Can We See 4K/UHD On A Normal Sized Screen? You Betcha!
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Here's another chart that can be used to see of your setup is OK for UHD content. Notice the 4K 55" TV and what the viewing distance is.
answer: 3 ft for full benefit
answer: 3 ft for full benefit
Don, the whole point of his article (IMO) was to prove that the chart above, which everyone loves to throw out there, isn't the end all be all.
I sit 9-10 feet from a 65" and the UHD discs are noticeably sharper than 1080p. According to the chart you posted, I should not be able to see a difference with a 65" at 10ft. People have been telling us "you need a larger screen" since we went from 720p to 1080p, and it never was entirely accurate.
The response usually is that "you are seeing what you want to see, now stare at my view distance chart again and realize you are wrong". I get tired of hearing it and personally think the Carlton Bale one is WRONG.
I sit 9-10 feet from a 65" and the UHD discs are noticeably sharper than 1080p. According to the chart you posted, I should not be able to see a difference with a 65" at 10ft. People have been telling us "you need a larger screen" since we went from 720p to 1080p, and it never was entirely accurate.
The response usually is that "you are seeing what you want to see, now stare at my view distance chart again and realize you are wrong". I get tired of hearing it and personally think the Carlton Bale one is WRONG.
The brain and widely variant performance of scalers play such a large part in this that much of the research probably only applies to professional displays showing carefully selected test patterns.
The use of test patterns with substantially horizontal and vertical lines isn't particularly representative of real-world images. The real test comes from lines that are just off axis. I imagine this comes even more into play with projectors that use electronic keystone correction (vs. optical).
The use of test patterns with substantially horizontal and vertical lines isn't particularly representative of real-world images. The real test comes from lines that are just off axis. I imagine this comes even more into play with projectors that use electronic keystone correction (vs. optical).
Agree! I have two seating rows, about 8 ft and about 18 ft. The screen is 105" diagonal. No Keystone adjustment since the newest projector doesn't have it. You are forced to properly level the projector physically.
I confirmed the 4K experience requiring the front 8 ft seating using 4K resolution charts, not real world movie blue ray disks. I wonder if when viewing the combination of UHD's HDR and expanded color that a resolution test can get impacted so they might believe the resolution is there when a res chart that has no color or HDR can isolate the true resolution or detail to the pixel level, show it was just color that influenced the evaluation.
But I do agree the chart is overly general as it assumes all displays are the same. My opinion based on casual; observation is that they are not and that might have a significant influence on what you see, especially between major technology differences such as LCD, OLED and Projector/matte white screen and projector/high gain or perf screens.
If I use a color real world image, at 18 ft, I can only see a color difference between 1080p and UHD, detail no. Up close, I can see the weave in the clothing on UHD that tends to get fuzzy and run together with 1080p.
That Carlton Bale diagram is very misleading as it makes people think they can't appreciate 4K from their normal viewing distance.
The article linked above does a good job explaining why that diagram is wrong.
"How can so many people be so wrong about 4K? I think it boils down to two false assumptions. The first is that vision is limited to 20/20 and second is that the digital media can capture all of the resolution at the resolution of the imager. Both of these are false."
I have 20/20 as tested just in April. But, I have astigmatism in my right eye. So I need corrective glasses to resolve fine detail whether distant or close up. Also, I have to have different corrective glasses for distance and close up. Astigmatism is a real bugger to deal with when it comes to fine detail but the good news is if you know the distance you need correction tjhey can cut a set of glasses to optomize that. I have one set for 2-5 ft for my video editing monitor and another set I keep in the HT room for 7 to 30 ft. and a 3rd set in the car for driving distance. Otherwise I don't wear glasses.
I really don't know what normal viewing distance is. To me, that is a highly personal decision based on many factors. People with dedicated home theaters are more fussy about making it optimum for technical reasons and non dedicated Home theaters use feng shui or some Americanized form of it for furniture placement. The TV is just another piece of furniture.
I really don't know what normal viewing distance is. To me, that is a highly personal decision based on many factors. People with dedicated home theaters are more fussy about making it optimum for technical reasons and non dedicated Home theaters use feng shui or some Americanized form of it for furniture placement. The TV is just another piece of furniture.
I just did a simple (perhaps not very scientific) experiment: froze a 4K image and looked at it from various distances to see if I can distinguish tiny details. Then compared that to the same image down-converted to 1080i. Here are my observations.
On a 4K image (with my glasses) I can clearly see individual windows (balconies) on the buildings in the background.
From up to 8 feet from the 65" screen I can count those windows. Between 8 and 10 feet I can still see them, but it's getting much harder to count them.
Now, when I down-scale the same image to 1080i, I can no longer distinguish individual windows, no matter how close I sit to the screen.
So, I can easily see a noticeable difference in image clarity between 4K and 1080i from 8-10 feet. The Carlton Bale graph claims that full benefits of 4K don't start until 4-5 feet for a 65" screen - I call it BS!
On a 4K image (with my glasses) I can clearly see individual windows (balconies) on the buildings in the background.
From up to 8 feet from the 65" screen I can count those windows. Between 8 and 10 feet I can still see them, but it's getting much harder to count them.
Now, when I down-scale the same image to 1080i, I can no longer distinguish individual windows, no matter how close I sit to the screen.
So, I can easily see a noticeable difference in image clarity between 4K and 1080i from 8-10 feet. The Carlton Bale graph claims that full benefits of 4K don't start until 4-5 feet for a 65" screen - I call it BS!
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I totally agree with you I also can see the difference from 10' on my Vizio 4K UHDTV which is the same distance I viewed my Vizio 1080p HDTV.
iPhone.
And pretty close to the screen, so you could see individual pixels.
The pictures don't represent the image quality. Just a quick illustration of what I was looking at.
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