How to Find the Perfect TV for Your Room Size When Buying a New TV

If you’re buying a new TV, then getting the perfect size for your house or room situation is going to often be an issue. Here’s some information about how to up your size matching game between rooms and televisions.
The Basic Size Formula
The accepted formula for size matching is to start with the total Distance for viewing in inches, and then divide by three to get the size that you want. So, as an example, if your couch is way on the other side of a cavernous room at 20 feet away from the television, that would come out to 240 inches. If you divide this by 3, you would need one huge television at 80 inches. But, cut this to 10 feet, and you end up with a television of 40 inches.  If you get closer to the television at 5 feet and 60 inches, then this goes down to a television size of just 20 inches, which is why most computer screens are under that size.
This is mostly just a rule of thumb though and you don’t have to do it down to the exact inch or anything. This is just supposed to be the ideal. The idea is that if any size larger than that ratio will make it so that you can’t really see the screen properly and hit will hurt your eyes and make you miss things.
This also goes in the other direction, except instead you multiply. So, if you want a television that’s 50 inches, then you multiply by 3 and you get 150 inches. This comes out to 12 and a half feet. So, that’s how far you’d have to be away from the television in order to have an ideal viewing angle.
Other sources do say that if your space is at a premium, you can go with an absolute minimum of 1.5 times instead of the ideal 3 times. So this would just mean you can halve the viewing distances and TV sizes in a pinch. But, it is true that other factors apply. 
Room Type Considerations
One important thing to consider when fitting a TV to a room is the kind of room you have. Basically, if you have a bedroom where it’s mostly going to be just you and you only have to worry about viewing it personally, you can go with a smaller television even if you go under the formula a bit. For example, anything from right in front of a TV up to a few feet away will be covered with 20 inches or less. If you want to get something 16 or even less in inches and you plan on sitting right in front of it, this should work for your bedroom because of how you plan to watch it.
It’s also true that you have some flexibility when it’s just you in a bedroom because you can adjust the viewing distance easily by moving your chair back and forth. This means you can worry about the formula less. If you’ll be mounting the television on a wall and viewing it from an immovable bed, however, then this is another consideration and it may be good to stick a bit closer to the formula.
In the case of a television that’s meant for multiple people to watch it, it’s more likely that you’ll have something that’s HD over even Ultra HD 4k, which means that fine details will be easier to pick out. As a result, sitting closer to it is going to be less of an issue. So, you can get away with
Other Considerations for TV Size
If you’re going to be sitting far away from your television and you want to get a truly massive screen like something at 85 inches, this could be a good time to think about 4K, because then the detail might matter. Getting an extremely high-definition television that you’re going to be sitting really close to may be pointless since you’d be able to see all the details anyway.
The recommendation is you should do this only with large televisions, or when you’re playing something with intense graphics like a Blu-Ray or a very high graphic video game such as Crysis.
Other General Considerations
Something else that matters is viewing angle. If you’re using a television with a normal viewing angle at HD, it’s important to set it up so that there’s no more than around 15 degrees in terms of being above or below the eye-level of the television. This is because otherwise you might not see the image correctly and it will look odd. The recommendation is to not go more than 40 degrees to the left or right either. However, this can change based on the screen.
Some televisions will have better viewing angles, and you’ll want to check this if it matters. For example, if you are going for a big screen so that you can seat people in front of it with couches that go in a curved shape, then you’ll want viewing angles that can handle this. You should ask your TV supplier about this before buying. Otherwise, people on the far edges might not be able to see the screen properly and they’ll get negative images.
This also applies if you have to mount the television too high and people have to crane their necks to look up at it.
For more information about getting televisions for the right room size and configuration, please contact us today.