How to manually reset the PlayStation 5 video settings

Maybe you’ve upgraded to a shiny new 4K TV. Perhaps you’re shifting HDMI ports on your TV or from TV to home theatre system. Whatever the reason, if you find that powering on your PlayStation 5 results in no picture but you can still hear audio, there’s a good chance you need to reset your PlayStation 5’s video settings.

But how exactly do you do that when you can’t see what’s on screen?! Thankfully, like PlayStation consoles of old, there’s a simple method for restoring your video settings that doesn’t necessitate manually remembering how to change settings on a non-existent display.

PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 had identical ways of resetting your console’s video settings: hold the power button down for 10 seconds. While the timing is different for the PlayStation 5, it’s functionally the same approach to enter Safe Mode.

• Step 1: Hold the PlayStation 5’s power button down for six seconds
• Step 2: Connect your DualSense controller via USB-C cable and press the PS button on the controller
• Step 3: Joystick or D-pad down to the second option, ‘Change Video Output’
• Step 4: Select the first option, ‘Change Resolution’
• Step 5: Select ‘OK’ on the next screen to restart your PS5
• Step 6: Select the video resolution that best matches your TV or ‘Automatic’ to let the PS5 determine this
• Step 7: If you opt to manually choose your resolution, the next screen may ask you to select your transfer rate from ‘Automatic’, ‘-1’ or ‘-2’ options

Most of the above steps are self-explanatory, but there are some parts that require additional information or offer other steps. For instance, entering Safe Mode also lets you perform these other tasks:

• Restart PS5
• Update system software
• Restore default settings
• Rebuild database
• Reset PS5
• Reset PS5 (by reinstalling system software)

Instead of option to change the resolution, you can also change the HDCP copy-protection mode on the PS5. For resolution changes, selecting ‘Automatic’ was best because it eliminates a step afterwards, which requires trial and error to get your PS5 displaying properly again.

For example, when we selected 2160p resolution for our 4K TV, we had to then select the transfer rate of 4K video, which is an uncommon term. The ‘Automatic’ and ‘-1’ settings didn’t work for us, which meant we had to wait for it to return to this screen before we could select the ‘-2’ setting that allowed us to continue.