What viewing distance question

[Ron]

What would be a practical minimum viewing distance for a 50" widescreen
projection LCD HDTV monitor. I am looking at the Sony Grand Wega
50WE610. The way I have the area set up now is the minimum distance is
10' and the maximum is 14'. Is 10' too close?

[Grand Inquisitor]

Ron wrote:
> What would be a practical minimum viewing distance for a 50" widescreen
> projection LCD HDTV monitor. I am looking at the Sony Grand Wega
> 50WE610. The way I have the area set up now is the minimum distance is
> 10' and the maximum is 14'. Is 10' too close?

Actually, when figuring the ideal viewing location (or if not ideal,
then the closest distance you can sit without making out scanlines) for
HDTV (at about 1000+ scanlines, I don't consider 720p to be "true" HD),
they were shooting for about 3 times the height of the screen. In
practicality I believe it's about 3.3 times the height. I'm rusty on my
trig but I think that means the height of your 50" 16:9 screen would be
about 24 inches, give or take. I think this means that you can sit as
close as seven feet and still have a good picture. Some people say that
with a big screen tv you should sit about fifteen feet away but they're
still thinking of SDTV (Best Buy management, I'm looking in your
direction). I hope my nonsense ramblings helped.

--
"Get rid of the Range Rover. You are not responsible for patrolling
Australia's Dingo Barrier Fence, nor do you work the Savannah, capturing
and tagging wildebeests."
--Michael J. Nelson

Grand Inquisitor
http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mycollection.asp?alias=Oost

[Badger]

One and one half the screen WIDTH is a good rule of thumb.
Sit as close as YOU like is the right distance.

I have an 92" screen width (105"diagonal) and I sit 108" back, but my
picture has virtually no noticeable scan lines at that distance.

Clay


--


There are 10 kinds of people in the world:
Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

"Ron" > wrote in message
...
> What would be a practical minimum viewing distance for a 50" widescreen
> projection LCD HDTV monitor. I am looking at the Sony Grand Wega
> 50WE610. The way I have the area set up now is the minimum distance is
> 10' and the maximum is 14'. Is 10' too close?

[Richard C.]

"Ron" > wrote in message ...
: What would be a practical minimum viewing distance for a 50" widescreen
: projection LCD HDTV monitor. I am looking at the Sony Grand Wega
: 50WE610. The way I have the area set up now is the minimum distance is
: 10' and the maximum is 14'. Is 10' too close?

======================
No...........
You will soon wish you had even larger...........

[noel]

I sell tv's at sears, so, you can take what i say for whatever it's
worth.

I've had this question asked of me several times. I went looking on
the net for some answers. I found a page where a guy explained in
great detail how to figure out this bit of nonsense. It had to do with
the veritcal viewing angle of the human eye and other crap. And I
believe, this was based on 4:3 analog projections. And his boiled down
was 3 times the screen size, ie; for a 48" tv, you would sit 12 ft
away. I personally believe that this "viewing distance" was bought
about so you would sit far enough away from the screen to not notice
the 'scan line' effect. With 1080I projections, you don't see any scan
lines. so, sit where you want to. If you think about it, compare the
distance that you sit away from a movie screen and the size of that
movie screen. You're sitting a lot closer to a screen in a movie
theater what any "viewing distance" rule would call for. the only
other thing I would offer you is based on architecture/interior
design. And that is the concept of the conversation circle. Which is,
we human tend to gather around ina circle that is about 12 to 14 feet
in diameter. So, the tv generally gets placed within this circle.

Ron > wrote in message >...
> What would be a practical minimum viewing distance for a 50" widescreen
> projection LCD HDTV monitor. I am looking at the Sony Grand Wega
> 50WE610. The way I have the area set up now is the minimum distance is
> 10' and the maximum is 14'. Is 10' too close?

[B. Earp]

> > : I don't consider 720p to be "true" HD),
> >
> > But it IS "true" HD.
>
> I understand it is part of the HD spec, but historically, going back to
> the 60s, when research into a cinematic, widescreen, high-definition tv
> standard was started, they figured they'd need at least 1,000 scanlines.

was the screen size of today taken into consideration?

> And that's what everybody meant since then when talking about HDTV, at
> least 1,000 scanlines.

just a guess, but back then, maybe they (whoever 'they' is) didn't have a
chance to consider that p looks better than i

so...in your experience thus far, which looks better to you - 1080i or 720p,
and why?

[Grand Inquisitor]

B. Earp wrote:
> so...in your experience thus far, which looks better to you - 1080i or 720p,
> and why?
>
>
>

1080i looks better than 720p, in my opinion. Besides, 1080p sets are
growing in number, some day they will all be able to do 1080p,
upconverted from a 1080i image source.

--
"Get rid of the Range Rover. You are not responsible for patrolling
Australia's Dingo Barrier Fence, nor do you work the Savannah, capturing
and tagging wildebeests."
--Michael J. Nelson

Grand Inquisitor
http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mycollection.asp?alias=Oost

[Italo]

"Bill" > wrote in message ...
> Ron wrote:
>
> >What would be a practical minimum viewing distance for a 50" widescreen
> >projection LCD HDTV monitor. I am looking at the Sony Grand Wega
> >50WE610. The way I have the area set up now is the minimum distance is
> >10' and the maximum is 14'. Is 10' too close?
>
> Ten feet is too far away for high definition sets, you'll want to sit
> closer or get a bigger set. Check out this site for some viewing
> distance info:
>
> http://www.myhometheater.homestead.com/viewingdistancecalculator.html
>

That calculator has to be wrong. According to the calculator ideally I have
to sit 1 metre or so away from my 32" CRT, that is a big recipe for going
either blind or getting radiation burn from the CRT, doesn't anyone know a
better calculator an/or formula?

--
Italo

[Robert L. Bass]

> That calculator has to be wrong. According to the
> calculator ideally I have to sit 1 metre or so away
> from my 32" CRT, that is a big recipe for going
> either blind or getting radiation burn from the CRT,
> doesn't anyone know a better calculator an/or
> formula?

I sit one meter from my 19" CRT for at least 16 hours a day, sometimes seven
days a week. It has not had any ill effects on me... yet. :^)