every time there is televisions with larger diagonal panels and for cheaper prices, which is why for many users when we have to renew or update our old screen, it crosses our minds when reviewing the catalog with the best models of the year, buying the biggest TV that fits at home, either on the living room furniture or directly hung on the wall.
It will undoubtedly provide us with a most spectacular image, but since we do not always have a room as large as those that appear in decoration magazines or in manufacturers’ advertising, installing a giant TV in a tiny room can have a series from physiological drawbacks that they take their toll on us in the long run.
Hence, both brands and experts recommend us to consider a series of aspects regarding viewing distances and screen diagonal sizes before buying our ideal model, so that it it is adapted to the size of the room where we are going to install it and to our usual position as spectators within it.
Health problems from having a TV that is too big
On previous occasions we have commented on how the experts recommend considering a optimal viewing angle of 30 degrees in an attempt to reduce the so-called “tennis match” effect or problem.
What distance would then be optimal? Well, the general rule is that the minimum viewing distance is three times the height of the TV or 1.6 times the diagonal of a 16:9 screen.
Thus, for distances of less than 2 meters, a size of up to 50 inches would be recommended, the 55 inches being reserved for distances of 2.1 meters, the 65 inches are recommended for about 2.5 meters and if we want to put 75 or more inches we should have at least 2.9 meters of distance between the screen and our usual position in the room.
If we do not follow these considerations and finally opt for too big a model, in the long run we can suffer various inconveniences that will degrade our user experience and even our health. First, there is what is known as eyestrain due to the fact that it does not cover the entire screen at a single glance.
That is, we have to be shaking head continuously from side to side to see all sections of the image on the screen. It is a nuisance that we will suffer depending on the use we give to the TV. For example, if we want it just to watch movies for a couple of hours in a row, the fatigue will be minimal, but if we are in front of the screen all day, it can cause serious discomfort.
It is for example the case of who uses a TV or monitor too big for your viewing distance when playing frequently and for long periods of time, being able to suffer eye and muscle discomfort caused by a fixed posture in which only a few muscles have to be constantly moving to cover the entire surface of the panel.
Not being able to cover the entire screen in a single glance can eventually cause discomfort in the muscles of the neck and back as well as an excess of accommodation in the eyes, which according to some medical specialists can lead to symptoms such as itching or blurred vision that logically worsen with the time the screens are used.
In addition, a large TV will generally be brighter than a smallsince it has a larger emitting surface and manufacturers reserve the most advanced technologies capable of emitting more nits for their higher-end models with larger diagonals.
It is an ideal feature if we want to use it during the day in a room with a lot of ambient light, but if we are to make viewings in a dimly lit room and/or in the eveninghaving a very bright huge TV can become counterproductive.
If we are going to watch TV for many hours, having a direct light source pointing at us so large, powerful (although you can always lower the intensity of the light to a certain point) and relatively so close, it can reach cause discomfort and visual fatigue.
Hence, if our thing is to watch TV at night for long periods of time, it is advisable to have some ambient light that diffuses the impact of direct light and reduces eye fatigue.
As we can see, the idea of mounting a giant screen at home is limited not only by the resolution that we can observe and the pixels that we can take advantage of, but it is also intimately linked to the space available in the room as well as the distance to which we are going to sit “usually” to view content. But it is precisely this “usually” that gives us hope not to have to give up having a real home theater.
And it is that the physical problems caused by having such a large TV in the living room are generally insignificant if we are only going to see the screen during short periods of timeas happens with the duration of a movie or a couple of episodes of a series.
Future Solutions: Resizable Image
It may seem then that there is no solution, that the size of our room, beyond its physical dimensions, determines with the optimal viewing distance the size of the TV that we can install if we do not want to suffer all these inconveniences. No options?
Well yes there are. For example, it is possible to implement in televisions what we could call “resizable image”an option that can be offered both at the hardware and software level.
In the first case (hardware implementation), we have already seen some attempts by brands such as LG with its roll-up TV that allows various panel positions, hiding parts of the TV that we do not use and thus achieving various screen sizes. pressing a single button.
We have also seen other designs and prototypes with panels that are hidden and they show only part of the total screen to offer different functions or the most recent LG Art model presented a few months ago. The drawback of these hardware solutions is their price and that they need a piece of furniture that hides the rest of the panel.
The other option is implementation by software and the idea would be to be able to have an image that can occupy the entire available panel as always when we go to see a movie session or an episode of our favorite series with the highest possible quality, but that also can be configured for occupy a smaller areafor example half, a third, a quarter or different proportions.
It’s kind of like a PiP or PbP function or reverse zoom where the video source is reduced to a corner, side or half of the screen, but this time with a single video source, the one we are seeing at that moment, leaving the rest in black and if possible integrated into the remote control with a specific key to activate and change the options of the function.
With this function we can buy a screen with a large diagonal and adjust the size of the image to our liking depending on the type of content that we are going to see. For example, if on a day-to-day basis we only use TV to watch the news, contests, talk shows or similar events that do not require a large diagonal or maximum resolution, but rather a small reference with sound to take a quick look from time to time when, we can vary the size and turn an 80-inch TV into a 40-inch image.
This function would also allow a considerable energy saving in models with self-illuminated pixel technologies such as OLED or in LCD-LEDs that can control and turn off their back lighting independently according to certain matrices.