Viewing distance for SD signal

[Otto]

Hi,

I'm looking to purchase a plasma tv for our new house. Over here in the US, there are great deals on the Panasonic plasmas which I know you guys rave about. I don't have Blue Ray, and the only games console we have is a Wii. To be honest, we're only going to be watching Cable on it, and maybe the occasional DVD, hence I'm looking at 720p sets.

We will be approx 10ft away from the tv - at this distance, is a 50" tv going to look bad?? Would a smaller tv be more suited for our use?

[cjs]

I sit about 10ft from my 42" Plasma and it is just about right, when I first installed it I thought it was too big, now I'm used to it, it is just about perfect. I would not like to be trying to watch fast moving TV on a 50" at that distance.

[OldSkoolRS]

It depends on how good at scaling the TV is. If you are using the internal tuner, then you're stuck with the performance as it is, so only a demo will tell you if it's good enough for what you want. If you're watching DVDs then some upscaling players are better than others and as a really upmarket alternative(read, complicated and expensive) try an external video processor.

I watch some DVD/Freeview stuff on my 10' wide screen via a projector using a Lumagen HDQ video processor to upscale and it's quite watchable (of course BluRays look better, but that's not the point here). It will also pay you to set the TV up properly as many TVs have horrendous 'out-of-the-box' settings, with sharpness, brightness, etc all turned up far higer than neccesary.

[Northern Munkee]

I'm considering Pioneer Kuro 50", an indulgence, but I was told it's really the best all round, and though I'm sure its great on dvd and Blu Ray, I reckon I'l be watching a good deal of SD, so I went into Comet today and had a look at their Pioneer 50" at between 8 & 10 feet, and I have to say watching a Freeview SD signal I was singularly unimpressed when compared with my 32" Sony CRT.

which got me thinking if the SD picture is like this on all large plasmas and there were a fair few in store, I got to wondering whether I should save myself £800+ and get a 50" Panasonic Viera or a Samsung, because they all looked great with a dvd, Blu Ray, and SD signal were all fairly poor. I'm missing something, is seeing these SD signals in store a mistake?

[Trommel]

Northern Munkee said:

I have to say watching a Freeview SD signal I was singularly unimpressed when compared with my 32" Sony CRT.

which got me thinking if the SD picture is like this on all large plasmas and there were a fair few in store, I got to wondering whether I should save myself £800+ and get a 50" Panasonic Viera or a Samsung, because they all looked great with a dvd, Blu Ray, and SD signal were all fairly poor. I'm missing something, is seeing these SD signals in store a mistake?

I am not exactly impressed by the Freeview picture on my TH37PX80. May have to begrudgingly pay for chav TV in order to see the benefits.

[OldSkoolRS]

Trommel said:

I am not exactly impressed by the Freeview picture on my TH37PX80. May have to begrudgingly pay for chav TV in order to see the benefits.

If you meant $ky TV, then you could be in for a dissapointment in SD channels (unless you meant the HD package in which case I'll get back in my shell). The SD channels often have an even lower bitrate than Freeview and sometimes they don't even use the whole amount of resolution (720 x 576) that SD is capable of. There is a massive thread, over on the AVSForum I usually post on, about trying to improve the output from a $ky box using a video processor and it's a challenge to say the least.

[Plotloss]

Northern Munkee said:

I'm considering Pioneer Kuro 50", an indulgence...wondering whether I should save myself £800+ and get a 50" Samsung

That would be like considering shagging Cheryl Cole but wondering whether you should have a go on Roy Hattersley.

[Northern Munkee]

Plotloss said:

Northern Munkee said:

I'm considering Pioneer Kuro 50", an indulgence...wondering whether I should save myself £800+ and get a 50" Samsung

That would be like considering shagging Cheryl Cole but wondering whether you should have a go on Roy Hattersley.

Well Roy still wouldn't be top of list, but I just wouldn't want to be left with Cheryl after her fireworks thinking, christ was that worth it as her general conversation is mind numbingly boring, and was she really worth all that extra kerching...

[Plotloss]

Northern Munkee said:

Plotloss said:

Northern Munkee said:

I'm considering Pioneer Kuro 50", an indulgence...wondering whether I should save myself £800+ and get a 50" Samsung

That would be like considering shagging Cheryl Cole but wondering whether you should have a go on Roy Hattersley.

Well Roy still wouldn't be top of list, but I just wouldn't want to be left with Cheryl after her fireworks thinking, christ was that worth it as her general conversation is mind numbingly boring, and was she really worth all that extra kerching...

To carry on with the absurd comparisons.

With Cheryl, you'll always be in the afterglow.

No cuddling either, which was nice.