Nov 5
Why 1080p doesn’t matter unless you go over 65″
Posted on Sunday, November 5, 2006 in Uncategorized
The ideal viewing distance for a 42″ 720p display, for example, is 7.7 feet. If you view it closer than 7.7 feet, most people will be able to see individual pixels, but at distances further than 7.7 feet, you can’t see them. In the case of a 42″ 1080p display, the ideal viewing distance is only 5.5 feet–beyond that, you can’t see the pixels and you can’t really appreciate the full resolution of the display. In other words, it would be virtually impossible to distinguish between a 42″ 720p display and 42″ 1080p at distances of about six feet or more. Given that many people view their televisions from 8-10 feet away (if not even more), you would have to have a 65″ or larger screen to really notice the difference between 720p and 1080p.
Bring on the comments
Sunday, November 5 9:00 am
For some reason I just don’t believe that especially since I can tell the difference on my really old HD set where the image quality isn’t as perfect as the sets out now. I’ve got a 42″ and we watch it well over 8 feet away.
Sunday, November 5 8:37 pm
I’ve always suspected that about the HD stuff.
The promise of 1080p definitely seems like a lot of hype when you consider the abilities of the human eye (like they discussed in that quote).
It would be interesting to see some blind tests done to see whether many people could tell the difference between very similar models (with 720/1080 being the only difference) at an average viewing distance.
Dan, I wonder whether the comparisons you’re doing could be also influenced by the fact that the newer sets have other differences that improve their picture quality, and it could be that rather than the resolution that you’re seeing.
I remember when I worked at Kinko’s (the first year, before I moved to the corporate office) people always used to come into the computer dept. and demand that their photos (for their newsletter or whatever) be scanned at like 600 (or even 1200) dpi. When you’d try to explain to them that all they were doing was creating wasted data (at least for printing at the original size or smaller on Kinko’s equipment) and much longer processing times, they would refuse to listen, because more DPI just has to be better, right?
Monday, November 6 4:48 pm
I was talking about comparisons of 1080 vs. 720 on my TV, not the other newer/better technologies.
We can do a test next time we are at my house. The only problem is finding a source that does 1080i and 720i/p for comparison.
Saturday, December 9 1:00 pm
[...] A follow-up on Jason’s post (BTW, congrats again on your newborn boy) that 1080p doesn’t matter. My comments didn’t believe it and I still don’t, especially with this article on how it does. It’s most of the same stuff but at 13-15ft a 1080p 42″ set is noticeably different then a 720p. I use those dimensions because we have a 1080i 42″ at about 10ft and if we had the money we’d get a 42″ 1080 for the wall which would hang 15ft away. [...]
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