How to adjust the image quality on Xiaomi TV

Modern Xiaomi TVs running Android TV often delight users with their price-to-performance ratio. However, when removing the device from the box, many owners find the picture faded, overly bright or dim, and the colors look unnatural, because factory settings often focus on display in a noisy shopping hall, rather than for comfortable viewing at home.

Properly calibrated screen settings unlock the real potential of the matrix, whether it be IPS or VA. Properly setup eliminates digital noise, makes black really deep, and skin tones natural. In this article, we will discuss all the key aspects of the configuration of the video output of your Xiaomi Mi TV.

You don't need complex colorimetric calibration devices to get started, you need a remote control and an understanding of how you plan to use media content, whether it's watching cable TV, streaming in 4K, or running video games from a console, each scenario needs its own settings.

Basic image settings and mode selection

The first step in optimizing a picture is to choose the right display mode. By default, TVs often run in Bright or Standard mode, where maximum brightness is twisted and colors are oversaturated. First, you need to go to the settings menu by clicking the menu button on the remote, and select Settings → Image.

Inside this section, you'll find a list of preset profiles. For watching movies and TV shows in the evening, the ideal choice is Movie or Movie mode, which shifts the color temperature to the warm side, which reduces eye strain and makes the colors more realistic, closer to the standards of the studios.

If you watch TV in bright light during the day, you should switch to Standard or Normal mode, where the backlight is higher and the white balance is adjusted so that the picture does not lose contrast when sunlight hits the screen.

⚠️ Warning: Avoid Sport mode for everyday use, which artificially inflates sharpness and dynamic contrast, leading to rapid eye fatigue and artifacts on static scenes.

The Game Mode, or Game Mode, is particularly noteworthy, and should only be activated when game consoles are connected, and the main feature of this profile is that most post-processing algorithms are disabled to minimize input delay (Input Lag), and the image may seem less smooth, but the responsiveness of the controls will increase significantly.

Adjustment of brightness, contrast and illumination

Once you select a basic profile, you need to fine-tune the basic light transmission parameters. Many users confuse brightness and backlight, although in the context of LCD and LED arrays, these are different values. The Backlight parameter is responsible for the intensity of the light emitted by the LEDs behind the matrix.

Increasing the value of backlighting makes white more saturated, but at the same time “burns out” parts in bright areas and increases the consumption of electricity. For comfortable viewing in a darkened room, it is better to set the value of the backlight by 40-50%, and in bright daylight to raise to 80-90%.

The contrast setting determines the difference between the lightest and darkest areas of the image. Too high contrast levels lead to loss of detail in the lights (the clipping effect), when white objects merge into a single spot. The optimal value is in the range of 85-95 units, which allows you to preserve the texture of clouds or snow snowdrifts.

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To fine-tune contrast, find a test image with a white to gray gradient. Upgrade until the lightest bars merge with the white background, then turn the setting back a little.

The Brightness setting in Xiaomi TV menus, as with most digital hardware, actually adjusts the black level. By raising that, you lighten the black areas, making them gray. By lowering them, you make the black deeper, but you risk losing detail in the shadows. The perfect setting is when the black color is still black, but in the dark scenes, objects are still visible.

Customize color and shade for a realistic picture

Color rendering is what most affects the perception of the image. In the Settings menu → Image → Color tools are available to correct saturation and hue. Factory tuning often sins over saturation, which causes actors' faces to acquire an unnatural orange or reddish hue.

The Color/Saturation setting regulates the intensity of the colors. You should not aim for maximum values, because this leads to a fusion of close shades. For most use cases, a value of 50-55% is the optimal balance between vividness of the picture and realism.

The important parameter is "Color Temperature." In Warm mode, the image becomes yellowish, which is the D65 standard used in motion pictures. Cool mode adds blue, making the picture more sterile and sharp in appearance, but less natural to the human eye.

• 🎨 The shade (Hue/Tint) — This allows you to shift the balance between green and purple, and only use this setting if you see a clear bias in one direction on the test tables.
• 🌡️ Color Temperature – Choose Warm 2 for movies and Standard for news and sports to keep the tones natural.
• 👁️ Dynamic contrast is a function that automatically changes the brightness of the backlight depending on the content of the frame. HDR-It is better to disable the content so as not to distort the director’s plan.

Remember that color perception is subjective and depends on the lighting in the room. If an incandescent lamp is on in the room, the cold color temperature of the screen will cut the eye, creating dissonance.

Eliminating blur and adjusting movement

One of the common problems with modern LCD and OLED panels is blurring in dynamic scenes. Xiaomi TVs feature a set of motion smoothing algorithms often referred to as the "soap opera effect." These features interpolate frames to create artificial intermediate images.

In the settings menu, this section can be called "Motion Improvement," "MEMC," or "Clear Motion." For sports broadcasts, turning on this feature really helps make the ball move more clearly. However, for movies shot at 24 frames per second, active anti-aliasing destroys cinematicism, making the picture look like a cheap TV show.

⚠️ Warning: Excessively turning on motion smoothing functions can lead to artifacts around moving objects, so-called “haloes,” or image tears.

If you're an avid gamer, all motion enhancement features need to be forced off. They cause significant signal delay, making it impossible to control shooters and fighting games. For games, the priority is the matrix response rate, not smoothing.

Also worth paying attention to is the Noise Reduction setting, which smooths out compression artifacts that are often found in low-quality cable TV or low-bitrate streaming. For high-quality 4K content from Blu-ray discs or local files, it is better to minimize or turn off noise reduction so as not to lose fine texture details.

Specific configuration for HDR and SDR content

Xiaomi’s current TVs support a variety of dynamic range standards, including: HDR10, HLG And sometimes, Dolby Vision. It's important to understand that you have settings for SDR (regular television and HDR (Extended range) stored in separate profiles. By changing the settings in normal mode, you will not affect the display HDR-content.

When TV detects HDR-The signal automatically switches to the appropriate mode, at which point the tonal compression and brightness settings become available for the specific purpose of the signal. HDR. Since HDR-content is designed with the expectation of very high brightness, on TVs of the middle segment may be observed dimming of the picture.

In such cases, you can try to increase the brightness of the light in HDR-It's up to maximum, but you have to be careful about losing detail. HDR: «Brightness priority" or "Detail priority": "For dark rooms, it's better to prioritize parts to keep the atmosphere of the scene.

It’s worth noting that not all content labeled as HDR is quality. Cheap streaming services can stream pseudo-HDR that looks worse than a regular SDR. In such situations, the TV may not switch to extended-range mode automatically.

Calibration when connecting external devices (PC and Console)

When using a Xiaomi TV as a computer monitor or screen for PlayStation/Xbox, It's critical to choose the right type of entry. HDMI-port can be set the device type: "Automatically", "PC", "Game console" or «DVD/Blu-ray».

Selecting PC mode activates 4:4:4 subsample, making text on the screen clear and readable. Without this, fonts can look blurry and have colored halos. For consoles, it is important to include support for HDR and deep color, if the HDMI cable version allows.

Update frequency also plays a role. If your video card and cable HDMI 2.0 or 2.1 allow, set the frequency to 60 Hz or 120 Hz for maximum smoothness. HDMI-port enabled option «HDMI 2.0" or "Enhanced format" so that channel capacity is not limited.

⚠️ Warning: When connecting to a PC, make sure to check if the TV cuts the edge of the desktop, a feature called Overscan, which you turn off from the image menu by selecting the screen format "Exact" or "Size of screen».

For best results, it is also recommended to turn off all image "improvers" on the PC, leaving only the necessary color correction.The computer already sends the ready signal, and the excess processing will only add delay and artifacts.

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The correct input type (PC/Console) setting in the HDMI menu is more important than the overall image setting, as it changes the way video is processed at the hardware level.

Resetting settings and calibration on test tables

If you get confused in multiple settings and colors, or the picture becomes unnatural after experimentation, you can always go back to the original state.Resetting your image settings will not affect your installed apps or accounts, it will only return the screen settings to factory values.

To perform the reset, go to Settings → Device → Reset (or similar path depending on the version of Android TV) and select the option to reset the image settings. After that, the TV will restart, and you can start calibrating again using the values recommended in this article as a base.

For advanced users, there is a method of calibrating test images, and by downloading special images with color gradients, grids and tables onto a flash drive, you can visually assess whether details are lost in shadows or lights, which allows you to adjust the screen parameters as accurately as possible for a particular instance of the matrix.

Regularly checking the settings is useful because the arrays tend to burn out or change color over time, and once every six months, it makes sense to recheck the white balance and brightness so that the image remains reference.