Color calibrating a Samsung 55″ H7000 Series 7 UA55H7000

My trusty Sony Bravia died a sudden death on 23rd December – probably thanks to Eskom load-shedding or the recent lightning and spending the holidays without a TV was challenging enough, until I came across a special for a Samsung 55″ Series 7 Smart LED:

The out of the box colour calibration is shockingly bad and movies look like a cheap soapie so I needed some time to re-calibrate the TV to make it look perfect for both movies and Playstation 4 gaming:

• Display:
  • Picture Mode: Movie
  • Backlight: 12
  • Contrast: 97
  • Brightness: 46
  • Sharpness: 20
  • Colour: 38
  • Tint: 50/50
• Advanced Picture Settings:
  • Dynamic Contrast: Off
  • Black Tone: Off
  • Flesh Tone: 0
  • RGB Only: Off
  • Colour Space: Auto
  • White Balance: 10 and then set R/G/B to:
    • 10%: +50 +10 -50
    • 20%: +29 +8 -10
    • 30%: +18 +11 -2
    • 40%: +16 +11 +9
    • 50%: 0 +8 +7
    • 60%: 0 0 +4
    • 70%: -2 +1 +7
    • 80%: +2 0 +7
    • 90%: 0 -2 +5
    • 100%: +1 +1 +7
  • Gamma: -2
• Picture Options
  • Colour Tone: Warm2
  • Digital Clean: Off
  • MPEG Noise: Off
  • HDMI Black Level: Low
  • Film Mode: Off
  • Motion Plus: Custom
    • Blur Reduction: 3
    • Judder Reduction: 2
    • LED Clear Motion: Off
  • Cinema Black: Low

The above settings come close to what I had on my Sony and movies look more natural. The factory settings made anything look like it was filmed with a handy-cam and makes me wonder why TV manufacturers do not have a show-room default (for all the vibrant demos) and then the actual real-world configuration such as the one above.