Question TV size selection

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Jul 9, 2009
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What my wife and i did when moving into a new house to test what size TV to get was cut out a square of cardboard the size of a 75 inch TV and painter taped it to the wall. It gave us a perspective on the size of the television and we left it up for a few days to get used to it. We eventually bought a 75 inch TV, but i would have gone for an 80 inch. Having a physical object on the wall made a difference. Good luck.
 
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Feb 15, 2024
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What my wife and i did when moving into a new house to test what size TV to get was cut out a square of cardboard the size of a 75 inch TV and painter taped it to the wall. It gave us a perspective on the size of the television and we left it up for a few days to get used to it. We eventually bought a 75 inch TV, but i would have gone for an 80 inch. Having a physical object on the wall made a difference. Good luck.
your idea sounds much better than what I decided to do. I just went to the store sit on the floor and deiced to check how will it look to have the TV on my wall. Using the iPhone roulette I measured the distance and just stared for 3 hours at the TV.
 

Amused

Elite Member
Apr 14, 2001
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TV size is perception. Your perception of the TV size shrinks over time.

It will for your SO too, just as it did for my wife. We started with 55 inch HD, to a 65 inch HD, to a 75 inch HD and now have a 75 inch FALD Sony 4K.

With each step up she thought it was "too big" at first.

She's on board with the next upgrade being an 83 inch or larger.

We sit about 3.5m away from the screen. 11-12 feet. Our room is about 4m wide

This is all about your field of view. Much like theaters ideally fill 40-50% of your field of view, a TV for mixed usage should fill 30% of your field of view, and if you primarily watch 4K movies and shows, 40-50%% is ideal.

30% of your field of view is the minimum you should have.

Good explanations here:


Maybe sit down with your SO and look at this together?
 
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Fallen Kell

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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I was just about to post the same RTINGS article, but saw Amused beat me to it.... Yes as has been said, the distance, resolution, and size of the TV all play off each other. There is no point getting a 4k or 8k screen if you are sitting 20 feet (~6m) away from a 40" screen... At the same point there are guidelines used by the producers of content for TV as well as movie producers for things like the field of view the display should take up in your vision (and they will be different between content designed for TV's vs content that was designed for a movie theater).

But really, you should take a good look at that link and see the optimal size for the resolution TV you are looking into. For reference, a 4K TV at 4m is pointless unless you are looking at a 100" (254cm) TV.
 

GodisanAtheist

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2006
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We sit probably about 15 ft away from our 55" 1080p TV and honestly it's fine.

It's weird how much hand-wringing goes into TVs. Really most of the time it's like having a dark picture frame hung up somewhere. Every once in a while we watch some Netflix or whatever on it.

If you have a good space for it and you're going to be watching it a helluva lot, get something on the bigger end of the spectrum (65-75").

If it's really an hour or two a day tops (if not less), I'd actually argue that you're fine with 55" just so it stays a bit more out of the way while it's dark.
 
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