Comments on: Home Theater Seatings Distances: Field-of-View vs. Resolution

By: Viewing Distance When Resolution Becomes Important « Heath Hurwitz's Blog

Viewing Distance When Resolution Becomes Important « Heath Hurwitz's Blog — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 07:10:41 +0000

[...] Interesting Blog Post from Carton Bale on whether 1080p matters. http://carltonbale.com/home-theater-seatings-distances-field-of-view-vs-resolution [...]

By: Viewing Distance When Resolution Becomes Important « Heath Aaron Photo's Blog

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 16:37:58 +0000

[...] Interesting Blog Post from Carton Bale on whether 1080p matters. http://carltonbale.com/home-theater-seatings-distances-field-of-view-vs-resolution [...]

By: Carlton Bale

Carlton Bale — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 14:36:56 +0000

Yuval: Wow, thanks for the link! That is some great information on visual acuity; much more detail than what I’d referenced previously. I need to see if I can incorporate some of this info into my spreadsheet. I wonder how much of the resolution perception is made based on the central view area. My guess is that as long as the central view is sharp, a lack of resolution in the periphery wouldn’t be commonly noticed.

I think a Field-of-view of between ~30 and ~50 degrees is ideal, with ~70 being an absolute widest tolerable (too much head panning if you’re closer than that).

As for as the importance for picture quality aspects, contrast ratio is number 1. To get the maximum possible ANSI contrast ratio, the room has to be dark and the luminance has be a minimum level. However, if the room is dark, the luminance requirement is very low. So, although luminance affects contrast ratio, it’s really ambient light that is highest factor there, and luminance is only a secondary contributor to that. Overall, it’s pretty low on the list as long as contrast ratio is maximized.

I think Field-of-view doesn’t relate so much to picture quality as is does “the quality of the viewing experience”. A wide field of view makes the movie much more immersive, and that is the biggest benefit. An image can be “high quality” without being immersive, so I think of it as two completely different factors. However, the field-of-view is obviously tied to the resolution (if you sit too close, the lack of resolution can be apparent.) However, I’d take a slightly wider field of view at the expense of resolution issues (i.e. FOV is more important than resolution in my opinion.)

By: yuval

yuval — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:56:53 +0000

Great writing, carlton.

Few notes regarding regarding minimal horizontal FOV;
1. even if the FOV is 140, the visual acuity falls sharply as one goes to the periphery of the FOV.
See http://www.swift.ac.uk/vision.pdf section “Variable resolution” and the nice picture at the end.

2. Seems like people preferred FOV of ~30 rather than that of 70, because the latter force you move your head too often, which is inconvenient.

3. In case you have sub-titles in the movie, head movements are a real nuisance. I would guess that the subtitle width (probably 80% of image’s width) should fall within the 24 FOV. This gives an overall of (24/0.80=) 30 degrees FOV.

4. in the “1080″ article you write on the “the most important aspects of picture quality”.
You didn’t mention luminance and FOV. Where do you think these two should fall?

By: Carlton Bale

Carlton Bale — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 01:42:29 +0000

Eugski: I’m working on version 3.0 of the home theater calculator spreadsheet to try to explore just what you’re talking about. I did some research and found that the maximum field-of-view for the human eye is around 140 degrees, so 70 degrees to either the left or the right (obviously, it varies by person). I’m assuming that the closest a person would want to sit would be the location where the viewer looks at one side of the screen and can see the other side with their peripheral vision. To do so, their field-of-view relative to the screen would be 70 degrees. I tried this viewing distance on a few people. The consensus is that they could pretty much see the entire screen regardless where their vision was centered. However, they all agreed that they had to scan around much more and would definitely prefer to sit farther away. But, for an absolute minimum seating distance (resulting in the widest-usable field-of-view), 70-degrees seems to be a reasonable cut-off. Of course, the 720p resolution looked terrible when sitting that close the screen and high-motion scenes were somewhat nauseating. Since I can see resolution deficiencies at the 30-degree f-o-v viewing distance (the longest distance recommended by THX), that is where my front row is going to remain.

By: eugski

eugski — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:00:12 +0000

Thanks for both(1080p does matter) informative articles. They will save me about a grand with my first hdtv purchase – no 1080p.

Even though THX will not give a minimum fov, do you feel there is an optimum fov? Or an fov minimum at which distance the human eye cannot see the full screen? Any charts?