HOW TO... Choose the right size of TV

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="Tallyho"]
You need to also consider prolonged viewing periods as this is when you end up knowing whether or not you've made the right decision

[/quote]

Watched the whole of Cranford in one sitting on New Year's Day - so that's five hours or so - and no problems at all. Are you sure it's not just you...?

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"][quote user="Tallyho"]
You need to also consider prolonged viewing periods as this is when you end up knowing whether or not you've made the right decision

[/quote]

Watched the whole of Cranford in one sitting on New Year's Day - so that's five hours or so - and no problems at all. Are you sure it's not just you...?
[/quote]

I hope not, though watching 5 hours solid of Cranford would have just about finished me off

 

[Anonymous]

the graph is just somebodys personal opinion which is pretty much worthless, everybody has different eyes and different tvs the graph is pointless.

 

[Anonymous]

At the end of the day it's all relative though. My new 32" screen looked positively tiny in a large showroom sitting next to 40-50" screens, but when I got it home it seemed to fill and almost dominate the living room!

We sit about 3m away and I feel it's a good size for the room, and a good compromise between not being swamped by general TV like the news, but still having a good enough cinematic effect when watching films.

 

[Anonymous]

Viewing distance is a major part of getting a good picture, as a good guideline 3 times the screen size back for standard def. source material. This works well for most peoples setups. High def 720p , 1080i , 1080p can obviously be watched closer but most of us will for near future spend the majority of our time watching standard definition, so I would use that as the guide line. Quality of cables and how you calibrate your set can also make a huge difference. A mediocre set that is correctly connected and calibrated will often outperform an expensive one that is not. Keep it simple.. Get your size right, use the right cables and fine tune the brightness, contrast, colour, sharpness and most sets will perform very well (even the less expensive ones). Remember one thing....It can be difficult to get a good picture with even a "Top of the range" set if your sitting to close. So. unless your going to spend all your time watching high definition use standard definition as your guide and you will not go wrong. 3 Times The Screen Back.

 

[Anonymous]

i disagree my last televsion a loewe 32 planus lasted 10 years and i hope my next televsion lasts at least half that life, and what ive noticed in many what hifi reviews is that they seem to neglect the fact that people actually want tvs to last and as such want them to be fully equipped with the technologies that will like 1080p. and with 1080p u can sit a lot lot close before you notice such things as compression artifacts . and by having a graph which is probably over 10 years old purely based on sd just proves my points. the graph is not just out of date but misleading too (how many sd televisions are on sale now) and should be changed or at least noted that with its with sd only.

 

[Anonymous]

I tend to agree with the previous contributor, I have seen a number of graphs and formulae for working out the supposed optimum size, some info has suggested sitting only 2X the diagonal away! I have also had screens/tv's that have lasted 10yrs in which case I hope to be watching HD well within that time and therefore believe going to the larger end of the scale for each particular category, however, the caveat to this would be not at the expense of a quality image. My current dilemma is do I go for the 42" Pioneer Kuro(428) or 50" Panasonic 50PZ70 (assuming the latter can support 24fps). Bearing in mind that my viewing position is approx 4m away (I currently have a 32" Philips CRT!) or do I wait and see if Panasonic is going to release their new 46" model in the UK. Again that's assuming it will be any good and give us 3HDMI + 24fps support. At present I generally watch sport and films hence the preference for plasma. Bearing in mind most of my viewing is currently in SD and I do not as yet have a Hi Def DVD player or upscaler. Any thoughts.

 

[D.J.KRIME]

I have a 50"" and sit about 4m away and it looks fantastic. It all comes down to personal preferance, crickey a mate of mine has a 8ft projector screen in a 1 bed flat!

 

[Anonymous]

I sit just over 3 metres from my current Sony 28" CRT in my bedroom, i was looking at a 40" Sony LCD today and stood about 3 - 3.5 metres away from it, would i be foolish to get a TV that big? or does that sound right?

 

[Anonymous]

HI CLARE, SORRY TO BE A PAIN, BUT WHAT IS THE BEST 37" INCH LCD TV FOR MY XBOX 360 AND DISPLAYING NON HD BROADCASTS (I.E FROM IN BUILT FREEVIEW). DO I NEED 720P,1080I,1080P FOR THE BEST PICTURE? CAN U GIVE US THE MODEL AND MAKE PLEASE ,MANY THANKS( EMAIL IAN.WILLROG@GOOGLEMAIL.COM)

 

[laserman16]

[quote user="WAYNESTERS"]I sit just over 3 metres from my current Sony 28" CRT in my bedroom, i was looking at a 40" Sony LCD today and stood about 3 - 3.5 metres away from it, would i be foolish to get a TV that big? or does that sound right?[/quote]
We have a 40" Sony which we sit about 3-3.5 metres from and find it no problem. Before we purchased we took a tape measure into our local dealer and measured out this distance from the screen and spent about 45mins watching it whilst the dealer played DVDs, Sky and SD broadcasts for us. We got him to hook up the dvd player and HDMI lead we were thinking of buying at the same time so we knew exactly what we were getting. Took some of our own discs in as well, and the dealer was great. So find yourself a friendly dealer and put him through his paces.

 

[Anonymous]

Some recommendations from Panasonic/Pioneer on sitting distances.

http://www.plasma-lcd-facts.co.uk/facts/size/

Basically, they say around 3xdiagonal screen size for SD material., 2xdiagonal screen size for HD.

So a 42" TV would be around 7' for HD and 10' SD.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi

The distance provided, is it from the eyes or edge of the seating?

 

[Anonymous]

i have a studio flat so tv viewing is between 1.8 to 5 meters i have a 42" and dont get headaches when watching tv close

 

[frisnit]

This still confuses me though, as there's the 720/1080 aspect too! Given that I'm watching from a reasonable distance of 4m away (and will probably watch a variety of HD sources e.g. SkyHD and PS3 for Blu-ray and gaming), I originally thought I'd be best going for a 46 inch TV (this article seems to roughly agree), but varying sources seem to suggest I'd be wasting my time buying a 1080p set at that distance.

So would I be wasting my money on a 46 inch 1080p set, or indeed would I benefit from a 50 inch set (1080 or otherwise) instead?

 

[Anonymous]

My viewing distance from the TV will be 2.5 metres. I really want a 50 inch but I'm worried that it will be too big for that viewing distance. Or should I get a 42 inch instead?

 

[John Duncan]

I was watching a 42" from about 2.5m on Saturday, with SD content, and it looked rubbish, so it will depend primarily on how much HD content you have, or whether you will primarily watch an HD or upscaling player.

 

[Anonymous]

I will be watching a mixture of stuff. Mainly TV programs and some movies.

So, would a 42 or 50 inch be better from a 2.5m viewing distance?

Sounds like you are implying that a smaller set would look less "rubbish"???