What is the ideal sitting distance to a television set?
As a general rule, we’ve found that sitting a distance of four to six times the height of your television works for standard PAL pictures. Since HD pictures have fewer noise and artefact issues, the ideal spot for HD viewing is three to four times the height of the screen. This does, of course mean that you would only have to sit four to five feet away from a 32in screen showing HD signals, hence our belief that larger screens will become increasingly popular as HD becomes more common. What is aspect ratio? This simply refers to the shape of the screen, not its size. Traditional television had an almost square display. For every unit in height, there would be 1.33 units in width, giving a ratio of 4:3. Widescreen sets are (logically) wider. For every unit in height there are 1.77 units in width, giving the familiar 16:9 ratio. Some television have develop with more extreme ratios, including a Japanese set with a Cinemascope ratio of 2.35:1, but these never been mainstream propositions.
