Comment by Syonyk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Syonyk | Hacker News Reader

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... wait, what? 8 foot viewing distance with a 65" screen? Ok, we have very, very different definitions of "typical" here. You're using a 50% larger TV from half the distance.

I just measured our living room. We have a 43" (4k) TV at about 16' viewing distance. Just about every chart I can find on TV resolution vs viewing distance (assuming 20/20 vision) indicates that I'm in the "720p is fine" region, on the border of "You really won't notice a difference from 480p." Which is consistent with my experience. I can see the difference between 720/1080/4k if I'm right on top of the TV, but once I'm back where I actually watch from, anything I notice is more a factor of bitrate than resolution - I can certainly tell the difference between a low bitrate MPEG2 source and a high bitrate h.264 source, but that has nothing to do with the resolution.

I don't really have the motivation tonight to pull out my trig tables (I'm about to watch a movie instead, of what resolution I honestly don't know), but... at least for my case, yes, I'm saying I can't tell the difference. And it's entirely possible my glasses need updating (quite likely, honestly), but the "TV size vs distance" charts I've found say nothing of what you're claiming either. And they're by people trying to sell TVs!

Samsung says suggested diagonal size = viewing distance /2. So at 16 ft 96".

To get a more precise fix you can break out a calculator or use this one based on THX recommended viewing angle.

https://myhometheater.homestead.com/viewingdistancecalculato...

It suggests that your tiny tv ought to be optimally viewed from 4.8 feet away and at 16 feet away you really ought to have a tv greater than 100 inches.

Of course most people don't have 100+ inch tvs but they also don't watch tv from 16 feet away unless they are watching a 45-60 FOOT theatre screen. Play with some values in the calculator if you want to see how other people use tvs.

People normally sit 8-10 feet from 60-75 inch tvs and use 40 inches for smaller rooms like bedrooms where they are 6 foot away.

To be clear about the whole picture you are a fellow with bad vision watching a small tv from nearly 3 times further back as the rest of planet earth.

At that distance your tv literally does already exceed average visual acuity and for your usage you are absolutely correct.

Meanwhile the rest of us will benefit from up to 8k in the future.

> To be clear about the whole picture you are a fellow with bad vision watching a small tv from nearly 3 times further back as the rest of planet earth.

My vision is perfectly fine, thank you very much, as you seem to insist on going on about how horrid it must be. The difference is entirely explained by the fact that I watch a reasonable sized TV from a perfectly sane distance in a living room that isn't a home theater room and has space for plenty of other activities. No idea how you get a TV 6' away in the bedroom, though, unless it's literally at the foot of the bed. I've never had one in there and never intend to.

Your linked calculator suggests that the "optimum" distance for my TV is about 6' away, which I find quite absurd (having just tried it). I'm watching movies, not programming on it.

We appear to have rather divergent views (and social group priorities, if yours has 60-70+ inch TVs at your suggested 8-10 foot viewing distance) on the nature of television viewing, and, as such, there's not an awful lot more to discuss.

I don't think its a matter of divergent priorities. The argument up thread was that we had reached the zenith of resolution based on visual acuity. What we established is that this is almost entirely true or false based on the persons vision, size of screen, and viewing distance. Based on how the majority of the public uses TVs we have provably not reached such a point.

In point of fact a medium sized living room is 12x18 with a TV on either a stand or the wall along the longer wall and seating that is around 2 feet deep and off the wall by at least a foot. This means that in an medium size living room there is 8-9 foot between seat and screen. In a large living room 15x20 there is still only 11-12 feet.

People actually are putting 60-75 inch screens therein so we can support the position that the figures given by the calculator represent how people actually use TVs and supports the position that HD -> 4k -> 8k will be perceptively still beneficial given the constraints of human eyeballs.

I'm interested in sources that establish "how the majority of the public uses TVs". I've personally never seen anyone use TVs in line with the recommendations from TV manufacturers screen size and viewing distance. Maybe this is a USA cultural thing (or, contrary, maybe my own observed viewing habits are a cultural AU/NZ thing).

What about a house size and falling TV prices thing? Half of the US couldn't sit 16 feet from their TV if they tried.

1/3 of the US lives in apartments and 80% live in urban area where housing is comparatively more expensive. Even for slightly larger houses its common to have a living room and a family room and give up a lot of space to the individual bedrooms. It's supper likely that the TV is in a room that is between 12-18 and 15-20. With the TV on the long wall.

Also for some reason sticking your TV on a stand is still pretty popular vs putting it on the wall. This means that in a 14' room your tv is between 0' and 1' off the wall and your rear end is 3' off the wall. This puts as little as 8' between viewer and tv in 12-18 and as much as 12' in the larger room if they hang it on the wall.

How the US population is distributed is kind of interesting.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/03/how-s...

Regarding the question of average living space in the US people in the US almost universally prefer single units detached housing but as the song goes you can't always get what you want. Many for example would prefer to be close to urban settings with more jobs. Others can only afford to rent.

Among renters, around 1/3 of the population, half live in 111 sq meters or less

1/3 of owners live in domiciles of 167 sq meters or less and and 60% of owners live in domiciles 222 sq meters or less.

Combining renters and owners 77% of Americans live in 222 sq meters, 54% live in 167 sq meters or less, 25% live in 111 sq meters or less. Some rounding and conversion between sq ft and meters.

This means about a 1/4 each live in

<= 111 sq meters

112-167 sq meters

168-222 sq meters

> 222 sq meters

https://www.frugalfringe.com/calculators/compare-your-homes-...

The people paying lots for tiny apartments in the city think your 16' of open space in your living room is as unusual as you think they are with their relatively giant TVs in smaller spaces.

I'm not the person 16' from their 43" TV ;)

Interesting, but doesn't tell me much - I live in an apartment, well under 111sqm, and have a 55" TV around 12' from the couch - so still too small / too far away, according to recommendations. People with even smaller living space (at ~80sqm, my apartment is reasonably large for a two bedroom unit where I live) may simply get smaller TVs to compensate, still being "too small".

These are anecdotes. I'm curious about what people actually do, I don't know, and (contrary to your assertions about what most people do) it doesn't sound like you do either.

I showed with data how many people live in relatively small spaces and asserted but didn't prove that Americans often devote much of their space budget to bedrooms and houses which have both a living and a family room wherein they had more budget to spare. This last shouldn't require a ton of proof.

My assertion is that due to the above asserted space constraints the majority of people in America are 8-12' from their TV. I also assert that the same people are buying 60"+ TVs

I linked a source that suggested that people could distinguish up to 115ppi at 8' If I understand correctly that means they ought to be able to distinguish about 90ppi at 12'.

If these assertions are correct most people would benefit from 90-115ppi and based on THX recommendations would benefit from the increasingly popular and cheap large screens that people are provably buying despite living in not so huge spaces. In fact tv size purchases are trending upward based on what people can afford.

https://www.consumerreports.org/lcd-led-oled-tvs/tv-trends-t...

A 60" 4k screen is only 73 ppi meaning we aren't beyond human visual acuity yet and 4k at 75" we are down to 59ppi.

The majority of consumers will based on good visual acuity be able to distinguish between 4k and 8k in the room sizes and screen sizes where such products would be relevant and applicable and a median American would benefit.

> Samsung says suggested diagonal size = viewing distance /2. So at 16 ft 96".

Now I wonder what Samsung’s motivation for this could possibly be?

You've a reasonable point but the other poster said

>but the "TV size vs distance" charts I've found say nothing of what you're claiming either. And they're by people trying to sell TVs!

The people selling TVs actually say you ought to buy a big ass TV.

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