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5 feet away from screen....

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5 feet away from screen....

Old 01-08-04, 12:39 AM
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5 feet away from screen....

Would you get a 42 inch Widescreen or a 48 inch Widescreen?
Old 01-08-04, 12:50 AM
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I'd go look at it to decide.

With good source material and a fine dot-pitch, 48 inch should be fine at 5 feet. With a crappy source and a bad screen you'll want to get as far away as you can or have a smaller screen.

7 Feet works fine for me on a very good 53" screen and DVD source material. It doesn't look so good at that distance with TV though.
Old 01-08-04, 06:44 AM
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Re: 5 feet away from screen....

Originally posted by Bagheera
Would you get a 42 inch Widescreen or a 48 inch Widescreen?
That would depend on the brand and source material. Are you talking about plasma, dlp or standard rptv?
Old 01-08-04, 07:25 AM
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I would not we have a 34 inch and seet about the same as you and it's just right. We first had a 40 inch and it just to big. Me and my wife kept getting getting bad head pains. If you want a tube get the new sony xbr910 it will kill almost any other tv out there right now.It has a super fine pitch that will make Hi def really nice. Here is the review about the set.

http://www.theperfectvision.com/news...v34xbr910.html
Old 01-08-04, 08:52 AM
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There is some kind of formula for this kind of thing, unforuntaely I forgot what it was. But I a 57" widescreen and the front of th couch is only 6 feet away and I have had no problems
Old 01-08-04, 08:57 AM
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I've always used the "6 screen-heights rule".

Or you could use the Viewing Distance Calculator.
Old 01-08-04, 09:31 AM
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Here's the 'formula'...

Calculating the optimal diagonal screen size using the seating distance

* For standard televisions (4:3 aspect ratio, 480i signal)
Divide the distance you sit from your television (in inches) by 4.3.

* For HDTV (16:9 aspect ratio, 1080i signal)
Divide the distance you sit from your television (in inches) by 1.57
Old 01-08-04, 08:33 PM
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this are RPTV's and I know the calculations but i just want an opinion beyond that. I def. dont want to get headaches, that makes me lean towards the 42 when i hear that.
Old 01-08-04, 09:20 PM
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I have a 57" widescreen and sit around 7' from it. HD and DVDs look great. some of the lower quality stuff is still pretty good. I have some people tell me it's too big while others say I should have got the 65". I think it varies person to person. I would just go to the store where you plan to purchase it from and experiment with your seating distance.
Old 01-09-04, 06:48 AM
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I say get the biggest screen your budget and space allows. I've read more posts about people wishing they had gone bigger. There were a few wishing smaller, but that seems to be a very small minority. Relatively speaking, 48" is really not that big. When I first got my 65", my wife hit the roof. We upgraded from a 27". After some adjusting and a little diplomacy, she got used to it. We watch from about 10' back.

Another way to look at it is when you go to the movies, where do you like to sit? If you like to sit way in the back, then go with the smaller set. If you like to sit in the middle or forward, then go with the larger set. If you calibrate the TV correctly, particularly the contrast and brightness, you shouldn't have to worry about headaches. You could also watch with a little bit of ambient lighting. This is how I watch, and it's great. Now, the only headache I get is from squinting to watch that tiny old 27" that we moved to the bedroom.

Last edited by jscout; 01-09-04 at 06:50 AM.
Old 01-09-04, 11:24 AM
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For DVD viewing it won't matter, go bigger. IF it's also for everyday cable, you may have trouble. We have a 55" Mitsubishi and I can watch DVDs from 4 or 5 ft no problem. Regular cable looks crappy and obnoxiously big at 11'.
Old 01-09-04, 07:28 PM
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I really dont care about my satalite picture, to me it always looks terrible and I probably stretch it out anyway. there is nothing on tv that i really care about picture quality.

What I was told is that if your to close that the action of moving your eyes back and forth across the screen to look at different things is where you get the headace. I am def. leaning towards the 48 tho.
Old 01-10-04, 11:18 PM
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I good rule of thumb is 2 1/2 time the screen size back from the TV as a watching distance.

42" x 2.5 = 105" that's about 9 feet.

I have a 55" RPTV and I'm a little over 12' back.
Greg
Old 01-22-04, 07:15 PM
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Originally posted by gdjohnson
I good rule of thumb is 2 1/2 time the screen size back from the TV as a watching distance.

42" x 2.5 = 105" that's about 9 feet.

I have a 55" RPTV and I'm a little over 12' back.
Greg

12 feet back from a 55' TV is like watching a 36' inch TV 6 feet back. That's too far back. Why bother getting a big screen anyways? You lose the effect sitting that far.
Old 01-22-04, 09:32 PM
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I just found a great chart on cnet: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-7608_7-....html?tag=tnav

The whole point of home theater is to try and caputre as much as the theater experience at home as possible. I feel that the 48 ince does not envelope your field of vision enough while the 51" and up does. I will only be a few inches closer then the min. distance on that chart and I could always rearange the living room if i aboslutly had to.
Old 01-23-04, 06:37 AM
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I say go as big as possible.

Last edited by steebo777; 01-23-04 at 06:50 AM.
Old 01-23-04, 06:17 PM
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i did woo hoo
Old 01-23-04, 06:27 PM
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Now that wasn't so hard, was it? Congrats.

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