support, followed by john lewis.
 

Hostile_18

Banned
Thanks for the help guys. Saw there was one guy on the a.v forums had a really good offer on a 65 B8. Anyways I phoned up and got 300 off the website price. So got a 65" B8 for £2000! Minus the 400 I'm selling this one for so really £1600!
 
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