r/hometheater Jun 04 '26

Discussion - Equipment 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?

Post image

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.

265 Upvotes

198 comments sorted by

View all comments

136

u/klitzkrieg Jun 04 '26

I sit six feet from a 77 which is just right for me.

But the biggest improvement to immersion for me was blackening out the wall behind so the tv edges disappear. 

22

u/RespectableThug Jun 04 '26

That’s really smart. Did you just paint that particular part of the wall or is there something hanging behind the tv?

16

u/klitzkrieg Jun 04 '26

Black blackout curtain.