Gaming monitors are optimized for response time and refresh rate, not color accuracy or viewing experience for video content. A few adjustments make a significant difference when switching from games to movies or streaming.
Picture Mode
Switch away from Game mode when watching content. Game mode disables the color processing that improves image quality for video. Use Cinema, Movie, or Standard mode — these are calibrated with more accurate gamma and color response.
Color Temperature
6500K (Warm) is the standard for video content. It matches the mastering environment used by studios. The Cool or cold presets look bright but are inaccurate and add a blue cast that gets tiring over long watches.
Contrast
For SDR content, keep contrast at the default or slightly below. Most monitors look fine at their factory contrast setting for video.
For HDR content, enable local dimming if your monitor supports it. Set it to High for HDR and Standard or Off for SDR — high local dimming in SDR causes haloing around bright UI elements.
Brightness
Calibrate based on your room:
- Dark room: 80–120 nits
- Normal room lighting: 150–200 nits
- Bright room: 200–300 nits
Movie content is mastered for a dark viewing environment. Watching in a dark room at appropriate brightness improves perceived contrast significantly.
Sharpness
Set to center (50%) or lower. Video content — especially streaming at compressed bitrates — does not benefit from artificial sharpness enhancement. It makes compression artifacts more visible, not less.
Noise Reduction / Dynamic Contrast / Auto Enhancement
Disable all of these for any streaming or movie content. Dynamic contrast in particular changes brightness in response to scene content — it looks like the screen is dimming and brightening at random during movies.
Response Time / Overdrive
Drop this to the lowest setting or Standard for media watching. Fast overdrive settings introduce overshoot artifacts that show as faint halos on moving edges in video — not visible at high frame rates but distracting at 24fps film content.
Aspect Ratio / Scaling
If you are watching 21:9 or 2.35:1 content on a 16:9 monitor, let the player software handle black bars rather than using the monitor's zoom or scaling settings. Monitor scaling often introduces slight blurring.
HDR for Streaming
Netflix, Disney+, and other services deliver HDR on PC through browsers and their desktop apps. For HDR to work correctly:
- Windows HDR needs to be enabled (Windows Settings → Display → HDR)
- Your monitor needs to genuinely support HDR (DisplayHDR 600+ for a reasonable experience)
- The streaming service needs HDR enabled in its quality settings
On most gaming monitors rated at DisplayHDR 400, HDR is technically present but the experience is not significantly better than SDR. Test both and use whichever looks better on your specific panel.
Community Media Presets
BestSettingsFor.com has community presets organized by purpose — filter by Media to see what other users of the same monitor have dialed in for movie watching and streaming.
