What is the minimum tv size required to appreciate HD?

[Rob20]

I've been looking at buying either an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player in the near future. However, at the moment I only have a 26" Tosh lcd. I've heard that to see a noticeable difference between DVD and these new HD disc formats you need at least a 42" screen. If this is the case it's either not worth bothering with, or I'll need to outlay £1,000+ on a new screen. Any thoughts, what screens are people watchign HD on?

[orc brute]

Originally Posted by Rob20

I've been looking at buying either an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player in the near future. However, at the moment I only have a 26" Tosh lcd. I've heard that to see a noticeable difference between DVD and these new HD disc formats you need at least a 42" screen. If this is the case it's either not worth bothering with, or I'll need to outlay £1,000+ on a new screen. Any thoughts, what screens are people watchign HD on?

well i had a 32 " hd tv and it was good , but then i upgraded to 50" rear projection and it was much better it gives you more of a 3d effect , so i would say bigger is definatly better

[mclean007]

Depends on the resolution more than the screen size and on how far away you sit from the screen. If the screen doesn't have at least 720 horizontal lines, you won't be able to play content at HD resolution. Note that it should still play, but will only be at standard definition resolution, the same as DVD. That isn't to say you will see no benefit at all - the higher bitrate and more efficient codecs of HD-DVD / Blu-Ray content may mean that the picture quality, colour depth etc. is better than standard DVD, but to really appreciate HD, you need a screen with suitable resolution.

Note also that smaller, older screens are less likely to have HDCP compliant HDMI ports, which may in future be necessary to enjoy HD content. At present, AFAIK, no HD-DVD or BR discs have the image constraint token enabled, which prevents high definition output over non-encrypted interfaces, but that may change.

The other point is that you need to sit closer to a small screen to see the benefit of HD than you do to a large screen. You need to be about 2-3 screen widths (that's width, not diagonal) from your TV to get the most out of an HD picture. Beyond that distance, your eye simply cannot resolve the extra detail. The normal human eye can resolve detail down to approximately one arc-minute (1/60 degree). A 1080p picture has 1920 elements per row (1920x1080) and a 720p picture has 1280 (1280x720). So to see all the detail in a 1080p picture it needs to fill roughly 30 degrees of your horizontal field of view, while a 720p picture has to fill roughly 20 degrees.

A 26" diagonal 16:9 screen has a width of approximately 22.7". It is highly unlikely that your 26" TV has a 1080 line resolution, but the calculation below holds for any screen size. Some 24" computer monitors have a resolution of 1920x1200 and are capable of 1080p, so this might apply to them.

Let ideal viewing distance v be determined as a function of screen width w and angle a.

Simple trigonometry gives v = w / 2tan (a/2). For 1080p this gives v = w / 2tan 15d = approx 1.9 screen widths, while 720p gives v = w / 2tan 10d = approx 2.8 screen widths. For a 26" screen this equates to viewing distances of around 42 and 64 inches for 1080p and 720p respectively.

Hope this helps.

[jsgreen89]

Entirely dependent on viewing distance.

As a rough guide, i'd say for a 26" screen you need to be sitting around 4 feet away, tops (i.e. almost like sitting at a PC) to get the full 720p effect. At around 6ft you'll start to notice the difference I think.

But if you have the TV in a front room where you're sitting 7-10ft away for example then there really is no point.

[Monkeyspoon]

I would say at least 40".

[Bald Monkey]

Originally Posted by jsgreen89

i'd say for a 26" screen you need to be sitting around 4 feet away, tops (i.e. almost like sitting at a PC)

4' from your PC You must have long arms...


I noticed a difference getting HD on a 32" LCD viewed from about 5' - 6'

Even better on a larger screen of course

[Nic Rhodes]

As others have said, size is irrelevant without other info, think angles....

[Pezerinno]

I find any further than 6ft I don't notice the HD benefits so much. This is with a 40" 1080p material.

[Rob20]

Cheers for the replies. Probably sitting 7-10 feet away. The Tosh was just a temporary replacement for my 21" 4:3 Sony crt until prcies dropped. At the time it was a tv that retailed for £2k and cost me around £1,300. Seemed like a good deal. Amazing how quickly prices have dropped, especially on lcds. It has a 1366/768 res but no HDMI. I must admit I'm thinking minimum 40" screen. I'd love a 50" screen but they look absolutely massive in the shops. I assume they'd look even bigger at home. I wish there were more screens with a narrow frame. Looking forward to see how the new 40"/46" Toshiba X picture frame LCD's perform. Though am also interested in Pioneer's forthcoming 8th gen 1080p panels.

[mclean007]

Originally Posted by Rob20

Cheers for the replies. Probably sitting 7-10 feet away. The Tosh was just a temporary replacement for my 21" 4:3 Sony crt until prcies dropped. At the time it was a tv that retailed for £2k and cost me around £1,300. Seemed like a good deal. Amazing how quickly prices have dropped, especially on lcds. It has a 1366/768 res but no HDMI. I must admit I'm thinking minimum 40" screen. I'd love a 50" screen but they look absolutely massive in the shops. I assume they'd look even bigger at home. I wish there were more screens with a narrow frame. Looking forward to see how the new 40"/46" Toshiba X picture frame LCD's perform. Though am also interested in Pioneer's forthcoming 8th gen 1080p panels.

From that distance, definitely not worth bothering with HD on a 26" screen. 40" should see you right for 720p from 7 feet, but to get the full benefit of 1080p you really want 50".

Take a look also at the Sony Bravia W series - the 40W2000 is one of the nicest 40" screens I have ever seen.