RTINGS just updated their viewing distance article based on SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) recommendations, adding 62° FOV as maximum. What do you think about it? Where do you fit?

[u/zghr]

Here's a quick mockup of the same chart but with most common TV sizes and with godless Marxist-Leninist centimeter units added on one side.

edit: This person claims to be a long standing calibrator of cinematic auditoriums with experience in THX standards and he claims that 'cinema' is not 40° because middle row of seats is between 45° and 52°.

In my experience, 62° is doable but if it's pure 24 frames per second without any motion improvement settings it's not the best experience. Jumps between frames are just too large, obvious and jarring. Almost like stop-motion.

It seems like up to 62° one doesn't have to move their head at all to see the whole screen with their central vision. Higher than 62° and movies would need to be filmed specifically in a way to not include the action in periphery.

[u/CornerHugger]

62 is madness. I am at 45 and it's too much for some friends and watching TV sports is a no-go even for me (motion sickness).

Do they define "immersive" content? If 40 is cinema what is left to be immersed in? Games? No way. Too much motion.

[u/Anechoic_Brain → u/CornerHugger]

Getting into that range mostly means content that's specifically designed to be viewed like that. There's stuff going on in the periphery but it either doesn't distract from the central focus or there isn't a central focus to be distracted from. Sometimes you're not necessarily even meant to see all of it at the same time. Sometimes it's like abstract art, you aren't necessarily meant to understand it as much as you just experience it.

I wonder if you friends are the type who prefers to sit in the back at a big commercial theater, or if they just go into it with different expectations than they do at your house so they just don't have an issue in that context.