It isn't science though, it is marketing.
Gut instinct coupled with 1st hand experience leads to my opinion that it is nonsense.
but it is radically different from most advice, including from the makers themselves.
Well they're hardly going to suggest you need to buy a smaller, cheaper TV are they?
Well they’re hardly going to suggest you need to buy a smaller, cheaper TV are they?
Well they kind of are, in the sense that people with smaller rooms will buy a smaller tv, based in a reduced viewing distance, if they follow the advice.
50″ Pioneer Plasma 507XD
My 42" Kuro HDMI circuit was fried by lightning strike. The insurers replaced it with a Samsung LED. Curiously, when I asked if I could buy back the Pioneer, it had errr disappeared. Best image on a flat screen. They lost money on every one and eventually sold up to Panasonic. They also still fetch very good money used.
I wonder if those charts are simply out of date. They've been doing the rounds for ages now and screen technology is constantly moving on. What is "worth it" today might not have been worth it several years ago?
"Worth it" is woolly anyway. Worth it how? Merely "can tell the difference between resolutions"? Assuming perfect vision?
Science apparently…
The first chart says that a 1080 65" is just about worth it. If you are 4m away, you need bigger than 65 or just stick with an old crt
The second link puts you just over 2.5 m from a 65" . Which is what I said originally.
Two totally different things.
@cromolyolly - The first chart is on the second link...
Apologies for not posting the link in the first place rather than an out of context image...
*MUST TRY HARDER*
I wonder if those charts are simply out of date.
Yeah, it says in the article, everybody has different perceptions in their eyes.
I think the 30-40 degree field of view thing is probably the best to go on.
Oh, its totally about viewing angle. Otherwise, move closer to your tv until you start to notice pixelation effects. Move back an inch. Presto!
That would put people of average visual acuity at a distance that will necessitate more eye/head movement so take in the whole screen than will be optimal, though.
You've got to ask yourself if you put a pallet down, which size would the general public tear each other apart over. That is the correct size even if you have to knock a wall down.
Remember the heady days when 42 was enough and getting your hands on a Blaupunkt was worth knocking a women out for, getting two was a measure of the man you are. How far we have come people fighting over the last packs of bog roll!
The good old days.....
Remember the heady days when ̶4̶2̶ Colour was enough and getting your hands on a ̶B̶l̶a̶u̶p̶u̶n̶k̶t̶ Furby/Cabbage Patch Doll/Tickle me Elmo was worth robbing someone for
Ftfy.
IIRC those charts were designed for viewers with average eyesight back in the day.
The OP didn't mention if he'll be viewing a lot of 4k but you do need to consider the screen size and viewing distance versus resolution. I've seen plenty of TV setups where the viewing position is too far away to benefit from the maximum resolution available.
My TV is a 14yr old 37" Sharp thingy with a 1024 x 720 resolution, so I'm suffering severe TV envy, but as above, it won't break and I'm reluctant just to chuck it on a tip.
(But the TV is hooked up to a massive 5.1 audio system 👍)
Living in Canada, the regular TV/cable channels are utter shite so no real incentive to "watch TV" and everything we watch is streamed. I'm curious as what sources people use for these huge 8k TVs?
Even though I have a nominal 300Mbps internet connection, I rarely get that and a much slower connection when connecting to a VPN. What sort of demand do these TVs have on bandwidth, or rather, how do they handle poor bandwidth? Presumably, they can't supply 8k quality when bandwidth is low...
I'm sat here watching a film on Sky 😂 in UHD.
My connection is showing a measly 7.65mbs at the moment
The Gadget show tonight - Channel 5, 7pm is testing 3 entry level short throw home cinema projectors.
Even though I have a nominal 300Mbps internet connection, I rarely get that and a much slower connection when connecting to a VPN. What sort of demand do these TVs have on bandwidth, or rather, how do they handle poor bandwidth? Presumably, they can’t supply 8k quality when bandwidth is low…
When you look at the suggested or minimum internet speeds for some of the streaming services, there is some serious compression happening. Which should affect picture quality, more so at higher res. Of course given the lack of content above HD, there is some serious upsampling happening which should affect picture quality moreso at higher res.
So.....
Kind of annoying that TVs went from 1080 to 4k, as above actually getting 4k over a stream is tricky, and the TV will usually have to compensate via some sort of scaling.
Why did they never do 1440 resolution TVs? I guess it's not a big enough jump in resolution for marketing purposes.
4k is double 1080, so it probably makes it a lot easier to neatly upscale 1080p than 1440 would.
Thanks all for the comments - who knew that TV size stirred such strong feelings! We came to terms with the living room mainly being used as a tv room long ago 🙂
I took the advice of one of the posters above and did some trig to work out how close to sit to my existing 50 inch telly to simulate the field of view of a 65 and 70 inch tv..... my conclusion was that both would be fine!
It is still to be discussed with my wife, but I suspect we'll go with the old adage of go large or go home. For what it's worth we mainly watch netflix, amazon, or iplayer - a mix of 1080p and 4k.
About 1.5 x the diagonal size is a good rule of thumb for viewing distance. About half that for 4k
Jeepers - so according to that I should be 5ft away from mine - thats ridiculous. My eyesight is not fabulous and I can see it perfectly fine from 3 times that distance. I would need to wear my reading glasses sitting that close and couldn't see the whole screen properly without moving my head
TJ, we've known for years that you have Tunnel Vision.
My TV is an old skool, 1080p LCD..37 inch I think.
My next TV, will have to be a bit bigger than that but will be OLED even if that means a slightly compromising on screen size, something aroud 50 inch will be planty big enough for me.
My eyesight is not fabulous and I can see it perfectly fine from 3 times that distance
I can see my neighbours 75" just fine from my living room. It's not a good viewing distance though. Which reminds me, I must remember to pop a note in reminding him to close the curtains when he's watching *those* films.
would need to wear my reading glasses sitting that close
You need a new prescription, or a new measuring tape. Reader vision is less than 18".
couldn’t see the whole screen properly without moving my head
Either Cougar is right (f me, did I just say that?) and your visual field is unusually narrow, or you haven't tried it. Try the math for a 30° angle for regular tv, 40° for a movie. You should be able to take in the whole screen without much eye movement.
You just might like it.
Thanks all for the comments – who knew that TV size stirred such strong feelings!
New here? Coffee, beer, brewdog, 29ers, LLS, gravel, downcountry, tyres. Wars have been fought for less on here.
Reader vision is less than 18″.
It really isn't you know. OK 5ft is an exaggeration but the older you get the the more you need readers even at distances over 18" I even had a pair specially made for reading at 30" for work
or you haven’t tried it.
I did actually try it - its far too close for comfort both eyestrain and head / eye movements
Utterly absurd
Utterly absurd
Wait, is it a PAL crt?
I sit 3-3.5m away from a 55″ UHD and can easily tell the difference to 1080p
you're probably not seeing a difference in resolution. When your streaming service of choice gives you a full hd feed with about 5mbps of data. That's no-where near enough data to push a clean full hd picture, so its full of artifacts - to put it into perspective a blu-ray pushing full hd is somewhere around 50mbps of data.
When you ask for uhd, your streaming service ups the pipe to significantly more - around 20mbps. a lot of that increase in bandwidth is the extra pixels, but there's also a lot more picture data there generally - so the artifacts are basically 1/4 the size, and much less noticable.
tl:dr. put a 4k bluray on, watch it, then force your player to output 1080p and watch a bit more, its pretty much impossible to tell the difference.
I actually agree with TJ. Bloody hell
How one sorts the feng shui of a massive TV and a wood burner with two focal points in the room has not come up yet. I am disappointed standards have slipped so far.
The old french clock artist 🙂
Worked at a customers house huge tv about 4 foot accross but placed over the fireplace,and about 5 foot up in the air, problem was settee was about 6 foot from tv, so after 10 mins watching it and chatting a severe crick in neck.
Tickle me Elmo
It's good to go and buy as many as possible then burn them. Just to deny some snivelling spoilt brats and potentially cause a golden moment like the following:
So worth it, it puts a bounce in your step. Merry Christmas!
Another 42” Panasonic plasma here, mine is 11 years old as well. Been looking at a 48” LG Oled but not sure if the picture would be any better than the panny on a normal HD signal when set up at home. By all accounts-internet advice anyway-the last plasmas made are almost as good as Oled.
at the start of the year i relagated my 50" pannasonic plasma which is about 9 years old(one of the very last ones) to the bedroom and got a 65" pannasonic OLED. the OLED is better on normal HD content, some of that might be the fact i'm looking at a bigger screen though, but not sure its worth the extra cost just for that and a small increase in size. what makes it worth it is 4K and HDR content.
currently using my small second living room while doing work in the main one so am sat about 2m away, got a feeling the 65" is going to feel to small when i move back into the main room in a couple of weeks and go back to sitting 3m away.
I like the solid angle screen test. Stick your arm out straight, raise thumb and lower pinky. The height of the screen should be about that distance for cinema viewing. Watching BBC iPlayer streamed from 4K Apple TV on the projector as I type.
No idea how big my telly is, my mate gave it to me after mine died. I also have it mounted on the wall at a height that most of you would have kittens about.
I'd rather have a smaller (55") TV with better processing and pay for it to be professionally calibrated than just go for a massive screen. The amount of over-processing and nonsense settings I see on friends' setups makes decent films look like they're budget daytime tv productions, especially when watching HDR content.
If I want to watch something on a stupidly big screen I'll watch it on my Oculus Quest 2.
I like the solid angle screen test. Stick your arm out straight, raise thumb and lower pinky.
that gives a very differnt distance to the poster above whose method would have me under 2 m from my telly - that puts me about 3m away which is where I sit
The amount of over-processing and nonsense settings I see on friends’ setups makes decent films look like they’re budget daytime tv productions, especially when watching HDR content.
This
The amount of over-processing and nonsense settings I see on friends’ setups
First thing I did was turn off all the crap like "sharpening." Annoyingly, I had to do it multiple times over every time it changed modes (then accidentally hit reset and had to do it all again).
Why do they ship TVs like this? It looks terrible.
I also have it mounted on the wall at a height that most of you would have kittens about.
I won't mount mine on the wall - there is no way I am going near our wall with a drill, not with £125 a roll wallpaper on it. :-O
#humblebrag
that gives a very differnt distance to the poster above whose method would have me under 2 m from my telly
Ain't me, guv, it's science. And these guys. https://www.smpte.org/
Chacun a son gout. I'm sure your eyesight plays a role. And what you are used to. I have no problems sitting at the 40° distance and it's great for an immersive film experience. I also set up my surround sound with that as the sweet spot.
You haven't humblebragged about your 60"4k tv yet!
Why do they ship TVs like this? It looks terrible.
Because it looks 'good' with the content the shops play on the display model. And the retina sear brightness and contrast settings can deal with the bright fluorescent lighting.
Except, they generally have a separate "store" setting for that.
You haven’t humblebragged about your 60″4k tv yet!
thats because I have 42" tv I got secondhand - like I buy most of my consumer goods. I don't even know what definition or anything else it is and I don't care. Now thats a proper humblebrag 🙂
reduce, reuse, recycle 🙂
