Whats the best way to experience Blu-Ray??

Wrong, you brought it up to justify your belief that even back in the day distance calculators were valid, when really they were marketing hog wash when most people's actual options were a 20-32" crt.





Actually they weren't, when all you had were vhs, then laser disc, by your viewing distance requirements you'd have to sit in the next room in order to sit far enough back from the "hideousness". terryranosaurus would probably think that viewing would only be possible from the other end of the house being that it was "sdtv" on a big screen.



No it did'nt, when the actual practical tv's an average person could purchase only range from 20-32 before they became both back-breaking and massively intrusive into rooms the only thing you had were all too small, and you made do with it. Applying distance calculators to 20-32" is like trying to give advice down to the inch on how close you should watch films on an iphone vs a nexus one. It's totally ridiculous. Don't even try to apply the considerations of yesterday to today so arbitrarily. The only factor they had to deal with was that vhs was truly a low resolution you had to sit back from. No such low resolution source exists today that would make the average flat panel too big for the average home. Digital tv and dvd are in no way a limiting factor as vhs was. You are talking about something that was both 250 lines and analog. It has no relevance to the current situation.






Its true, compared to todays sales of larger hdtv's they sold very few. You pretend that flat panel of 50"+ is impractical for homes today yet you believe that in the past countless monstrous behemoth type crt rptv which came in giant cabinets were sold? It doesn't wash.




You are clutching at straws, you both believe that large flat panels on the wall are impractical for uk homes, yet somehow you believe in a fantasy past where giant boulder sized rptv's were a common sight in homes, more common than large flat panels are today. You contradict yourself.




Lol that's like saying that ferarris are available, a niche market that has no relevance to the common buyer. You are back tracking to an extent which totally undermines your entire reason for bringing up rptv's in the first place. "Oh I saw them in shops"...oh please. I've seen a ferrari before as well, i'm sure in 20 years if I followed your reasoning i'd have to claim everyone used to have one. The distance calculators had no application or value to the actual tv's people could buy. 20-32", applying distance calculators is totally nonsensical in the first place, so bringing up rptv is just really besides the point.





It's inherent to your argument, and the reason you even brought it up. Once you fell on your face you back tracked.



You tried to claim that they were equivalent to todays sales or selection in large screens, and that is entirely a false assertion. Let alone pretend that they were actually common in homes, when all you had was that you "saw one in a shop". You believe that 50"+ flat panel is too big for most homes yet you think giant boulder cabinet rptv's were common in the past. It just is not consistent.





Lol those are max distances for visual accuity for SDTV only. Meaning you can sit back at those distances and still see the bigger chunks of detail of SDTV, go any further and you start to lose even SDTV. Like how you can stand back further from a road sign than a newspaper. The max viewing distance of a road sign has nothing to do with whether you can see it at closer distances, it's a given you can. But so what? Why are you bringing it up as if it has relevance to the discussion, which is what is the best way to experience bluray, and thats not at the maximum of 14.6 feet away from a 42" as suggested by that site for sdtv. It ridiculous to buy a TV and set it up based on your worst source when that undermines everything else and frankly doesn't even make the worst source look any better in the first place. Never mind the fact that you seemed to have missed those are MAX distances, not minimum. There is no suggestion at all that SDTV is unacceptable on a 50 or 65" at 6-8 feet at all.

In fact that very site you linked recommenRAB a thx viewing distance of a mere 7.3 feet from a 65".

Thanks for digging your own grave.
 
I've got my PS3 hooked up to a 32" Toshiba TV running in 1080i and Blu Ray still looks stunning to me (it's in a medium sized bedroom and i'm about 6-8ft from the TV). I'd say it's definitely worth the upgrade, even if it's only 720p capable it's a good step up from SD TV. I've also got a 1080p 22" Dell monitor for my PC and in my opinion the level of detail difference is negligible. I mean, i can tell the difference between 1080p and 1080i, but it's not something i'd sweat over.
 
Bollocks is your continued denial of logic. Detail is lost when you consider distance. Just as you cannot read a newspaper from 6 feet, you lose your ability to see fine detail when the detail is tiny and far away. I'm sure thats the kind of logic you would indeed like to ignore, palin style. That thx standarRAB also agree with me only nail it in further.



Yea sure you can see the detail if you stand right in front of the screen. No one is talking about such a silly situation. Who in their right minRAB watches tv standing right in front of it, let alone bluray. You are in a thread on giving advice on bluray and getting the best experience, claiming that you can see the detail on a 19" if you stand right in front of it is no advice at all.




And most fo the detail is wasted, not that it matters, its a bedroom tv. This is a thread about how to get the best experience, and the experience of a 19" at a few feet away is tiny and poor, but your son has no right to complain as he didn't pay for his own tv did he. In any case any advice you are giving about how 19" would take advantage of bluray is nonsense, it would be a massive waste of money. A 19" looks like a joke, no matter how close you get. You can't hold an ipad to your forehead and call it imax, it just doesn't work that way.



Wow, i guess you are arguing just to argue then. Trying to quibble over some absurd twisted point when it has nothing to do with the main discussion which was about how best can one experience bluray. Discussing how you can see any detail on a 19" if you shuffle close enough is seriously off topic. I mean really, what are you going on about, a 19" is too small even for computing up close.



Which is the point, you cannot see detail at distance if it is too small. And at the average seating distance, of 6-8 feet, any detail lost is money wasted.



I'll tell you what looks stupid...a 19" tv from even a few feet away. You are over estimating how big a tv looks on the wall, and how fast people get used to such things. And once again, flat panel is not crt, at even 32" a crt was an intrusive nuissance in any room. A 50+ panel is simply that, a panel on the wall. 1990's experience means nothing, technology was lousy back then, it was analog tv which is not comparable to todays sdtv. Everything from the scalers to the tv's were far worse, so yes of course anything blown up big looked horrible. It has no relevance to todays experience though.
 
It depenRAB on the deinterlacer in the 1080i tv. That being said it will be getting the best hd signal it can possible get from bluray. While some detail can be lost with bad deinterlacing, its not a big deal, 1080i tv's do not display 1080i, they display 1080p, but the input signal is limited to1080i. Deinterlacing is complicated to do correctly which is the issue. If done correctly on deinterlacable material, you essentially get 1080p. If its a larger 1080i tv vs the 1080p 32", i'd go for the larger in most any case.
 
No, thats exactly what you are saying.

When you say something like 28" or even 19" are enough to experience the benefits of bluray, that's exactly what you are saying. That you can read newspapers from 8 feet away.

Sure if you are wealthy and can buy bluray players for even the tv in your washroom so you can watch blurays on the toilet you could say that 4 foot is a reasonable seating distance. Otherwise the reality is that such a seating distance requires your couch be placed so your knees are pretty much right up against the wall almost. It just doesn't wash as general advice on getting value from bluray. Its not a reasonable assumption to assume people buy bluray to view it from 4 feet away.





Oh we are back to your chart based "on the toilet" viewing distance? lol



You get the detail you paid to see at the average and normal seating distance of 6-8 feet. With a 32" you do not, its that simple. So don't be absurd.




You are the one defending small tv's as great for bluray when clearly at normal seating distances they are not. We are not talking about ridiculous scenarios where someone sits 50 feet away from a 50" tv. It's very easy to fit a 50+ seating distance into the average home setup with a correct viewing distance. With a small tv, sitting 4 feet or closer is simply impractical.




You are basing this on eagle vision. A 32" at 6-8 is tiny, we are talking 1080p detail here, not sdtv. It's very easy to test, attach a computer, set 1:1 mode and put up the smallest but readable text from monitor distance, then walk back 6-8 feet. If your ability to resolve pixels is as strong as it is, you are basically saying you would be able to read a newspaper at about 6 feet.

Theres a good reason why htpc's and such devices have to use a 10 foot gui. The regular gui is simply unusable at distance.



Yes sure, you can watch a movie on your iphone. But that's really going off on a tangent to no where. The question is how BEST to experience bluray, not what you can settle for.



Dont' get absurd. We are talking within the bounRAB of reason, which is where my figures hold up, and where you have to exaggerate with extreme viewing distances in either direction to justify your argument.



Whats the point of bringing something so exaggerated and irrelevant up, unless you have no argument.





Wow you are going all over the place now.





No, the lack of detail is apparent regardless, there is no masking, but it is not as bad as you are claiming, it's simply a little soft. Scalers do not scale up giant jagged, and crude pixels, it doesn't work that way. Maybe in the distant past had to literally sit back further to avoid seeing a huge magnified analog scan line, but that is not a relevant issue for todays tv's or sdtv transmissions or dvd. Stop applying concepts and considerations out of their time.





TO continue with your failing argument you have to even construct a past of fantasy. There were "some" rptv's in catalogs, almost no one owned them, the popularity was nothing even close to the market larger flat panel tv's have garnered today. Almost no one owned the things, it's simply a fact. Perhaps you grew up rich and everyone had their horses and mansion like rooms to fit giant rptv's, but that was not a common reality at all for the rest of us.



Even niche products get new models. But don't pretend they got new models on the scale at which todays tv's get them.



Yes, but it doesn't work that simply, you cannot pretend holding an ipad to your forehead makes it imax. Within the reasonable limits of a normal room and couch setup you are restricted to not going below certain sizes to get full advantage of bluray and 1080p. Asking people to sit 4 feet from their tv's is not reasonable, never mind closer with even smaller tv's.



This thread is about the best experience. Sure some numpty could sit 50 feet from a 19" in zoomed and pan and scan mode, some people even mount their tv's close to the ceiling, it is of no matter or relation to the question at hand. Those are simply ill-considered setups, and not relevant to the question of how to get the best experience from bluray.
 
Which is like buying a sound system based on your worst sound source, some battered up cassette tape from god knows when. It's not something I find reasonable.



Advice is given based on reasonable assumptions. You are making claims about optimal sizing being possible with smaller screens when in fact it is all compromised. Fundamentally compromised is not an optimal setup, and it's not honest to sell it as that, let alone as the best way to experience bluray. You cannot blindly follow some distance chart/scale and pretend that sitting 2 feet from a 19" is reasonable advice. The fact of the matter is that such small screens provide poor value and experience when it comes to bluray.



I don't have to undermine anything. They are what they are, tiny screens not adequate for bluray. Any reasonable distance is a compromised solution, whether it's the detail being too small or the screen being far from cinematic, it's not a good experience by any standard. It's a better than nothing solution, which is not what this thread is about.



It's not how it works, or else holding your ipad to your forehead would simulate imax. It clearly does not. The simplistic notion of "just sit closer" to a small screen doesn't hold up in reality. The eyes and mind can tell you are just sitting closer to something small.





Average setups do sit anywhere from 6-8 feet away. Advice should be given not assuming people live in houses that are the size of closets, or have rooms that are the size of ballrooms.




It's a reasonable assumed distance for most people's houses.



No, it was an example of how ridiculous viewing distances recommendations were back then. When even a 36" was barely affordable or practical the idea that you could set viewing distances based on the tiny tv's most people actually had access to is simply that...ridiculous. A 21" tv is small, it doesn't matter how close or far you to it. And people didn't buy those to sit 2 feet from them, they bought them as a compromise, it was as good as they could do, it was the better than nothing standard of the time, viewing distance recommendations were all nonsense when all you had were 20-32" as normal affordable tv's. It's silly as asking whats the appropriate viewing distance of an android nexus 3.7" vs the iphone 3.5" screen. It's just nonsense at that level.



You are laying claim to expertise in this area, you should know publications report on the state of technology, even if it's in other countries. It's why american videophiles know about things like 21:9 tv's when they haven't been released in the us market. If you had really kept up with what was the state of technology and the reality of the markets at the time, you would know things like this.
 
Providing you sit at the recommended distance for your screen size, you should notice the increased detail Bluray offers over DVD.

To get the most out of what Bluray offers, you will need a compatible a/v receiver, but Bluray also offers DD5.1/DTS, though I understand some discs have been problematic. If you don't have HD compatible equipment, DD5.1/DTS will still give you terrific sound.

Have a look at the Sony BDP-S370, it has had very good reviews. I think this would compliment your TV very well.

Amazon are currently selling it for
 
Never seen an HD Ready TV that has a native resolution of 1920x1080. Seen plenty of Full HD TV's that have a native resolution of 1920x1080.

The definition of HD Ready to me is it can accept and display a 720p/1080i input at it's native resolution which is lower than 1920x1080. Common HD ready resolutions are 720/768.

When the HD Ready standard was introduced there were no 1080 displays, when they first arrived the Full HD standard was introduced.

Unless the HD Ready standard has changed that's my interpretation of it.
 
This basic observation is something that Pocatello seems unable to understand.
I applaud the patience you had on the 21:9 tv thread but I can't be bothered with someone unable to grasp the basics which is why he is on Ignore
 
The question in this thread is how BEST to experience bluray. Not what your arbitrary preference is. To give an honest and realistic answer it requires a large screen to best experience bluray. Just as how you cannot read a newspaper from across the room, any extra detail is simply lost if you watch a bluray on a tiny screen from 6-8 feet back. Detail that is too tightly packed at a distance cannot be resolved by our eyes. It's no different from an eye chart, the smaller the text the farther back you stand, the less you will be able to make out. I've even provided you a link and chart showing the maximum acceptable distance for 1080p, and it shows the figures you are using are simply not based on anything at all. You have to sit closer to see the detail with 1080p, which is why a small screen does not take full advantage of bluray. You can only sit so close before it becomes impractical. I use 2.35 because thats the worst case scenario, and a shocking clear example of how small viewable image can be on even larger screens, and if you do not account for it, you are setting yourself up for a poor experience on many films.



2.35:1 on a 50" is 18.55" tall as I said, not 20".

Almost all tv worth scrutinizing is in HD. Anything else is pretty much not worth watching all that closely, and even if you have to, its not that big an issue with digital tv and dvd. You do not see all the imperfections and artifacts, you are talking as if dvd is filled with compression artifacts, sure the picture will be slightly softer, but to pretend that is a deal breaker is unreasonable. You will not see anything special on dvRAB with a 50" or larger, it will simply lack a little detail, todays 1080p upscalers do not create artifacts of any note from sdtv to hd.






They really didn't. Viewing distances were a total crock when the biggest tv's were both unaffordable, and impractically burdensome to move and house. Back when the average tv was a 27~ set back at 6-8 feet there was no real reason behind it other than that it was all a huge compromise. Thats all you had to work with. Any so called viewing distances were set based on what the sales folks had on sale, in other worRAB it was nothing more than marketing. Bamboozle the customer with jargon, to better help them rationalize a purchase. If they said you had to sit 6-8 feet back for a 27" tv, then I guess you'd have to sit in the next room for a mere 40" which was about as big as you could reasonably buy back in the day. Being that a 2.35 aspect film was a mere 13.6" tall on the hulking 40" crt, and a mere 9" on a 27", I'm not sure what viewing distances really mean when it's all so ridiculously small. It's simply a joke to pretend there's an optimal viewing distance for that. Its all suboptimal by default.

Its like pretending you need a distance calculator to figure out how close in inches your head should be from your 12" netbook vs your 17" laptop. Its doesn't matter, its all within the range where it just doesnt make a lick of difference for that usage. Its all very small regardless.



Even worse for your case if true. But really, it existed, and it was a monsterous 318LB. As I said, this made the entire concept of viewing distances back in those days a total crock. What average people actually had to work with were 27-32", and at that size everything was too small by default. It was tolerated the same way people tolerated corded phones that couldn't play games or access the web or even further back..tv's without color, they had nothing better.



As I said, impractically huge and expensive. I'm talking about reasonable and commonly available things here...and those were all very very rare and impractical. Sure there were a few very large projection screens that could have viewing distance theory apply, but almost no one owned them. They were huge in all dimensions, especially front projectors, there were no lcd or dlp projectors back then, they were all based on crt.





Once again, you seem to be tracking mud from another thread into this one. This thread is about the optimal screen size to take advantage of bluray. Not what low standarRAB some people can tolerate. It's a given some people will tolerate most anything, some people don't even watch tv, they are proud not to own one even. Fancy that. But its nothing to base an argument on when it's about what is best for people who do indeed care. A 28" might have been someones original screen size, but to replace it with another one at that size for bluray is simply to throw money down the drain.Its like pretending you can read the newspaper from across the room, you simply can't, and thus its just wasted detail.



That literally gives you a screen height of 1 foot at 2.35. At 6-8 feet away you are watching a tiny patch across the room. Thats what looks silly, while the uk house is smaller on average than other places, it's not the tiny hutch you are making it out to be. Esp since when wall mounted flat panel tvs are 2-3 feet further back from the original crt even, increasing viewing distance and increasing the need for a bigger screen that much more. If you do think that uk homes are all that small, then you'd simply have to argue that bluray has no place in uk homes, as people simply couldn't fit a screen large enough to take advantage of the extra detail. 32" is all the uk can handle!!;)

...
 
The context was that you tried to justify distance calculator/charts in a time when practical tv's only ranged from 20-32", its ridiculous by default. Then you tried to pretend that rptv was popular, even more ridiculous.



Lol going nowhere fast.That you didn't know about the 40" crt only made your claims about the viewing distance chart recommendations even more absurd.




There were no practical or affordable tv's that were cinematic at the time, that was the simple fact that undermined the entire reason for distance calculations, let alone when people stupidly applied them to 20-32" crts people actually did buy.



Rptv was out long before dvd, so really don't go there. By terrysaurs standarRAB, any of the rptv's at the time would have required you sit in the next room, lest you suffer the full hideousness of sdtv.



I'm not moving the goal posts at all. By your own standarRAB you claim that most people can't handle a bigger flat panel, yet you try to concoct a fantasy past where rptv's were a viable option for most people?
I'm not even sure you understand why you quoted yourself, it doesn't make any sense or have any relevance to the argument. You claimed that todays big screen tv's are no more popular than the rptv's of the past. That's sheer fantasy.






No, rptv's were brought to justify your claim that distance calculations were valid in the past, when it was in fact total marketing nonsense. The only practical sized tv's people actually bought were from 20-32", sizes you gladly apply such ridiculous calculations to when in fact small is small is small. It's silly as consulting a chart to figure out how many inches you should hold an iphone away from your face vs a nexus one since their screens are slightly different in size. It's simply bonkers and lacks total common sense, its small regardless.



It's the entire basis of your argument.





Lol that's funny coming from you. You've even had to falsify the past to justify your arguments.




You need to work on your reading comprehension. Those are maximum distances before you start to lose the ability to make out standard definition detail. In other worRAB its like the maximum distance at which you can possibly read a newspaper, even if its uncomfortable. No minimum distances are listed. The maximum is essentially nothing more than a common sense measurement anyways. The actual take away is that it doesn't matter for sdtv. Unless you have a ballroom in your house, you cannot possibly sit so far you can't see whats on the screen.




Maximums again, sd maximum for larger, I can't believe you continue to squirm when the very link you posted to back you up dug your own grave. It recommended 7.3 feet from a 65" tv. End of story. maximum distances from sd material on large rptv's have no relevance, they just state this is how ma ny rooms away before you can't see jack. It's not useful information.




No, sd is watched at the same distance which are the practical average in homes, about 6-8 feet regardless of how small they are. It's no better watched farther back than if you pretended you had to walk 6 feet away from your computer every time some 360p web video started to play. In any case its irrelevant to the question at hand, which is what is the best way to experience bluray. Your very own link recommenRAB distances that fit well within the average home for larger flat panel screens.




No relevance to todays digital sdtv and dvd. Analog scanlines on vhs material and such was yet another reason distance calculators were bogus back then and why rptv's were not practical in any way for regular people, which once against stikes a blow at you even pretending they are comparable in any practical way to todays flat panel tv's. As I said, your very own link recommenRAB 7.3 foot viewing distance from a 65", that's how it is today. To answer the ops question, to best experience bluray, you need a large screen. You've been arguing based on faulty assumptions for far too long.
 
You clearly haven't seen much.

You continue to argue after Wikipedia and the BBC contradict your opinion with facts. That says it all doesn't it.



To you? Who are you kidding, you stare evidence from Wikipedia and the BBC straight in the face and you make up your own facts. Your "interpretation"? Oh brother..its plainly stated on those two pages, the BBC and Wikipedia. Are you related to Sarah Palin?
 
My living room can only accomodate 26 inches. 32 inches upstairs in my bedroom as that is the biggest room in the house.

As for wall mounting, I would get neck ache. I suspect most people would too. The room is too small. From sofa to television, the distance is less than 3 foot unless you have the sofa against the windowsill which isn't a good idea as the radiator would have to be moved from the far wall where the tv would go.

Terraced houses are the norm in my area unless you live in the west end.
 
And claiming everyone sits 6-8ft from a TV should therefore go out and buy a 50-60"+ TV because there's no affordable size that is too big is good advice.



No - what I am saying is.........

Regardless of size, all detail will be resolved providing you are sat at the recommended distance. Whether that recommended distance is too close is a matter of opinion.

Ignorance is bliss.
You didn't have to grow up rich to see them in the high st/retail parks.

I'm not saying they were as popular as flat panels are today, just readily available and a fairly common sight in stores.

Perhaps you didn't get out much.......


I'm not, you're the one doing that.


Considerations are........

Screen size v seating distance.
 
It depenRAB on how well the system upscales the DVD, and how good the Blu-Ray is.

I thought S.Darko looked very good on Blu-Ray, but Donny Darko was nothing special. I'm playing them on a PS3 which does a good job of upscaling, especially when given a good quality digital source like DVD, so (for example) the Hero DVD looked virtually as good as Donny Darko.
 
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