Reference Levels

Xbox 360 ‘Reference Levels’

If you’ve got an Xbox 360, chances are you’ve seen the ‘Reference Levels’ setting in display settings. This is a really badly named setting since it’s all to do with the black level the console outputs. ‘Standard’ is the setting you want if you have a quality HDTV, since standard outputs the full range without clipping. If you have a Samsung TV, set the black level to ‘lower’. The ‘Expanded’ setting clips blacks below 16 to 0, and anything above 235 to 255. This is great if your TV doesn’t work properly with HDMI signals, or you’re using VGA. Otherwise it’s actually reducing the range of colour values the console is outputting. In short use ‘standard’ and tell your TV that the black levels are really black. Otherwise if you have a ‘cheaper’ TV use the ‘Expanded’ setting.

Posted by Dan in General, 2 comments