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Wide-screen TV-viewing distances
Nearly every TV sold these days is a wide-screen HDTV, so the chart below only applies to those sets. If you have a regular TV that's not wide screen, the rule of thumb is that you should sit no closer than twice the diagonal measurement in inches. Wide-screen televisions showing high-resolution DVD and HDTV look better than regular sets, allowing you to sit closer and experience a more immersive, theater-like picture. With wide-screen sets showing DVD or HDTV, you can sit as close as 1.5 times the screen's diagonal measurement and still not notice much of a loss in quality, while sitting farther away than three times the screen size means you're likely to miss out on the immersive feel. Here's a rundown of minimum and maximum recommended viewing distances for wide-screen sets.
| 16:9 TV diagonal screen size | Min. viewing distance (in feet) | Max. viewing distance (in feet) |
|---|---|---|
| 26 | 3.3 | 6.5 |
| 30 | 3.8 | 7.6 |
| 34 | 4.3 | 8.5 |
| 42 | 5.3 | 10.5 |
| 47 | 5.9 | 11.8 |
| 50 | 6.3 | 12.5 |
| 55 | 6.9 | 12.8 |
| 60 | 7.5 | 15 |
| 65 | 8.1 | 16.2 |
