Samuel H
Major Contributor
There's always a debate on whether we prefer more resolution or just a nicer picture (more latitude, more color information, etc) at a decent resolution, say 1080p.
So I decided to make a test and see what's the maximum resolution that my eyes can resolve.
I created a video with a 50% grey background, and a single different pixel that travels through the screen. Given a specific screen pitch (pixel size), my optimal viewing distance will be just a bit more than the farthest point at which I never lose track of that moving pixel, even when it's not too different from the background (in my test, 62% or 38% grey, for example just at the beginning of the video).
I used a 32" 1080p TV. I found that I never loose track of the moving pixel at 95cm, but I occasionally miss it at 100cm, so I'd say 100cm is my optimal viewing distance for a 32" 1080p screen. This yields an optimal distance-to-1080p-screen-size ratio of 1.23. At 1m, 32" is already cinema-style FOV, so this test says that 1080p is just about enough resolution even for a cinema-style screen size: my eyes can't see any more than that.
Beautiful result. But then...
I did the test also on a 52" TV, and the results are not exactly the same: here I only started missing the dot occasionally at 200cm, which means a distance-to-1080p-screen-size of 1.51. Bad news: at 200cm, a 52" screen is kind of last-row at the cinema, 64" would look better, which means I can live with 1080p by sticking to a screen size that is huge by living room standards (86" for my 330cm viewing distance) but smallish for cinema standards. But if I want a huge, cinema-style screen, then I should go for something like 3K or 1440p.
These results are a bit puzzling, I'd expect a constant optimal distance-to-1080p-screen-size ratio. I'd need more data points in order to reach some kind of conclusion... Would you care to run this test yourself and post your results on the vimeo page? Thanks!
The test is here:
http://www.vimeo.com/14880977
So I decided to make a test and see what's the maximum resolution that my eyes can resolve.
I created a video with a 50% grey background, and a single different pixel that travels through the screen. Given a specific screen pitch (pixel size), my optimal viewing distance will be just a bit more than the farthest point at which I never lose track of that moving pixel, even when it's not too different from the background (in my test, 62% or 38% grey, for example just at the beginning of the video).
I used a 32" 1080p TV. I found that I never loose track of the moving pixel at 95cm, but I occasionally miss it at 100cm, so I'd say 100cm is my optimal viewing distance for a 32" 1080p screen. This yields an optimal distance-to-1080p-screen-size ratio of 1.23. At 1m, 32" is already cinema-style FOV, so this test says that 1080p is just about enough resolution even for a cinema-style screen size: my eyes can't see any more than that.
Beautiful result. But then...
I did the test also on a 52" TV, and the results are not exactly the same: here I only started missing the dot occasionally at 200cm, which means a distance-to-1080p-screen-size of 1.51. Bad news: at 200cm, a 52" screen is kind of last-row at the cinema, 64" would look better, which means I can live with 1080p by sticking to a screen size that is huge by living room standards (86" for my 330cm viewing distance) but smallish for cinema standards. But if I want a huge, cinema-style screen, then I should go for something like 3K or 1440p.
These results are a bit puzzling, I'd expect a constant optimal distance-to-1080p-screen-size ratio. I'd need more data points in order to reach some kind of conclusion... Would you care to run this test yourself and post your results on the vimeo page? Thanks!
The test is here:
http://www.vimeo.com/14880977
