Maximum Seating Distance from 4k Screen

Since resolutions found today are almost exclusively 4k/Ultra HD, It takes a very big TV watched from very close to see imperfections related to the resolution. Because of this, one can appreciate their TVs from much closer for a more immersive experience. Think of it like a movie theater, the more a TV fills your view, the more captivating the content will be.

That doesn't mean you should be sitting a foot away from your TV. Not everybody prefers having the largest screen possible. The human visual system has an angle of view of about 135 degrees horizontally, and while it makes some sense for movies to get as large a TV you can get, content isn't produced to be viewed while filling the entire field of vision. This becomes very apparent if you try to watch sports from up close while fixating a single part of the screen, as it gets quite nauseating.

Higher field of view was first made possible with Full HD resolutions, but 4k enhances that ability even more. Sitting close to a 1080p TV will often make it seem like you are watching your TV through a screen door, even if it is playing a high quality 1080p HD movie. By increasing your distance from the TV, the density of the details will also increase, producing a better image. This is the angular resolution: the number of pixels per angle. The farther away, the higher the angular resolution will be.

Since 4k TVs have such a large density of pixels, it is much more difficult for this issue to arise. You need to be quite close to a fairly large TV for it to be noticeably annoying.

The limit to which you can increase the angular resolution by stepping back depends on your visual acuity. At some point, your eyes are not good enough to distinguish all the details. Studies show that someone with 20/20 vision (or 6/6 in Europe) can distinguish something 1/60 of a degree apart. This means 60 pixels per degree or 32 degrees for a 1080p television. 4k UHD TVs double that to 64 degrees. Keep in mind that you can see a single pixel from further away (depending on its contrast with the rest of the picture).

For 4k, this distance is often too close for most people. This is because 1080p was designed around the field of view logic above. It is the cutting point at which both the optimal field of view and 60 pixels per degree meet. For lower resolutions, it meant sitting a bit further than preferable to not notice the pixels, 4k resolutions and higher give you a lot more freedom. Because of this, visual acuity isn't really the best way to find the right distance anymore, and it should instead be used as a way to figure out the closest point you can sit to a TV without hitting its resolution limitation.

Thanks

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