I didn’t get the most out of my Sony TV until I changed this HDMI 2.1 setting

• Yet another setting you have to be aware of
• Your HDMI cable is also important

There’s a lot that goes into setting up your smart TV. While you think it’d be as simple as taking it out of the box and plugging it in, there are many extra steps to take. One of the first things I do with any TV is tweak the picture settings. I have my TV in a bright living room opposite a window, which is far from an ideal position, but it’s the situation I find myself in. Once I finish doing that, I can start installing all the smart apps I plan to use, and it’s smooth sailing from there.

I have a Sony Bravia X90J in my living room, and I’ve been a huge fan of it after all these years. I picked it because I thought it’d be a good performer against glares, and it hasn’t let me down yet. I always had a game console plugged into it, but I never thought much about it until I received a software update that gave my TV a VRR mode. Silly me thought that it’d be enabled automatically, but there were some additional hurdles that I had to leap in order to get it running.

Yet another setting you have to be aware of

Thankfully, it’s easy to toggle on

Both your PS5 and Xbox Series X|S will tell you if your TV is capable of hitting the VRR and 120 FPS benchmarks, so you’ll know right away if you have a problem with your display. In the case of my Bravia, I was certain it could do both of those things, so it led me to do some digging, and that’s when I learned about the Enhanced HDMI formats.

This setting, which is sort of buried in your settings, has to be turned on to get some extra juice from your ports. By default, my HDMI settings were all set to standard. Toggling on Enhanced gave me access to both Dolby Vision and VRR. Strangely, it only lets me have one or the other, and since I run everything through my receiver, I had to get creative. What I ended up doing is setting my HDMI 3 setting to Dolby Vision and my HDMI 4 setting to VRR. HDMI 3 is what my receiver is plugged into, so this ensures I have Dolby Vision there, and my Xbox Series X is plugged into my TV’s HDMI 4 slot instead of a receiver. Since I’m already getting HDR10 regardless from my TV, I decided that it’s worthwhile to get VRR instead of Dolby Vision in this case.

It’s annoying that I can’t have both, but I guess it is what it is. What’s more annoying to me is that you have to turn on a specific setting to even get either of these features. TVs shouldn’t be sold advertising either VRR or Dolby Vision, and then not have it enabled out of the box. My Amazon Fire TV that I reviewed last year has fully functional Dolby Vision out of the box, so maybe manufacturers have started to get on board.

TVs should be relatively simple, and while they are now complex and capable of more than ever before, there’s still quite a bit of streamlining I’d like to see. There’s a nice onboarding that takes place when you plug your TV in for the first time, so I’d like to see that extend to the various settings that people might not be aware of.

Your HDMI cable is also important

You need to make sure you have the right one

If you’re trying to use VRR with your PS5 or Xbox Series X, there are some other things you need to be aware of outside of just turning on the Enhanced format. The extra step you need to take from here is ensuring that you have your console paired with an HDMI 2.1 cable. This is currently the only cable on the market that can use VRR with your console. If you’re still using the cable that was bundled with your console, then there’s nothing to be concerned about, and you’re all set. Things get murkier if you have mixed and matched your cables over the years and don’t know how to tell them apart. The good news is that your console will let you know if you don’t have the correct cable plugged in.

Another important step is making sure your cable is plugged into one of those Enhanced ports. You need to use an HDMI 2.1 cable in your TV’s HDMI 2.1 port. If you are mistakenly using an older HDMI 2.0 port, then you can’t reap the benefits of VRR. I know it sounds complicated, but this is the easy part, as your TV will have your ports labeled. While we’re here, you should make sure your audio receiver or soundbar is plugged into your TV’s eARC port, as that’s how you’ll get the best quality.