[HN Gopher] TV Size-to-Distance Calculator and Science
___________________________________________________________________
TV Size-to-Distance Calculator and Science
Author : nkjoep
Score : 95 points
Date : 2021-02-07 22:32 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rtings.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rtings.com)
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| Quick point of note regarding TV resolution requirements:
|
| I've got an old Samsung 45" screen that's only 1080p. Usually
| films and other media look great on it and I was pretty convinced
| I didn't need a higher resolution.
|
| Last night I tried playing back some filmed-in 4k drone footage
| which ended up looking impressively awful. It was sharp, but lots
| of pixel level brightness noise changing from frame to frame,
| which looked grainy and was extremely distracting.
|
| I can only assume it's the way VLC or my graphics card are
| downsampling to display it at 1080, but it was annoying enough
| I'm now thinking of a new 4k TV at some point in the future.
|
| TLDR: Your source media might make a big difference.
| mercora wrote:
| when reading about these considerations i always wonder if it
| really matters at which point i could discern single pixels from
| one another. i think there is more to it when we are talking
| about what we can see in the image. maybe we wont be able to
| benefit in the way that we see less of the pixel raster but i
| feel like having more details will benefit image clarity non the
| less. even if it is impossible to effectively discern the pixels
| the combination of them might still affect what i can see....
| zokier wrote:
| > The chart also shows that a 4k upgrade is not worth it if you
| are sitting more than 6' away and have a 50" TV. Your eyes won't
| be able to tell the difference.
|
| Doesn't the chart say exact opposite, the threshold for 50" 1080p
| is 6.3', so if your view distance is less than that (like 6.0')
| then 4k is worth it?
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| This has been on my mind a lot with the whole '4k gaming' push
| from the most recent consoles.
|
| 4k gaming just doesn't make sense for a lot of people. I have a
| 55" tv and sit 8.5' away from it. This TV is huge and dominates
| the room. I cannot reasonably have a larger tv or sit closer
| without ruining the usability of my livingroom.
|
| Most people simply sit too far away from to small of a TV to be
| able to tell 4k from 1080p. When people protest they can
| absolutely see a difference, what they're usually seeing is
| better color and contrast of newer tvs, not resolution.
|
| Even when it comes to PC gaming, 4k is often not all it's cracked
| up to be. According to OSHA, most people sit about 30" away from
| their monitor. This lines up nicely with the visual acuity
| distance for a 27" 1440p monitor. To reach the visual acuity
| limit for 4k, you'd have to sit 20" away. That's a lot closer
| than most people are comfortable with. Even a 32" model only
| expands it out to 25". That's within the realm of plausibility
| but another thing to keep in mind is viewing angles. The main
| theatre certification companies recommend anywhere from a 35-55
| degree viewing angle. The visual acuity distance for 4k puts you
| at a whopping 60 degrees which is considered high for just
| consuming content, much less playing a game where you're expected
| to see everything happening on screen and react to it.
|
| TLDR: The hype of 4k for gaming is mostly just that. Most people
| would be far better served going for lower resolutions and higher
| refresh rates. The only people who really benefit from 4k are
| using it for productivity, coding, video editing, etc.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > a whopping 60 degrees which is considered high for just
| consuming content, much less playing a game where you're
| expected to see everything happening on screen and react to it.
|
| Consider that the game is probably rendering at least 90
| degrees to squish down into that 60.
|
| Personally I sit back for content but I love to sit close for
| games, with the FOV set to max. The really important stuff fits
| in the middle of the screen, and outside of the middle I get
| near-peripheral vision instead of bezel and wall.
| ants_a wrote:
| 32" 4k monitor at a normal viewing distance (~30" seems like a
| good estimate without bringing out a measuring tape) is pretty
| comfortable for work at 100% scaling. At that distance 1080p
| video looks significantly worse when compared to 4k, although a
| large chunk of that may be due to bitrate.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Right, va for 1080p is something like 3.5' for a 24" monitor.
| Most people will be able to see a diff between 4k and 1080p,
| but I'd imagine 4k vs 1440p would be negligible.
| mankyd wrote:
| Recently upgraded from a 1080p 40" TV to a 4k 55". According to
| this, at ~12ft away, we should have bought an 85" TV?!
|
| That's crazy and dumb. Or rather, a misrepesentation.
|
| This article states that we _could_ get away with up to an 85"
| TV. It is only at that limit that we'd start to see
| "imperfections" as they call it.
|
| I don't want to see imperfections. I also don't need a TV that
| will take up my whole field of view while bathing me in light.
|
| The 55" we have already feels quite large, much sharper, and is
| brighter.
|
| This article may be interesting from an academic point, but
| people shouldn't misconstrue this to think they should be getting
| a bigger TV. Get a TV that fits your space and feels comfortable.
| Bigger is not always equal to better.
| hundchenkatze wrote:
| I think it's useful outside of an academic thought experiment.
| It hasn't encouraged me to get a bigger tv, quite the opposite.
| My takeaway isn't that I need a bigger tv, it's that I can get
| by with a smaller screen and lower resolution.
| mankyd wrote:
| Except that at the very top is a slider that gives you a
| recommendation of screen distance to screen size. I think a
| lot of folks will encounter this and stop there.
| hundchenkatze wrote:
| Maybe, but the article is still useful for people that read
| it in it's entirety.
| simlevesque wrote:
| You missed the point.
| mankyd wrote:
| What is the point then? I feel as though lots of people will
| read this and say "My couch is 10+ feet from my tv. This
| states that I _need_ to get a giant tv".
| aidenn0 wrote:
| That exact question is addressed almost word-for-word in
| TFA:
|
| You are probably now thinking something along the lines of
| "My couch is 10' away from my TV, which according to the
| chart means I need a 75 inch TV. This is insane!". Yes, if
| you want to take advantage of the full capacity of higher
| resolutions, this is the ideal size. This brings us to the
| main limitation for most people: the budget.
|
| The price of a TV is exponential to its size, as shown in
| the chart. The chart shows the price range of 2016 LED TVs
| by their size. As you can see, the jump to a 70 inch TV is
| quite a big one. For example, check out the price of our
| picks for the best 70"-75" TVs and the best 80-82-85" TVs.
| Conclusion
|
| We recommend an angle of vision of 30 degrees for a mixed
| usage. In general, we also recommend getting a 4k TV since
| 1080p choices have become quite limited and lack modern
| features such as HDR. To easily find out what size you
| should buy, you can divide your TV viewing distance (in
| inches) by 1.6 (or use our TV size calculator above) which
| roughly equals to a 30 degrees angle. If the best size is
| outside your budget, just get the biggest TV you can
| afford.
| mankyd wrote:
| Except that, though I can afford a bigger tv than 55" tv,
| I still am not going to buy one. And buying the 85" they
| recommend is _enormous_. It might make for a cinematic
| experience, but it poses additional problems beyond
| price:
|
| 1) You can never sit closer to the TV. I always sit ~12'
| from my TV, but walking by the tv at close range (between
| two doors on either side) is going to be jarring for
| passers-by. If I have friends over for a movie night, we
| would have to huddle at the far end of the room.
|
| 2) It doesn't fit the space, both physically and design
| wise. I couldn't put that big a tv in the space if I
| wanted. Even if I did, it's going to be ugly as sin
| unless the space is very specifically designed for cinema
| experiences.
|
| 3) That's going to be an obnoxious way to watch non-
| cinema content.
|
| Having a TV at the other end of a 12 foot room is not
| going to be an uncommon affair. Having a room where an
| 85" screen is appropriate is another matter all together.
|
| I feel like the article should have a big disclaimer at
| the top "This is the maximum size you can enjoy, not the
| maximum size you should necessarily buy".
| pessimizer wrote:
| It really isn't. This quote is just saying that you
| probably can't afford the size of TV they're going to
| recommend, so you should "just get the biggest TV you can
| afford."
| throw55 wrote:
| He didn't. His response is that the metric 'get as big tv as
| possible to a) fit 40% of your vision b) not waste money on
| the level of detail your eye won't perceive' is wrong.
|
| Analogy - it's like saying that you should get a car that can
| accelerate 0-60 in 5s. Maybe you don't care about
| acceleration and prefer 10 cupholders.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I totally don't understand what this chart is trying to expose.
| What is meant by the distance here?
| iso1631 wrote:
| Distance from eyeball to screen.
|
| There are 2 things this page shows, one is the size of screen
| you need relative on the distance you sit from it based on how
| much of your view you want it to fill, the other is what
| resolution the screen needs to be before you have no
| improvement.
|
| First decide what you want
|
| 30 degrees means you'll be able to focus on the picture, but it
| will fill your focus area, that's recomended by SMTPE
|
| 40 degrees is the "immersive" portfolio recommended by THX, you
| may lose some detail at the edge of the screen depending where
| you're looking.
|
| Then it's just a bit of trig to work out the size you need for
| the distance you are sitting (or vice versa), to match your
| preferred "fullness"
|
| Second is whether you'll benefit from more pixels. They base
| this on having 20/20 vision and your optical resolution being 1
| arc-minute (1/60th of a degree). For comparison the moon is
| about 30 arc minutues wide.
|
| Seems reasonable to me, if I take a picture of the moon and
| shrink it to 30px by 30px, I feel it's on par with what I can
| see in real life.
|
| Then it's just more trig to work out how many pixels you need
| for a given size/distance combination. A 20" screen that's 10
| feet away, you won't be able to tell the difference between SD
| and HD. A 40 inch monitor 2 feet away and you'll benefit from
| going higher than 4k. (This assumes a 16:9 aspect ratio).
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Except they are probably wrong...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26088890
| iso1631 wrote:
| Well they're quoting a definition of "20/20" vision from a
| researched article on wikipedia
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity
|
| Which states "At 6 metres or 20 feet, a human eye with that
| performance is able to separate contours that are
| approximately 1.75 mm apart"
|
| Which I assume comes out at 1/60th of a degree.
|
| You could argue that measurement is in fact wrong, or that
| there's something happening subconciously, but their point
| is that based on accepted viewpoints that someone with
| 20/20 can't determine the difference between two contours
| 1mm apart from 6 metres, you don't need to display them.
|
| NHK by the way put a lot of money into developing 8k
| technologies, I saw it about 10 years ago. I was more
| impressed with the 120fps stuff than the higher resolution.
| YMMV.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Why would they use a 20/20 vision as an example, when the
| average is much better ?
|
| Do you think it just a coincidence that the best 35mm
| film also seems to top out around '12k' ?
|
| I'm also much more impressed by HDR than resolutions
| better than FullHD, but still...
| iso1631 wrote:
| When retina came out, Jobs said that you needed 300ppi at
| 12 inches. Soneira said it was 477ppi.
|
| 1 inch at 12 inches is 4.76 degrees, so Jobs is 63 pixels
| per degree. Soneira is 100 pixels per degree.
|
| Assuming a 16:9 display:
|
| If you are at 1.5m/60 inch from a 50 inch display, to
| meet Jobs's criteria you need 1455 lines -- so 4k (2160
| lines). You need 2309 lines for Soneira's criteria. You
| get 40 degree coverage which is the upper bounds of THX.
|
| If you are at 1.7m/66" from a 50" display, to meet Jobs's
| criteria you need 1326 lines -- so 4k (2160 lines). You
| need 2104 lines for Soneira's criteria. You get 36 degree
| coverage width wise which is the "perfect" bounds of THX.
|
| If you are at 2m/80" from a 50" display, to meet Jobs's
| criteria you need 1098 lines -- so 1080p is fine. You
| need 1742 lines for Soneira. You get 30 degree coverage.
|
| If you are at 3m/120" from a 50" display, to meet Jobs's
| criteria you need 735 lines -- so 1080p is fine. You need
| 1166 lines for Soneira, so you're only just out of that
| criteria. You get 20 degree coverage.
|
| If you are 30cm/12" from a 7.4" display, you need 1083
| lines (Jobs) and 1719 (Soneira), and get 30 degree
| coverage.
|
| My own TV is c. 3m and 42", which I don't think is
| abnormally small from what people really have for living
| room TVs. That's 17 degrees, and needs 981 lines for
| Soneira's requirement, which 1080p does just fine.
|
| If you have a large screen or sit very close to it (so 30
| degrees), and are looking for a better-than-retina
| display, then sure, 4k is for you. For a home theatre
| where you're aiming for 36 degrees then certainly you'll
| want 4k
|
| For the average person with an average tv though, I don't
| see the extra pixels of 4k being that important compared
| with a good viewing position, good lighting, good setup
| of the screen
|
| Like the megapixel wars in cameras a decade ago, we're at
| the point where more pixels doesn't necessarily mean
| better. 4k, sure, it wouldn't be my prime consideration,
| but as almost all new TVs of living room size are 4k it's
| a given. I'd rather a 1080 TV with 6 HDMI inputs than a
| 4k TV with two inputs though.
|
| I had the misfortune of watching the final season of game
| of thrones on some streaming platform from Sky (UK), at
| about 4 or 5mbit. It was awful, and that was nothing to
| do with the resolution.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I don't know who Soneira is and I trust NHK's research
| more than Jobs' marketing (especially since he seems to
| use the same flawed arcminute criteria), especially where
| TVs are concerned.
|
| See also : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26090704
|
| And if it wasn't clear the first time, I agree that more
| pixels gets into diminishing returns.
| leoc wrote:
| >Do you think it just a coincidence that the best 35mm
| film also seems to top out around '12k' ?
|
| Part of the reason (AFAIK; not an expert) for the very
| high quality of 35mm is that it leaves enough headroom to
| crop the filmed image significantly without a noticeable
| (or at least an obtrusive) drop in image quality. That
| provided the very useful ability to apply some "analogue
| digital zoom" in post-production.
| SloopJon wrote:
| As for wasting your money on a 4K set vs. a full HD set, it
| almost isn't even a choice anymore. The "budget" 4K
| recommendation at RTINGS is about $500.
|
| Also, although it is mentioned in the text, keep in mind that not
| all content is high-bitrate 4K:
|
| Cable TV? Probably compressed 1080p or 720p, depending on the
| channel. If it's Comcast/Xfinity, they may even squeeze three
| channels into the bandwidth of two.
|
| Streaming? Compressed 1080p, with the occasional 4K.
|
| Old (but not that old) Blu-rays? 1080p.
|
| If you're sitting in your leather club chair, Oppo UHD Blu-ray
| remote in one hand and a glass of '92 Screaming Eagle Cabernet in
| the other, then sure--slide your chair into the sweet spot at the
| optimal distance per these charts.
|
| Don't get me wrong: when I replace my ten year-old Sony, it's
| going to be with the biggest LG CX or C1 OLED my wife lets me
| get. Just realize that trigonometry isn't the whole story.
| cainxinth wrote:
| There's still good, old fashioned antennas that deliver much
| less compressed video than cable.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| About a week ago I heard about NextGen TV for the first time
| (ASTC 3.0). They're starting to roll out across the country
| will bring 4k content over the air. Not sure how compressed
| it will be, but I remember how revolutionary it was to switch
| to the digital OTA channels with a converter box many years
| ago.
|
| www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/watch-free-4k-tv-broadcasts-
| with-an-antenna-nextgen-tv-comes-to-more-cities-
| in-2021-atsc-3-0/
| elchief wrote:
| moves couch closer to tv...
|
| still waiting for ATSC 3.0, and the darn NFL and any Canadian
| broadcaster to show games in 4K
| willis936 wrote:
| I recently tried to appropriately set the FOV of first person
| shooters to match the FOV that the screen actually took up. I
| found that most games would not let me set my FOV that low, even
| when I was 1-2 feet away from a 24" monitor.
|
| It seems strange that it is given that people want a wider FOV
| than is natural. It gives a competitive advantage in the majority
| of scenarios, but I'm surprised more people don't stop and think
| "this looks off".
| rozab wrote:
| Why would you want to simulate the experience of looking
| through a small window from a few feet away?
| willis936 wrote:
| To use a gamer buzzword: immersion.
|
| I usually play on PC. When I play games on my sofa (very
| narrow real life FOV) the issue is so pronounced that I feel
| like I'm on a treadmill. It pulls me out of the experience so
| much that I'd rather just play a different type of game.
| hammock wrote:
| VR goggles. Turn 1-2 feet away into 1-2 inches away
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The wider FOV makes me nauseous. Setting the FOV as narrow as
| possible lets me play FPS games. It took me a while to figure
| out why some games made me sick and others didn't. Turned out
| to be FOV.
| spathi_fwiffo wrote:
| Interesting. I think I have the opposite issue. I try to get
| FOV in to 85 - 110 range. Otherwise i feel sick (or i need to
| sit far back from the monitor, which i can't really do on
| PC).
| jdashg wrote:
| I know that the value here is that it saves people effort to pre-
| digest this knowledge, but oh man this is the stuff that high
| school math definitely taught us to solve.
|
| Heck, maybe this makes it a useful interview question scenario?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _oh man this is the stuff that high school math definitely
| taught us to solve_
|
| And if only it taught us on problems like this, people would be
| more interested in and able to apply this knowledge.
| iso1631 wrote:
| The key bits of information you don't have by default are
|
| 1) The field of view that's recommended - 30 degrees (SMPTE) or
| 40 degrees (THX)
|
| 2) The angular resolution of a 20/20 eyeball (1/60th of a
| degree)
|
| The rest of it you can calculate yourself from basic trig.
| driverdan wrote:
| > Heck, maybe this makes it a useful interview question
| scenario?
|
| Only if the job requires making these types of calculations.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I got a mount that swings down from the wall. If you are going
| for a 40-degree view angle making the TV a foot closer is the
| same as making it 10" larger. It also has the advantage of going
| above furniture when not in use, but down at eye-level to the
| couch when in use.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I guess I need a 90" TV now.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| When it comes to visual acuity for TV watching, doing
| calculations while basing yourself on their suggested '20/20
| vision'=1/60 of a degree, is probably wrong (on average) :
|
| https://www.homecinemaguru.com/can-we-see-4kuhd-on-a-normal-...
|
| (The real limit seems only to start around 310 pixels/degree !)
| iso1631 wrote:
| That would suggest with the naked eye you could look at the
| moon and pick out features about 20km wide
|
| https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/how-to-see-lunar-crate...
|
| "At 0.8' (arcminutes) across, the crater alone hovers at the
| naked-eye limit"
|
| Which seems to back the the c. 1/60th idea.
|
| Judging the resolution of an eye is a subjective process, not
| least beacuse of the relative sensititivty and density of rods
| and cones at different parts of the eye.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Exactly, 'subjective', the criteria the NHK used is 'sense of
| realness', not 'being able to consciously pick out features'.
| PaulAJ wrote:
| Unfortunately this exhibits the usual confusion between pixel
| pitch and resolution, which makes it completely wrong.
|
| > Studies show that someone with 20/20 vision (or 6/6 in Europe)
| can distinguish something 1/60 of a degree apart. This means 60
| pixels per degree [...]
|
| NOOOOO!
|
| "Resolution" is defined as the closest distance two dots can be
| while still appearing as two distinct dots. If you have two dots
| shown on adjacent pixels then you just see one big dot. You need
| the two dots separated by a pixel in order to see that there are
| two dots, so the resolution is half the pixel pitch. Worse yet,
| the two dots might be diagonal, so you need an extra factor of
| sqrt(2) in your resolution calculations. This means that the
| pixel pitch of a TV screen is 2 * 1.41 ~= 3 times its resolution.
| You need 180 pixels per degree if you have 20/20 vision, not 60.
|
| And it gets worse. Everyone knows that 20/20 vision is "normal".
| Well, not quite. 20/20 vision is the average without correction.
| Once you include glasses, 75% of people can actually see better
| than that, and some quite a lot better. So to be safe lets bump
| the pixel density up by another third, to 240 pixels per degree.
| That gives 7,200 pixels on a 30 degree screen.
| dharmab wrote:
| Not to mention subpixel rendering and antialiasing, which can
| make a perceivable difference, e.g. text vs. video games.
| elchief wrote:
| so how big a tv should I get?
| nonninz wrote:
| So does this essentially mean that all those people who say
| things like "You don't need/can't distinguish 4K if your nose
| isn't touching the screen( _) " are wrong?
|
| I have always thought it was a strange thing to say. I can
| definitely see the difference between a 4K stream vs a 1080p
| one, even when the screen is much more far away than the
| recommended distance...
|
| (_) An hyperbole, obviously.
| apercu wrote:
| According to this I'm doing it wrong. And I don't care.
| ksec wrote:
| Oh I am so glad this is on HN front page so I get to ask the
| question. Why 8K?
|
| I think people should try this at home. THX recommended Viewing
| Distance for _cinema_ experience is 40 Degree. That is like
| sitting in the first few rows in a cinema that makes me sick
| watching movies. The maths that works for a 16:9 Display, 55 "
| (inch) would be 5.5 Feet, 60" would be 6 Feet. Divide the display
| inches by 10 and change the unit to Feet.
|
| And assuming you are even somehow comfortable with this distance
| in everyday usage, you wont notice the pixel on a 4K TV with a
| 20/20 vision, what Apple calls it "Retina". For a 50" 4K TV it
| becomes "Retina" at a viewing distances of 39 inches.
|
| Some would argue 20/20 Visual Acuity is antique. With 20/15,
| Retina starts at 52 inches. That is still below the THX recommend
| viewing distance of 5.5 Feet, or 66" on 50" Display.
|
| What about the 20/10! Well that would be 78inch, so yes they
| could see those pixel. But that is only viewing at 40 degree
| angle. If you view it in what most would consider normal of 30
| degree, you would be sitting at 6.8 feet or ~82inch away from the
| TV. I.e You still wont see those pixel.
|
| Also note we dont test moving object in visual acuity test. You
| are watching "Moving Pictures" on a TV. Not watching a single
| pixel.
|
| And if, in any case we need to optimise for the 5% with 20/10
| vision that prefer to sit in the front row of the cinema. We
| could have went with 5K! And despite only _1K_ increase which
| seems very small, that is going from ~8M pixel to ~15M pixel. We
| would have room to _spare_ even for the remaining 5% use case.
| And if we are so paranoid and need even more headroom. Even 6K
| will do.
|
| Instead we went for 8K; ~33M Pixels. The amount of bandwidth,
| computational power, compression, storage. We could have use
| those for higher frame rate when needed, 10bit colour accuracy by
| default or high quality colour profile. Instead we spent it on
| Pixel.
|
| And before someone jump in saying they could tell the difference
| between 4K and 8K. Remember the current marketing term of 8K
| Requires mandatory support of HDR and brightness level. Something
| 4K could do without. What you think of 8K being better may have
| nothing to do with pixel density at all.
|
| So apart from Sales and Marketing department pushing for it, (
| along with Japanese government pushing it for Olympics ) like the
| days of Intel CPU pushing for Mhz. For someone who has no expert
| knowledge on the subject and merely an outsider, let me ask the
| question again. Why 8K?
| StrictDabbler wrote:
| Moire effects.
|
| Modern TV sales demo videos are chosen for the exact kind of
| thing you start to see when the resolution gets higher. Footage
| of the ocean waves, schools of fish, flocks of birds.
|
| Moire effects and screengating are _way_ larger than any one
| pixel. They make ripples and lumps in the image.
|
| You get used to the way hair looks on any generation of TV but
| it's nothing like "imperceptible" distortion.
|
| You can stand dozens of feet from an 8K, a 4K, and a 1080 TV
| and tell the difference when the image is of many tiny objects
| moving across each other.
|
| Grass. Leaves. Sand. A tiled floor viewed from an angle. You
| know, rare stuff like that.
| ants_a wrote:
| Moire effect is due to aliasing. If images are properly
| filtered (blurred) before sampling there is no moire.
| trabant00 wrote:
| Glad to see this get some exposure. It always kills me when
| people buy expensive 4k, curved, HDR, etc 50" TVs and sit over 10
| feet away from them. (127 cm diagonal and over 3m away for
| Europe) You just threw your money away.
|
| Another thing is when you plan your sofa and TV furniture. Having
| over 10ft/3m (a common occurrence in homes) means you will need
| 100 inch screen for a cinematic experience, which means having
| lots of money or a projector, which brings a lot of problems
| itself.
|
| My personal setup is 6.5feet/2.5m 65 inch diagonal 1080p plasma
| Panasonic Viera from 2007. Everybody who hears about this thinks
| it's way too big for that close. But when guests ask for the
| specs of what they find an impressive picture in person they are
| always shocked to find it's "obsolete" technology.
|
| EDIT: as people dispute the real distance you can notice 4k vs
| 1080p, you don't need to trust any graph. Get close enough to
| your TV to notice individual pixels, then back away a little bit
| until you can't. That's the distance and I bet you will find it a
| lot close than you would think.
| marzell wrote:
| Our perception abilities are not that simple; just because you
| can't discern individual pixels at a particular distance,
| doesn't mean you won't notice done details in an image.
|
| Also, it is fine too be too far away to notice every detail in
| 4k, when the alternative is going down to 2k or 1080 where you
| then might be sitting way too close. Real world situations tend
| to involve compromise.
|
| Another factor is that typical viewing is done on streaming
| services. That 4k streaming video is far more detailed than a
| 1080 stream, but the difference between 4k streaming vs 1080
| uncompressed/Blu-Ray is not quite as significant. So if you are
| pixel peeping or using a calculator, it seems reasonable to
| factor this in and feel ok sitting a little farther back than
| some ideal.
| stewx wrote:
| 1) 4K TVs are virtually the only resolution available for
| purchase today. If you buy a new medium or large-sized TV for
| any reason, it will be 4K.
|
| 2) HDR works for any size and distance. TVs that do a good job
| with HDR will look a lot nicer than old, less bright models.
| Exmoor wrote:
| 1) You're (outside of some relatively small models) very
| right here, but TV manufacturers are starting to push 8K sets
| with negligible benefits for most people's scenarios and
| little to no native resolution content.
|
| 2) Absolutely. One of my eternal frustrations is many
| people's hyperfocus on a single metric when comparing
| products (resolution for TVs, megapixels for cameras,
| clockspeed for processors, etc.). Your average consumer would
| be much better off focusing on other image quality
| improvements like the things Rrtings includes in their
| reviews.
| buran77 wrote:
| Also 3), bringing your couch and TV closer to each other will
| probably result in some wasted space around them that you
| can't use in any way (like 0.5m behind the couch and the TV
| stand). Not quite a worthwhile compromise.
|
| Not everything is about optimizing for the numbers. You don't
| have to plan your TV watching experience to the mm in order
| to enjoy it. You can have the TV at a slightly non-optimal
| distance, use the integrated speakers, or view content that's
| not high bitrate 4K or FHD.
| dharmab wrote:
| Reminds me how audio engineers have to test their masters
| on old Toyota Corolla stereos, because that's how many
| people will hear their production the first time.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's a compromise between spacious living quarters (Feng Shui),
| and a cinematic experience when watching the TV.
| driverdan wrote:
| > It's a compromise between spacious living quarters (Feng
| Shui)
|
| Feng Shui is not "spacious living quarters", it's
| pseudoscience nonsense.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Cinema means you want 30-40 degrees, but once you've fixed
| your screen size and your distance, you can then work out if
| 4k is worthwhile over 2k (or 8k over 4k)
|
| Of course this all falls down because it them comes down to
| availability, other features (number of hdmi ports, "smart"
| options, power use), and "4k" tends to also mean things like
| HDR, which is worthwhile (with the right source) no matter
| the screen.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I _wish_ I could buy a FullHD HDR TV...
| zamadatix wrote:
| HDR you want regardless and good luck getting anything less
| than 4k for cheaper than the 4k one anyways... but curved was
| always a joke. The curve was always overdone to the point it
| was worse distortion than a flat screen would produce unless
| you sat at an unrealistically close and precise location. Sit
| anywhere else and every pro of curved turns into a con. Even
| when you did sit in the right place manufacturing limitations
| meant it was only half curved anyways, the vertical was still
| flat.
|
| Thankfully the curve fad is gone in TVs and the cheapest TVs
| come with 4k HDR anyways.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Resolution isn't necessarily about having the ability to stop
| and see individual pixels though.
|
| If nothing else, there is a difference in 1080p versus 4K when
| it comes to aliasing. The absolute best antialiasing, is to
| increase resolution. The effect of resolution on all edges that
| aren't perfectly vertical or horizontal is noticeable.
|
| There are also particle effect differences where your particles
| have a 4x boost in definition.
|
| I'm not saying it's a big deal, but there are factors that go
| beyond sitting distances. I personally think these distances
| calculators are made to sell bigger TVs, but won't immediately
| discount 4k as just pointless.
| function_seven wrote:
| This reminds me of the misunderstandings around frame rate.
| It used to be that people would think "you can't make out
| individual frames of video at 24fps, so there's no reason to
| go higher than that".
|
| And, yeah, I don't see a fast-moving slideshow at 24fps, but
| there is still a significant visible difference between 24,
| 30, 48, 60, 144, etc.
|
| Just because you can't make out the building blocks of the
| thing, doesn't mean you can't see the effect of increasing
| the resolution (whether spatial or temporal).
| nitrogen wrote:
| Latencty went through a similar dark age until recently.
| People would argue that human reaction times are at best
| around 100ms, but the feedback loop formed by the eyes and
| ears, through the hands, into the keyboard/mouse/musical
| instrument, and back out to the ears/eyes, is much more
| sensitive than that.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Yeah, our eyes can pick up on subtle misalignments 5-10x
| smaller than the "retina" levels for distinguishing between
| pixels.
| Navarr wrote:
| Would be nice if it threw in a "how far up the wall should this
| be" number
| sul_tasto wrote:
| just not too high... https://www.reddit.com/r/TVTooHigh/
| kec wrote:
| There's no formula to spit out a handy chart for that. Center
| of the screen should be eye level for an adult sitting on your
| couch, ballpark 3'/1m for most setups.
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