HD Television screen sizes.

anotherbaldrick

We have an HD television, a 37" Panasonic. The thing is that when you watch programs being broadcast in HD they look little different to standard resolution. This puzzled me for a bit but I think I now know why. We are of the old school and have gradually worked our way up from 9" Marconi cathode ray tube sets in black and white to where we are today. We therefore do not live in our television set but it occupies a corner of the room where we sit as it the normal thing with all Old Frats. I have now found that if I get out of the chair and walk towards the television by the time I am 5ft from the screen everything is in fantastic detail. This led me to research on the web the recommended screen size to get HD resolution when sitting 15ft away from the set as we do!
The answer (wait for it ) to get the recommended THX experience is a 120" screen. I suppose if I stand it on the floor the room will take it but how do I get it through the door ?

Screen size to achieve THX recommended viewing angle
96.5"wide = 120.6" @ 4:3 diagonal or 110.7 @" 16:9 diagonal.

I suppose what I am saying is that there are others similar to us, thinking of changing their TV and wonder if it is worthwhile going to HD , unless you want a monster box it probably is not worth it.

Kurtis_Blue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vbd3E6tK2U&feature=related

liam8282

Or just move your chair a little closer to the tv, rather than 15ft away!

Colin_London

We had a 28" CRT before we bought our new Freeview HD LCD panel. I hought that a 40" would be more than sufficient at our viewing distance......

However, have since seen a calculator that states that we should have gone for a 46" at our viewing distance. Although you can see a difference between SD & HD material with the 40", the 46" would make this more obvious.

The lesson is, if you are in the market for a new TV, do your research first. To get the benefit from full HD you need to get a MUCH larger screen than your old SD TV.

lucylucky

I am so glad we did^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

liam8282

If you watched everyday tv with these viewing recommendations no doubt you would need to go to specsavers within a few weeks.

A point to add is, the THX recommendations are for recreating an "immersive cinematic experience", you would also need to buy 4 subs, and 7 extra surround sound speakers to complete this recommendation.

http://www.thx.com/consumer/home-entertainment/home-theater/hdtv-set-up/

For day to day viewing, I would say this calculator is more realistic (it works same for lcd):

http://www.dtvcity.com/plasmatv/plasmascreensize.html

It calculates a 50" screen for a 15ft viewing distance, which IMO is right.

I have a 42" and I sit about 10ft away, and can see in great detail on HD Channels and games etc.

anotherbaldrick

liam8282 wrote: »

If you watched everyday tv with these viewing recommendations no doubt you would need to go to specsavers within a few weeks.

A point to add is, the THX recommendations are for recreating an "immersive cinematic experience", you would also need to buy 4 subs, and 7 extra surround sound speakers to complete this recommendation.

http://www.thx.com/consumer/home-entertainment/home-theater/hdtv-set-up/

For day to day viewing, I would say this calculator is more realistic (it works same for lcd):

http://www.dtvcity.com/plasmatv/plasmascreensize.html

It calculates a 50" screen for a 15ft viewing distance, which IMO is right

I have a 42" and I sit about 10ft away, and can see in great detail on HD Channels and games etc.

Thank you for your replies, it does confirm my suspicion that although we went up a size, for us to have the full viewing benefit of HD we should have gone up twice the size . Wonder if anyone still does those magnifying things we used to fit in front of the tube and for 37"

moonrakerz

It really is quite simple - Father Ted summed it up perfectly:

If you wish to see detail in HD sit CLOSE (about 6ft for a 42") - if you watch SD at that distance you will see how awful SD really is !

PS: Sitting "too close" to the TV doesn't hurt your eyes !

Inactive

moonrakerz wrote: »

It really is quite simple - Father Ted summed it up perfectly:

If you wish to see detail in HD sit CLOSE (about 6ft for a 42") - if you watch SD at that distance you will see how awful SD really is !

PS: Sitting "too close" to the TV doesn't hurt your eyes !

Or sit at a comfortable distance and don't bother with HD, it is over rated.;)

brewerdave

Inactive wrote: »

Or sit at a comfortable distance and don't bother with HD, it is over rated.;)

Agreed -and overpriced :T

liam8282

The difference between HD and SD isn't overrated. There really is a big difference in picture quality. And it also depends what you are using it for.

For example if you don't have a HD device such as Sky, Virgin, PS3, etc. You won't be able to generate anything in HD so won't notice the difference.

The difference between HD & SD, is for example like the difference between receiving tv channels analogue or digital.

You don't really notice the difference until you compare them side by side.