Determining Your Viewing Distance
Viewing distance is simply the distance between your television and where you and your guests normally sit when watching television. Today's televisions offer much better picture quality than older models, which means you'll want to sit a little closer--but not so close that you start noticing pixels on the screen!
How to Get the Best Picture Quality
To get the best picture quality, you'll need to choose the right TV dimensions based on the viewing distance you just determined. It just takes a bit of simple math to find your ideal TV screen size:
Minimum TV dimensions = Viewing distance / 3
Maximum TV dimensions = Viewing distance / 1.5
For example, if you'll be sitting 10 feet away from your television, that's 120 inches. This gives you a minimum TV screen size of 40 inches and a maximum screen size of 80 inches.
When I purchased new TVs for the new house post fire, I loaded on a USB stick with a number of photos,short videos and some downloaded TV test patterns which I took with me when shopping. On the models that I was interested in, I was able to view these and see how the different TVs compared. Being able to look at the same things that I was familiar with on different TVs allowed better comparison.
Been a year since I dumped DISH and installed Roku streamers and OTA antenna. Paying less than $25 a month for Netflix, Hulu+ and Amazon Instant video...a big savings from the satellite...and finding better viewing than ever. No pixillation or loss of signal when storms or cloud cover is heavy.
If you've ever used an LED flashlight (or compared one to an ordinary flashlight), you can already make a good guess at the advantage of LED lighting: Your picture will be brighter and have better contrast. Additionally, LED TVs have deeper blacks than LCDs (important if you're a movie buff), and the screens themselves are thinner and consume less power. In the battle of LCD vs. LED technology, LED TVs definitely come out on top.
