How far back do I need to sit from this LCD/monitor?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joel
  • Start date Start date
Joel said:
HP L2335 Silver 23" 16ms LCD Monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824176018

Where I am putting it only allows me to sit about 5 feet away from it as a
TV. For a computer screen, the distance will probably be only about 4 feet.
How close is too close before the image turns to crap? I heard that on these
things for games you need to be at least 8 feet away. Is that true?
Click to expand...
That monitor has a recommended resolution of 1920 x 1200 which is better
than HDTV. IMO you should be able to get as close as you want if you run
it at that resolution. Of course you may have to turn your head to see
the left and right sides of the screen :-)
Your best bet is to preview one in a store.
 
HP L2335 Silver 23" 16ms LCD Monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824176018

Where I am putting it only allows me to sit about 5 feet away from it as a
TV. For a computer screen, the distance will probably be only about 4 feet.
How close is too close before the image turns to crap? I heard that on these
things for games you need to be at least 8 feet away. Is that true?
Click to expand...


Trying to declare a certain distance is arbitrary at best.
Get far enough away that you don't see pixels then you start
losing recognition of detail too... 8 feet is MUCH too far
away from a 23" screen. Like anything else, at first you
will have to get accustomed to it and then you will be fine.
 
ff said:
That monitor has a recommended resolution of 1920 x 1200 which is
better than HDTV.
Click to expand...

I'm standing in a store looking really hard at their HDTVs, and it's
like "wow... television"
IMO you should be able to get as close as you want if you run
it at that resolution. Of course you may have to turn your head to
see the left and right sides of the screen :-)
Your best bet is to preview one in a store.
Click to expand...

I think one main advantage of a larger screen is while you sit at a
reasonable distance, body and head movement has less effect on the
picture. In other words, I guess whatever distance feels good.
 
Remember, you need to sit at a distance from HDTVs when they are ou
of native resolution. In other words, when you are watching regula
TV on an HDTV. Up close, it will look awful. However, when you ar
watching them in their native resolution, everything will be fine.
Take an LCD monitor out of native resolution and you will see what
am talking about. Especially if it's a widescreen set to
non-widescreen resolution and it's set to stretch. If you ar
watching 1080i TV on a 1920x1200 monitor, you will be just fine.
1080p is better…good luck finding anything outside of a wmd though.
Just remember, when you are in native resolution, you can stan
anywhere; across the room, with your nose up against it, on you
head, whatever, and the picture will look great. However, when yo
are out of native, you are going to want to step back a bit. Thin
2-3” for every inch of viewing space, in your case 46-69”
 
HP L2335 Silver 23" 16ms LCD Monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824176018

Where I am putting it only allows me to sit about 5 feet away from it as a
TV. For a computer screen, the distance will probably be only about 4 feet.
How close is too close before the image turns to crap? I heard that on these
things for games you need to be at least 8 feet away. Is that true?
Click to expand...

For standard TV probably. On my CRT HDTV if the picture is GOOD in
SDTV cable digital format you have to be about 5-8 feet , you start
getting about 3 feet away and it looks really grungy. Of course some
channels look bad at any distance - close or far in SDTV format.

For PC use -- I have a 26" 1366 x 768 HDTV LCD and its sitting on my
desk about 2 - 3 feet away. I think thats the res I always forget the
exact specs. Games at 1024 x 768 or something I forget the exact specs
in Quake and FEAR look spectacular. Actually FEAR isnt in 16:9 mode it
squishes and widens the picture I think a bit but in this case you
really dont notice it.

The one big quibble I have with QUAKE is the still graphics they have
when its loading looks really low res and blurry. The rendered
graphics look great , often spectacular and they really went to town
on all the settings but the the still graphics and the distant martian
landscape graphics which are drawn as a background for the outside
shots in some scenes also has that blurry low res look though well
designed I wish they looked sharper.
 
Joel said:
HP L2335 Silver 23" 16ms LCD Monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824176018

Where I am putting it only allows me to sit about 5 feet away from it as a
TV. For a computer screen, the distance will probably be only about 4 feet.
How close is too close before the image turns to crap? I heard that on these
things for games you need to be at least 8 feet away. Is that true?
Click to expand...

The size of the screen and the viewing distance are not the only
variables. The other variables are screen resolution (pixels) and your
eyesight.

A person with perfect eyesight can distinguish details measuring about
30 seconds of arc in the center of the visual field. Your monitor
should be configured such that the pixels on the screen are somewhat
larger than this in your visual field.

At a viewing distance of five feet, with perfect vision, the smallest
pixels you'll be able to see will be 0.22 mm in size. In practice,
most people don't have perfect vision, and viewing conditions are
rarely ideal, so you can double this to get a pixel size of about 0.4
mm. That corresponds to a screen resolution of roughly 1152x864, so
this would be a good setting for your screen, which you can adjust up
or down to suit your tastes.

I work at 1600x1200 on a 20" LCD monitor at a distance of about 50 cm,
and this seems to be nearly ideal, although I could go with a somewhat
higher resolution without too much problem (if the monitor and card
supported it). Extending that to a 23" monitor yields a resolution of
1840x1380 pixels. Reducing that to accommodate a viewing distance of
five feet yields roughly 640x480.

Five feet is actually quite a distance away for a 23" monitor; the
screen is going to be pretty small in your visual field. A good
viewing distance is often about twice the diagonal of the screen.

As always, your mileage may vary. Use the above as a guideline, and
then adjust viewing distance and resolution until it looks comfortable
to you.

The specifics of an LCD screen are that the screen is designed for a
specific native resolution, and it might not look too great if set to
other resolutions that don't divide evenly into the native resolution.
The HP monitor you mention has a native resolution of 1920x1200, so
I'd suggest that you view it from about 2 feet away at native
resolution. At greater distances, details will be harder to see, and
the gaming experience will be less realistic (because it covers less
of the visual field).

Games require less resolution than most other applications, so they
can tolerate greater viewing distances, but that doesn't mean that
greater viewing distances are better. In some cases, the resolution
of games is low enough that they will look blurry at close range, but
the advantages of having more of your visual field involved in the
game may outweigh that consideration.
 
ff said:
That monitor has a recommended resolution of 1920 x 1200 which is better
than HDTV. IMO you should be able to get as close as you want if you run
it at that resolution. Of course you may have to turn your head to see
the left and right sides of the screen :-)
Click to expand...

It would be great for most applications. However, keep in mind that
games make great demands on video cards--you have to make sure you
have a video card that can support 1920x1200 at the refresh rate you
want and with all the colors and 3D support you might need for a game.
To some extent your CPU will also play a role, since higher
resolutions require more calculations and lower frame rates.
 
John said:
I'm standing in a store looking really hard at their HDTVs, and it's
like "wow... television"
Click to expand...

HDTV resolution isn't that great computer to computer resolution, but
it's a lot better than traditional television systems (which are only
320x200 for VHS tape, for example, and barely 320x380 for broadcast
NTSC or PAL).

Also, while HDTV has many pixels, it doesn't use them all because of
video compression, whereas a computer can set every pixel
individually. Overall, computers make higher demands on resolution
and require better monitors and closer viewing distances than
television.
 
High-definition television HDTV does not look much better than
conventional TV, in my opinion, it's not exciting.

Further comparing it to computer multimedia. Looking at a television
nowadays, sometimes I want to resize parts of the screen. And
oftentimes I would like to move the slider back so I can replay part
of the video.
 
John said:
High-definition television HDTV does not look much better than
conventional TV, in my opinion, it's not exciting.
Click to expand...

I've seen HDTV technologies in the past, and they were very nice--much
better than conventional TV. But then again, just about anything is
better than conventional TV, so HDTV is really "high-definition" only
when compared to the miserable resolution of ordinary television.
Further comparing it to computer multimedia. Looking at a television
nowadays, sometimes I want to resize parts of the screen. And
oftentimes I would like to move the slider back so I can replay part
of the video.
Click to expand...

Yes. And the images on a computer screen are much sharper and clearer
than those on a TV screen, even HDTV. Ever notice how blurry a DVD
seems when played on a computer monitor, compared to the
computer-generated images next to it? And if you look at the specs of
even high-definition TV sets, you see that their resolution is no
better than that of a medium computer monitor, and often it is much
worse.

The last time computers were able to get by with TV-style resolution
was back in the days of the TRS-80 and Apple II. It didn't take long
for even microcomputers to push resolution requirements far beyond
what standard TV screens could deliver. And computers have been using
much higher resolutions than TV for decades.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if it's a consensus in your head.
Click to expand...


It may or may not look "much" better depending on your
definition of "much". There is an obvious visual
improvement but whether it's enough to get excited about, or
even necessary, is quite another thing... regardless, the
improvement is real and an evolutionary step rather than one
that would make everybody throw away a decent set to buy
into HD rather than getting the life out of one. Then
again, I don't watch a lot of TV besides the news and
occasional movies.
 
kony said:
[digital TV] may or may not look "much" better depending on your
definition of "much". There is an obvious visual improvement
Click to expand...

If you put the same pictures and scenery on my modern analog TV set
that you see in a digital TV display, it would look practically the
same. You probably can't see any difference when viewing moving
images. It might be evolutionary, but it's not worth paying any more
for.
 
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