Appropriate Viewing Distance

I recently won 34" Sony HDTV w/built-in tuner. While I'm happy to win the prize, I've run into the problem of trying to fit it into my current living room. Unfortunately, I can't exchange the TV for a flat-panel or something because the station I won it from bought it through a wholesaler...Long story.

After moving all the furniture around, the maximum viewing distance between the screen and the couch is about 8 feet. Is that about right without my eyes going bad? I'm trying to make this work if possible, but if I need more room, I might have to end up just trying to unload it on ebay.

I have a Panasonic 34" Widescreen and the couch sits just shy of 10 feet away from the TV. The whole family finds that perfect. I'd say you are in the ballpark. ....of course we all wear glasses :)

My 34" sits about 8' in front of the couch - if anything I could watch it from closer. 1.5 times the diagonal is sometimes quoted as optimal, ie 51", but this seems a little close to me; although at that distance I can't see the individual pixels!

Seems good to me. I'm not sure any distance will prevent eyes going bad as I'm not sure what that means.

Wow, that sounds good to be in that ballpark area. My wife and I had been driving ourselves crazy trying to figure out what to do.

I tried out my PS2 and watched a couple sporting events on the TV and the picture didn't seem as crystal clear as I would've expected. So I assumed that I needed to move farther back from the screen.

It seems I remember from childhood being told to sit at least 6 feet back from the screen, so I don't know if that's what had me worried about the distance. :)

and the picture didn't seem as crystal clear as I would've expected.
What signal source were you watching? HD or SD?

Hmm, that's a good question. I'm still a newbie at this so, I'm not sure what SD is. Even though the tuner is built into the television, I was not given an antenna for over the air HD broadcasts and I have to cut down a tree in back of my house before I can get DirecTV HD service.

I have been looking at various channels and playing the PS2 as I mentioned earlier and the image quality appears the same as my 27" Apex TV. That's why I thought that maybe I was too close to the TV and needed to back up more.

OK - back to basics....

SD is Standard Definition (480i = lines interlaced), ie regular cable, antenna, VHS tape or DVD played interlaced.
ED is Enhanced Definition (480p = lines progressively scanned), ie a DVD played with the player set to progressive scan.
HD is High Definition (720p or 1080i lines - in your case 1080i), ie HD cable, HD satellite or Digital Over The Air (OTA) with a suitable antenna.
Which model TV do you have?
Were you viewing with a regular antenna plugged into the back?
Have you tried watching a DVD yet?

Thank you for the recap.

I have a Sony 34" FD Trinitron WEGA HDTV.
I'm looking at my TV now and the setting on the DirectTV receiver is 480i/p.
I haven't signed up for DirectTV's HD service yet (tree in the way).

For the time being, my PS2 is serving as my DVD player. I watched a DVD a few weeks ago and it appeared fine. I have played a couple PS2 games that were DVD's (Madden and NCAA 2005), but it did not seem to be very clear, or fine -- if that's a better term to use.

I plan on buying an antenna for my local channels' HD broadcasts since the rabbit ears on my older sets are looong gone.

Model number of your TV, please... there are LOTS of Wegas...

You should optimally connect to your STB (if possible) and DVD player (if possible) via Component cables & use 480p output. Otherwise use SVideo.

You need to upgrade both your receiver & dish to get HDTV. Dish (Echostar) bought the VOOM content, so they currently have more HD content than DirecTV.

Visit www.antennaweb.org to find out what antenna you'll need, and the direction to the local transmitters...

To get back to the original topic, optimal distance is the minimum distance to view your TV from... not so close as to see raster or screendoor production artifacts... but close enough to see every little pixel & where the image takes up the biggest possible percentage of the viewer's vision. Suggested distance is 1.25 times the diagonal for 1080 & 1.50 times for 720p. Meaning your set will still look good from only 4' away! As you move further away, you will lose the ability to resolve fine detail... similar to reducing the res of the display. Many suggest you need at least a 40" screen to see all the detail of HDTV.

8 feet seems dead on, I've read varied formulas for calculating viewing distance...

From RSawdey's 1.25xDiagonal, all the way up to 3xDiagonal. I have a 32" Sony HD and 8 feet is almost perfect for our space. I will occasionally move into 5 feet when playing PS2, especially racing games.

The model number for the TV is KV-34HS420. DirecTV came out and installed the new receiver and dish but I have a tree in a way that needs to be cut down. So for now, I'm only concerned about getting an antenna for my TV and watch the local channels on HD.

This evening, I rearranged my furniture to give myself about 8-9 inches distance and it looks better. I think what I'm most concerned about is that the edges don't seem very crisp. I don't know if I'm expecting more than what this TV is capable of producing. Since I won the TV, I could not do any comparison shopping, so I'm trying to get the most out of this set if possible.

For now I'm using my PS2 for my DVD player, so I can't use that for more than gaming and movies. Thanks for the link to antennaweb. I really want to get that as soon as possible, so I appreciate that link.

A few things you can try on the Sony...

Go into the Menu, and highlight the picture setting options, then press the reset button on the remote. That will default the settings back to factory. Then, most of the Sony's have 4 modes, Vivid, Normal, Movie, and Pro. I keep mine on Normal most of the time and use Pro while watching movies. Vivid is good for really dark video games.

Under the DRC settings, set it to Progressive, if available, this will help with the SD broadcasts. Others may feel differently, but I like the effect, although barely noticeable.

Also, play with the Velocity Modulation setting, if available, I like to keep it on 3, as it makes for very sharp edeges. Even with SD broadcasts of CSI and Law and Order I can count the hairs on their heads!

My favorite test channel is CNN Healine News, channel 202 on DishNetwork (dont know about DirecTV). Very vivid colors, nice closeups of faces, lots of text, beautiful color transitions for backgrounds. Just make sure your watching the actual news-casters and not one of their footage playbacks which tend to be grainy. I tend to get the most compliments on the picture when this channel comes on.

One last thing, what connections are you using? Throw away the coax cable. At the very least you should be using the RCA A/V cables that came with the receiver, if it has S-Video, use those instead. And their is a VERY NICE set of component cables available for the PS2 that will knock your socks off. Then you can set your PS2 for progressive output. Cables are the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to picture.

The model number for the TV is KV-34HS420. DirecTV came out and installed the new receiver and dish but I have a tree in a way that needs to be cut down. So for now, I'm only concerned about getting an antenna for my TV and watch the local channels on HD.
Your TV cannot get over-the-air HD programming without an external tuner as it does not have a built in HD (ATSC) tuner, only an SD (NTSC). If you have had DirecTV install an HD dish and receiver (despite your tree problem) then they also should have installed an antenna for your OTA reception as their HD box does include a tuner.
Once you get HD up and running you will need to set up your picture - pick one of the picture settings mentioned by Blue_Tech, say Pro, and turn the Sharpness down to about 20% or less and the Scan Velocity Modulation (SVM) to OFF - you do not need this for HD. Next find a live studio broadcast on one of your local channels (digital) and adjust the color for a good flesh tone. At the same time play with the Picture and Brightness - Brightness should be as low as possible to give a good picture as if it is too high you will loose definition. When properly set up this tv should be almost as good as it gets!
By the way you will need to use Component Cables to get HD signals.

When my receiver arrived in the mail, a small piece which looked like an antenna for wireless PC network cards was in the packaging. But when I asked the technician what it was, he was unsure. He thought it was to pick up the signal of the remote from anywhere in the house. I didn't think DirecTV would supply an antenna because they have antennas listed on their website as an optional piece of equipment to be purchased elsewhere. Plus they seem to be getting cheap so it seems like too much to ask from them.

I'm going to try out these new settings and see how everything goes and report back to you. Thanks!

So you do have a DirecTV HD system? even though you can't get the signal? I was in the same situation but had to go with Comcast.

lilpenny, Yes, that little antenna that came with the receiver is for the remote control. It will allow you to change channels or what not from any room in the house. It works on radio signals instead of Ir beams.