Small Change in Distance - Big Difference

[herbu]

Been experimenting w/ seating distance from a 55" Panasonic LED TV.
Was originally at 15'. Charts and people said that was too far, so I moved up to 9'. BluRay 1080p looked great, but then 720 satellite HD TV was LOUSY. Not just noticeable, but irritatingly noticeable.

Moved chairs to 12'. Seems a good compromise. BDs still look great, and while SAT TV difference is noticeable, it is not so objectionable.

For those of you that follow the seating distance charts, do you find TV irritating... (besides the content)?

 

[PENG]

Been experimenting w/ seating distance from a 55" Panasonic LED TV.
Was originally at 15'. Charts and people said that was too far, so I moved up to 9'. BluRay 1080p looked great, but then 720 satellite HD TV was LOUSY. Not just noticeable, but irritatingly noticeable.

Moved chairs to 12'. Seems a good compromise. BDs still look great, and while SAT TV difference is noticeable, it is not so objectionable.

For those of you that follow the seating distance charts, do you find TV irritating... (besides the content)?

I sit 12' from my 50" and everything looks fine. Audio is a different story, in the same room I find the difference in bass between sitting 9' and 6' from my 2 channel system is huge.

You should re-run your room EQ system whatever that is.

 

[herbu]

You should re-run your room EQ system whatever that is.

Agreed... will do today.

I was just surprised how lousy 720 looked from just a few feet closer.

 

[PENG]

Agreed... will do today.

I was just surprised how lousy 720 looked from just a few feet closer.

That could mean you have good eye sight, so be happy!

 

[tcarcio]

I sit 12' away from my 105" screen and I have a fantastic image from my 1080p Sony projector. That said everything that comes from tv is 99.9 percent 720p and it still looks fantastic. Have you had your display calibrated? I had mine proffesionally done and it makes a big difference. IMO.

 

[Pyrrho]

It is likely that your satellite feed uses excessive compression that is causing your problem. With 20/20 vision and a proper 720p signal, you should not see any problems from 10.73 feet or further away that are caused by the resolution. See calculator:

HDTV Viewing Distance Calculator + Guide | Articles - Digital Digest

However, I believe it is common for sattelite and cable to seriously compromise the picture quality with excessive compression, and so that may be what you are noticing. They often use aggressive compression so that they can give you more channels. People pay for more channels more willingly than they pay for extra quality.


I personally wish there was a picture setting on TVs for just displaying the picture with the number of lines that the source has. Thus, a 720p picture would be smaller, but equally sharp as a 1080p picture (excluding differences in compression, of course). That way, one would be able to pick the distance where one is capable of seeing all of the detail, and yet nothing would look objectionable. The really annoying thing is, that should be the easiest video processing possible, yet virtually no TV has it.

 

[agarwalro]

Herbu, Don't forget to rerun your receiver calibration. Since distances have changed, levels and delays need to be adjusted accordingly.