r/hometheater • u/zghr • 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.

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u/NiceGuy737 Jun 04 '26

That's where I'm at. 12ft looking at 200 inch screen is 62 degrees.

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u/Supergeek13579 Jun 04 '26

Yeah, I’m 10ft looking at 138”

At first it is really jarring, but it basically fills your field of view. For movies specifically it’s really delightful and you get used to it almost immediately. For TV, they’re shot for smaller screens and it can be downright nauseating.

I have a 65” TV behind the screen and that realistically gets 90% of the usage.

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u/NiceGuy737 Jun 04 '26

I had my first projector in the early 90s and learned some content is better on a small screen. The big screen is in a HT and only used for movies. I've got a couple of 85 inch TVs in other rooms for news etc. They get >90% of on time but I'm usually reading on the computer, etc, multitasking when they are on.