Viewing distance vs. Screen Size and Resolution
 

Some of you may have experienced a similar situation as mine. My present
room arrangement and wall size (where I could fit a flat screen) limit
me to no larger than 46" diagonal with a viewing distance of no less
than 10+ feet.

QUESTION: Would I be wasting my money buying a 1080i LCD screen when at
that distance the difference in resolution of a 720p would be imperceptible?

My wife and I are also over 50, which I'm guessing may or may not affect
our ability to discern the difference anyway.

Suggestions? Opinions?

Viewing distance vs. Screen Size and Resolution
 

On 2007-03-07, Randell Tarin wrote:
Some of you may have experienced a similar situation as mine. My present
room arrangement and wall size (where I could fit a flat screen) limit
me to no larger than 46" diagonal with a viewing distance of no less
than 10+ feet.

QUESTION: Would I be wasting my money buying a 1080i LCD screen when at
that distance the difference in resolution of a 720p would be imperceptible?

My wife and I are also over 50, which I'm guessing may or may not affect
our ability to discern the difference anyway.

Suggestions? Opinions?

See the charts in this article:

http://www.carltonbale.com/blog/2006...p-does-matter/

You can try an experiment in the store. Stand close enough to the display to
see the individual pixels. Back off until they just disappear. That is the
"optimum" viewing distance, in that if you are closer you see the pixels
(which is bad); farther and you are wasting resolution and might be as happy
with a lower-rez display.

-Bill
--
Sattre Press In the Quarter
http://sattre-press.com/ by Robert W. Chambers
http://sattre-press.com/itq.html

Viewing distance vs. Screen Size and Resolution
 

I've come across various numbers that describe the resolving power of
the human eye, but they're all close to .3 degrees of arc, or 1 minute
when looking at line pairs. With a bit of math, you can calculate if
the resolution of any given TV is enough.

The TV size, and viewing distance have a direct mathematical
correlation... it comes down to the number of pixels you're viewing
in a given amount of space, expressed in pixels per degree.

We know we need 1 pixel per minute (1/60th of a degree) for maximum
detail that we can discern, so, your 46" TV at 10 feet equates to a
top-to-bottom viewing angle of just over 10 degrees. (22 inches high,
10' viewing distance)


10 degrees x 60 = 600 minutes.


If I got this right, this means your eye won't resolve anything finer
than 600 pixels top to bottom... right in between ED at 480 and HD at
720.


Helpful site: http://www.marlenesite.com/math/trigonometry/





Chip in anyone, if you think this is oversimplified...


--jim




On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:59:53 GMT, Randell Tarin
wrote:

Some of you may have experienced a similar situation as mine. My present
room arrangement and wall size (where I could fit a flat screen) limit
me to no larger than 46" diagonal with a viewing distance of no less
than 10+ feet.

QUESTION: Would I be wasting my money buying a 1080i LCD screen when at
that distance the difference in resolution of a 720p would be imperceptible?

My wife and I are also over 50, which I'm guessing may or may not affect
our ability to discern the difference anyway.

Suggestions? Opinions?

Viewing distance vs. Screen Size and Resolution
 

In article ,
wrote:

I've come across various numbers that describe the resolving power of
the human eye, but they're all close to .3 degrees of arc, or 1 minute
when looking at line pairs. With a bit of math, you can calculate if
the resolution of any given TV is enough.

The TV size, and viewing distance have a direct mathematical
correlation... it comes down to the number of pixels you're viewing
in a given amount of space, expressed in pixels per degree.

We know we need 1 pixel per minute (1/60th of a degree) for maximum
detail that we can discern, so, your 46" TV at 10 feet equates to a
top-to-bottom viewing angle of just over 10 degrees. (22 inches high,
10' viewing distance)


10 degrees x 60 = 600 minutes.


If I got this right, this means your eye won't resolve anything finer
than 600 pixels top to bottom... right in between ED at 480 and HD at
720.


Helpful site: http://www.marlenesite.com/math/trigonometry/

Visit
http://www.myhometheater.homestead.com/viewingdistancecalculator.html.

--
Tom Stiller

PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3
7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF

Viewing distance vs. Screen Size and Resolution
 

Thanks - it provides interesting calculations, but doesn't directly
address the required resolution for a specific viewing angle as
requested by the original poster.

Maybe I need to write a web page just for that... hmmm.





On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:58:16 -0400, Tom Stiller
wrote:

http://www.myhometheater.homestead.c...alculator.html

Viewing distance vs. Screen Size and Resolution
 

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:33:01 GMT,
wrote:


I've come across various numbers that describe the resolving power of
the human eye, but they're all close to .3 degrees of arc, or 1 minute
when looking at line pairs. With a bit of math, you can calculate if
the resolution of any given TV is enough.

The TV size, and viewing distance have a direct mathematical
correlation... it comes down to the number of pixels you're viewing
in a given amount of space, expressed in pixels per degree.

We know we need 1 pixel per minute (1/60th of a degree) for maximum
detail that we can discern, so, your 46" TV at 10 feet equates to a
top-to-bottom viewing angle of just over 10 degrees. (22 inches high,
10' viewing distance)


10 degrees x 60 = 600 minutes.


If I got this right, this means your eye won't resolve anything finer
than 600 pixels top to bottom... right in between ED at 480 and HD at
720.

My comment to the common calculation you just did is that in order to
perceive a natural image, you should not be able to resolve the
pixels. My own simple tests with an LCD panel with pixel size
0.5x0.5mm gave me a rule of thumb that says that the minimum watching
distance should be about PixelSize*4000 for the pixels to blend.

For the above example of 46" and 1366x768 pixels it corresponds well
to 10'. (600 vertical pixels would need almost 13' and 1080 would be
OK with 7'). This is of course only an indication and you also have
the quality of the material and MPEG artifacting to consider ...
/Jan