Optimum viewing distance means BIG SCREEN

[admin_exported]

I read somewhere that optimal viewing distance is 2x the width of the screen.  So that would mean that even with a 65" TV, you should be 3 meters away.  Now, I think most people's couch are about 3 meters (or 7.5ft) away from the TV.  So when people say that there would be a small market for 65" TVs they would be wrong!  

 

The reason why I am considering spending seemingly stupid amounts of money on a TV is that my couch will be 5 meters (or 12.5ft) away from the TV.  This means I need 65" + of screen size.  This would seem to indicate that I need to buy plasma which i simply cannot do given burn in issues (80% of what i watch at the moment is 4:3 SD material which I cannot stand to watch stretched or zoomed to fill the entire screen - so black bars constantly = burn in).  This leads me to another frustration - when I search the web, big TVs in the US are half the price - whats more many brands they sell for LCDs there go up to 57" for samsung and only 52" in the UK - The UK doesn't even sell the 65" Sharp LCD where the US sells 2 models one of which is selling for only USD4,000 or 2,000 pounds.

 

When will the TV companies realize there is a market for big screen LCD TVs in the UK - it is wrong to assume that people in London don't have the space as most people sit far enough away from the TV to justify 65" or more. 

 

[professorhat]

I believe most plasmas have built in protection against screen burn for those side bars (remember reading a post about it on here the other day). However, at those sizes, why not look at a projector - you can get some great projectors for not much money these days - it could even work out cheaper than a big plasma / LCD.

 

[Anonymous]

Catenaccio:

I read somewhere that optimal viewing distance is 2x the width of the screen. So that would mean that even with a 65" TV, you should be 3 meters away. Now, I think most people's couch are about 3 meters (or 7.5ft) away from the TV. So when people say that there would be a small market for 65" TVs they would be wrong!

Various charts show the optimum distance to be around 2x diagonal width, but this is for a 1080p screen showing HD material. And it is a guide for people with 20/20 vision.

It is not for watching old SD material, which should be watched from further afield. How far, depends upon how good the panel is at upscaling SD material. So you really need to compare viewing distances in the shops yourself, all our eyes are different.

(BTW. 3metres is approx. 10ft.)