[bobcar]

Originally Posted by MediaMogel

Its the whole glass and bright room combination that is making me avoid Panny Plasmas, they do have great picture quality.

If you have a bright room then forget plasma and go for LCD, I have a Panny plasma and love it but it's in a room with little natural light and none that reflects off it to the viewing position.

[pocatello]

Originally Posted by 1saintly

That just makes a joke of HD for the majority of viewers.

So say the average viewer sits up to twice that and the average seems to be 40'' ish tvs, then whats the point of HD?

That explains why me and friends\relatives cant see the difference between freeview SD\HD and sky SD\HD on our own Tvs

Well the majority of people have rooms that aren't that big..and sit reasonably close to a tv. So its easily possible to sit 6 feet from a 50" even if they choose to go with smaller and screw up that bit.


Whats the point of HD? People have a learning curve, they walk up to HD displays at the store and evaluate the HD from an arms length away when they buy their tv, then they get home, it takes a while for these things to sink in for most people, they've been trained for decades that a 30" tv crt was imposingly large, so they assume anything more than 40" is ridiculous, they have to experience it for themselves before they realize its a mistake and have to upgrade again, just how people work.


Back to the op, 20 feet is incredibly huge distance, you have a very large room/house? In most cases its a mistake to place your seating on the other side of a room against the back wall, beyond being bad for tv viewing its just ugly looking in terms of interior design.
http://myhometheater.homestead.com/v...alculator.html

"Push All the Furniture Up Against the Wall
You may think that a room will look larger if the middle of the floor is open, without furniture. But the opposite is true. Unless you're going to have a dancing party in the middle of your room, move the furniture into groupings in the center.
Arrange a sofa with a table behind it, away from the wall with a walking space behind. Show off the back of the sofa and arrange decorative items and a lamp for reading behind it. Move chairs out of corners and you'll have a more open, airy look in your room.
"
http://interiordec.about.com/od/arti...decornonos.htm

[evil c]

Time for me to enter the fray I think. I have a 40 inch HDTV and I sit nearly 14 feet away from it. I can easily tell the difference between SD and HD. If I were to buy the TV again, I would get a 46 inch instead to best appreciate the fine detail that HD affords, but at the time of purchase the only HDTVs I had seen were in shops and I wasn't sure what the picture would look like at home. I sit on the sofa against the back wall and I have a big rug in the room in between the sofa and the TV stand. It might not be recommended by a decor expert, but it really makes hoovering easy. I listen to the TV via my high quality hifi system and I like to have a large room to make the best use of the loudspeakers.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by evil c

Time for me to enter the fray I think. I have a 40 inch HDTV and I sit nearly 14 feet away from it. I can easily tell the difference between SD and HD. If I were to buy the TV again, I would get a 46 inch instead to best appreciate the fine detail that HD affords

Way too far back to "best appeciate the fine detail", even for a 46 inch.

[evil c]

Hello Nigel, I wondered how long it would be before you joined in!

[emptybox]

Originally Posted by pocatello

"Push All the Furniture Up Against the Wall
You may think that a room will look larger if the middle of the floor is open, without furniture. But the opposite is true. Unless you're going to have a dancing party in the middle of your room, move the furniture into groupings in the center.
Arrange a sofa with a table behind it, away from the wall with a walking space behind. Show off the back of the sofa and arrange decorative items and a lamp for reading behind it. Move chairs out of corners and you'll have a more open, airy look in your room.
"
http://interiordec.about.com/od/arti...decornonos.htm

Yeah, that's how I have my living room arranged.
It's approx 15' by 15', and I have my sofa towards the centre of the room with a telephone table and chair and a bookcase behind the sofa, with plenty of room to walk between.

That's why I made the tongue in cheek suggestion that the OP must have something like a swimming pool in between their couch and TV, that stopped them sitting closer.
They didn't seem to find my contribution very helpful though.

But if we can't imagine their room size or layout, how can we sensibly say whether a particular size of TV would be suitable?

[MediaMogel]

Originally Posted by emptybox

Yeah, that's how I have my living room arranged.
It's approx 15' by 15', and I have my sofa towards the centre of the room with a telephone table and chair and a bookcase behind the sofa, with plenty of room to walk between.

That's why I made the tongue in cheek suggestion that the OP must have something like a swimming pool in between their couch and TV, that stopped them sitting closer.
They didn't seem to find my contribution very helpful though.

But if we can't imagine their room size or layout, how can we sensibly say whether a particular size of TV would be suitable?

.
Don’t really think your first post intended to be of any help.

but

Will break it down for you, 20ft by 20ft room, floor to ceiling windows on one side. (no blinds or curtains as no one is over-looking the house) so that’s why I won’t be going for plasma.

on the other side, floor to ceiling glass doors to reception.

one couch will be near the back wall, have it already configured\designed on paper and is perfectly acceptable. The other two couches will be placed in a position to allow maximum light and allow acceptable viewing of the TV.

To reiterate my concern, I asked would 55” be ok, or could I get away with a 50” TV

[Tassium]

Different people want different things from a TV. For some people it's a thing in the corner that they can look at but it doesn't dominate, others want the TV to be focal.

This is why these "optimum calculations" are meaningless. They are concerned with resolution/visual acuity, not on most peoples agenda whatsoever.
--------------------
So it's a bit like recommending a flavour of crisps really. For myself, I have watched a 50" from 15' and it's OK. The impact is greater than you would imagine.

Perhaps because of the psychological effect of the brain knowing that the image is a big 'un.

Having a large screen TV seriously improves the emotional impact of that image even when it's 15'/20' away. The size on the retina is just one part of the story.

Try watching an image on a tiny media player so that it's approximates to a 60" screen at 10' away and it's pathetic, your brain knows it's tiny even though the retina image area is large.

[emptybox]

If I watch my 40" set from 15' away, i.e from the doorway, then it looks small. I can't tell SD from HD, and I can't easily read the text.
So from 15' I would need at least a 50"er. From 20' I would think 55" would be a minimum, unless you just wanted a box in the corner, as Tassium said.

[call100]

Niether.
Go for a 60" . The sharp is in your budget range now at Richer Sounds and Amazon
A friend has the smaller version of this set and the picture is very good...

[bobcar]

Originally Posted by MediaMogel

.
To reiterate my concern, I asked would 55” be ok, or could I get away with a 50” TV

To answer your concern both TVs are very small for your viewing distance so it makes little difference either way, go for what you prefer. (By comparison at 6' a 16.5" screen will look the same as a 55" at 20').

You are going to be viewing very small images and that is fine as long as you realise this. Don't even consider HD unless you are going to be say sitting much closer for "special" programming.

[Tassium]

55"/50" will be about the same at 20'

The only real solution is having the seating away from the wall, which is what design experts always say makes a room look bigger anyway.