I found this to be a very informative article. I would be interested in this same information for a dedicated home theater (front projection setup).

Thanks for posting this, but I hoped you would go into more detail about why 1080p doesn’t matter(unless you’re sitting 8 feet from a 60 inch plasma). The preponderance of 1080p plasmas in sizes as small as 42 inches makes me laugh. Are people ever going to sit close enough to make use of that? Probably not, and if they did, their mothers would call them and remind them to not sit so close to the TV.

I found this little viewing distance calculator a while back. It would be a great addition to the article.
Viewing distance calculator.

This sounds like an attempt to push consumers to higher end TVs, not an honest assessment.  I have a 34” CRT HDTV and can easily see the difference between 720 and 1080 content.  By your calculations I need to have a 54” TV to tell the difference.  That’s simply not true.

“Thanks for posting this, but I hoped you would go into more detail about why 1080p doesn’t matter(unless you’re sitting 8 feet from a 60 inch plasma). The preponderance of 1080p plasmas in sizes as small as 42 inches makes me laugh. Are people ever going to sit close enough to make use of that? Probably not, and if they did, their mothers would call them and remind them to not sit so close to the TV.”

1080p matters if you view the TV from the right distance and have an eye for quality. I am a hardcore gamer and have a 40in LCD that I sit about 5 feet away from (within the recommendation). 1080p TVs as small as 42 inches are perfectly fine if you do not want a home thearter and need a high quality TV to sit close to. Many gamers, including myself, enjoy a shorter viewing distance to feel more indulged in the experience.

Remember however, that you may easily get into really annoying and depressive experience when you do not take the PQ (Picture Quality) considerations into account.

The calculations presented are OK under assumption of a PERFECT CONTENT and PEREFECT DISPLAY.

Anything less than perfect and your pleasure of watching will be turned into a nightmare of tracking magnificently displayed artefacts.

Reality is that prefect displays are rare if not existing. The content is even more problematic.
Yes, Blue Ray movies are perfect for most time,
but HD TV has problems and if you still want to
watch standard TV that may be real pain.

Thus, unless you use your display only as home cinema display for watching Blue Ray movies which got highest marks for their PQ,  DO NOT move to the bigger size territory. Quite opposite, even consider moving down by one step. If you get 52” as ideal, consider 46”. If you get 65” get down to 58”.

Obviously, you can keep with the prefection but make it a consious well-informed decision meaning
that you will never complain “I see those small nasty artefacts which really scratch my eyes”.

I agree that THX reference size and viewing distance works for BLU-RAY.

If you’ve seen HDTV (even satellite and fios…  highly compressed cable is a given) then you’ll get DISTRACTED by the artifacts at that size/distance.

If you do alot of tv watching, then don’t worry about going too big.  As a poster said, if you’re using your display as a PC monitor, or watching blu-ray, or even playing HD games, then sure.

no one should be forced to live with a screen they find overwhelming, but all the extra pixels in the world aren’t going to make a difference if the flat panel on the wall across the room looks like a postage stamp stuck to a manila envelope.