Best Monitor Size for Watching Movies?

[Luddite]

I currently have a 20" 1600 x 1200 NEC display. I can watch standard def movies on it fine. I am thinking of moving up to a larger screen because I am doing more things like photo editing, and would also like to watch Blu-Ray movies.

My questiona are:

1). Is there an optimal screen size for watching DVDs and/or Blu-Ray movies? I know that a hi-def source requires at least 1920 x 1080 display, but if your monitor is way beyond that, say a 27" at typically 2560 x 1440, are there any negative aspects to going much larger than 1920 x 1080? Or is it best to watch a hi-def movie on a screen size closer to the native 1920 x 1080 res ?

2). Does a 27" or 30" monitor do any scaling to a hi-def movie to make it full screen? If so, can this affect picture quality? Or does the image size remain the same.

Thanks.

 

[blastingcap]

I currently have a 20" 1600 x 1200 NEC display. I can watch standard def movies on it fine. I am thinking of moving up to a larger screen because I am doing more things like photo editing, and would also like to watch Blu-Ray movies.

My questiona are:

1). Is there an optimal screen size for watching DVDs and/or Blu-Ray movies? I know that a hi-def source requires at least 1920 x 1080 display, but if your monitor is way beyond that, say a 27" at typically 2560 x 1440, are there any negative aspects to going much larger than 1920 x 1080? Or is it best to watch a hi-def movie on a screen size closer to the native 1920 x 1080 res ?

2). Does a 27" or 30" monitor do any scaling to a hi-def movie to make it full screen? If so, can this affect picture quality? Or does the image size remain the same.

Thanks.

Usually it is best to watch content at native resolution to avoid up/down-scaling blur, but that applies only to things like LCDs, not CRTs.

But since you said movies, and not TV or something else, that could mean watching 2.35:1 movies (anamorphic) in which case you will get black bars above and below the video, even if you watch it at 1080p. In which case you may as well go for the largest screen possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic_format

 

[JBT]

How far away will you be? The required size depends on the distance between the viewer and the screen. Usually the bigger the better, but there can be too big.

 

[kami]

Optimal distance for movie viewing is to have your head 1.5 times the screen size away from the screen or even closer. So if you had a 27in monitor you'd want to sit roughly 3.3 feet away. A lot of people with projectors sit even closer for better immersion. I sit at a roughly 1.3 distance for my 100in screen while watching movies.

I wouldn't worry about a larger screen affecting quality as long as you calibrate the display for video viewing. Chances are those settings will be quite a bit different from the ones you will want for normal PC usage and/or gaming.

 

[Luddite]

Is there any difference then between watching a movie on a monitor with a native 1920 x 1080 resolution vs a larger monitor with a higher resolution? Is the image frame the same size? I don't mind black bars, I'm more worried about PQ and any size differences or scaling problems. A higher resolution with a tighter pixel pitch would make the image a little crisper it seems to me. But I was wondering about any problems or disadvantages with viewing movies on a larger and higher res monitor.

The reason I ask is I read this review of a 27" monitor and didn't quite understand what they meant by this:

Movie testing on larger, non-native 1080P monitors usually results in less than optimal viewing conditions as the picture is scaled up to a larger resolution. Movies are –at best – encoded at a 1920 x 1080 resolution and if you use DVD source material the quality is much, much lower. This is why we had such reservations on using such a large 2560 x 1440 as up-scaling can cause serious issues in some cases.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...ncmaster-27a850d-27-pls-monitor-review-8.html

 

[know of fence]

Scaling degrades the picture considerably, it is most noticeable on hard edges. This is why text tends to really look bad in scaled pictures. Diagonal lines, curves and circles start to look jagged. These jagged edges then are blurred by whatever algorithm your software or hardware is using to make it less noticeable.

The problem gets even worse because video already uses compressed and often blurred pictures. The result is a double blurred picture.

You can try it out by playing any video back in its original (pixel for pixel size), then dragging it larger. Your case is basically the same "doubling the pixel count jump" as 720p signal upscaled to 1080p, which is what the vast majority of people consume as their HD television. So when all is said and done, up-scaling is not a deal breaker. But, boy is it stupid!

 

[pw38]

But since you said movies, and not TV or something else, that could mean watching 2.35:1 movies (anamorphic) in which case you will get black bars above and below the video, even if you watch it at 1080p. In which case you may as well go for the largest screen possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic_format

Just to pick nits, 2.35/1 movies (or, technically, anything wider than 1.78/1) aren't anamorphic when discussing bluray as the BD standard doesn't incorporate anamorphic specs. That's not to say they couldn't add it one day.

My advice would be to build a nice small HTPC and hook it up to a large LCD or plasma should you have either and be done with it. A general rule of thumb I've always followed for seating distance is 2.5 times the diagonal length of the image. It's not a hard set rule but it's worked for me in the past, both with my own system and for people I've built systems for.