Get Closer!

If there’s one thing most people need to do to get more out of their home-theater setups, it’s to sit closer to the screen. The point of a large high-definition display is not to be able to sit way across the room; it’s to be able to see an amazing amount of detail in the images when the screen fills your field of vision. But to see this detail, you have to sit close enough to the screen. All too often, that brand-new 42" flat screen is being viewed from 13’ away while the owner blissfully enjoys the "hi-def" experience. However, 13’ is what THX recommends as the distance from which to view a screen with a diagonal measurement of 116", not 42". The display area of the 116" screen is a staggering 7.7 times greater than that of the 42" screen. The result of sitting too far from the smaller display is that you’re not really experiencing hi-def. If you think standard-definition DVDs look pretty darn good compared to HD discs, that’s a good indication that you’re sitting far too far away.

However, sitting only 6.7’ from a 60" display may be a problem for some. If you use fairly large loudspeakers for the front left and right channels, they probably won’t sound their best until you’re 7-8’ away. Those who have a serious audio system combined with a big screen should keep their audio needs in mind when deciding on the ideal seating distance and screen size.

Does this mean that if you can’t sit as close as 6.7’ to a 60" display, you might as well forget about it and just keep sitting 15’ away? Absolutely not. If you can move up to even 10’, you’ll see far more detail. But the farther from the ideal distance you sit, the less hi-def your viewing experience will be.

How close is close enough will depend on the size of the screen and whether the display is 1080p/1080i or 720p/768p. I like THX’s approach: For each screen size, they recommend the optimal distance at which you see everything the display has to offer, as well as a maximum viewing distance. Sit farther away than the maximum and there’s a definite loss of image detail -- you don’t get the hi-def experience that’s possible with closer viewing. A quick way to estimate the THX-recommended viewing distance for a 1080p/i display is to multiply the screen’s diagonal dimension by 1.35. For a 720/768p display, multiply the diagonal by 1.8. If necessary, you can sit up to 35% farther from the display than either of these results and still experience all or most of the detail the display can reproduce.

Here’s an eye-opener: The recommended viewing distance for standard-definition sources is about four times the diagonal screen measurement. That means that the viewing distance for a 60"-diagonal SD display is about 20’, in order to mask SD’s lower resolution and higher level of artifacts. Compare that to the 6.7-9.4’ recommended for an HD display of the same size.

So get closer to your HDTV and enjoy all the resolution you’ve paid for while watching those amazing HD discs. The closer viewing distance may seem wrong at first, but you’ll find yourself increasingly immersed in the viewing experience as you get used to the screen filling more of your field of vision, just as in a movie theater. And that’s the whole point of these incredible hi-def video displays.

. . . Doug Blackburn
db@hometheatersound.com