That is an EXCELLENT question. My answer is that I get a better experience from watching on a bigger screen.
First, and obviously, it's larger. A bigger screen has a bigger picture, which has a more immersive nature. This doesn't necessarily follow, of course. If you just magnify an image of a certain quality then you get a degredation in the quality of the image, and the experience actually gets worse.
So it's more about the quality of the image than the size of the screen. When I started watching TV, off-air picture quality was as good as it got. VHS was lossy, and Laser Discs were for the rich or the technophiles. For rich technophiles. A 26 inch TV was about as far as you'd want to go with that sort of signal uness (and this is going to get repititious) you could afford to spend a lot of money. DVDs upped the game in terms of quality, and made a screen somewhere in the 30 inch range worthwhile. A couple of years later, the price on them came down to something I could afford. Then came blu-ray, and I followed that up to 42 inches, which was as much as I could afford six years ago. Bigger screens with the image quality to display Blu Ray to best advantage were around then, but mostly in the £5-10k range. Did HD come out before or after Blu-Ray? In my head they hit town around the same time. Over the last six years, 60 inch screens have appeared that were almost in my price range, but they were the low end of the quality market, and my picture quality would actually have gone backwards. In the last year or two, smart TVs have started to appear that cost around £2-3k and have either better picture quality or more features than my current TV. And that left room in the ecosystem for 60 inch screens which cost less than 4 figures and have at least as good picture quality and some more features than my current set.
So in my own "what you pay v. what you get" technology comparison, the time is probably right to buy.
As well, there's a limit to how much detail I can make out on a screen. Sitting 15-20 feet from the TV watching The Hobbit on Blu-Ray last night, the system was able to show more detail than I can take in. That movie is an extreme case, I know, but more and more of my viewing is done in HD or Blu-Ray, and a good 60 inch screen will do a better job of displaying that detail than a good 42 inch screen. (I know - I could sit closer. Or move to a smaller house. Not going to happen in the short term).
How I watch TV has changed too - I've never had it as a background, but now I only sit down to watch it if there's something I want to pay attention to on it. I generally give it my sole attention.
There's a couple of other factors, one being economic. I budgeted £1k for a holiday this year that didn't happen, so I can use that money elsewhere without robbing myself.
I'm spending more time at home alone, so I'm watching proportionately more TV.
I need a new telly for the cottage (where need and new are relative terms, of course - I do have a functioning TV up there, but it's on it's last legs - the old telly from the flat will go there if I buy a new one).
To sum up - the improvement in my viewing pleasure seems to be worth the financial outlay.
A 60 inch screen wouldn’t work for me because where we watch TV the distance from screen to sofa is too short. We’d be able to see the individual pixels.
But if you are sitting on a sofa quite a distance away and looking for a cinema experience then I see how a large screen is going to work for you.
I do quite fancy a projector for watching movies in larger groups in the red sitting room but as this is not something I currently do on my existing TV I’m loathe to spend the money on the kit.
I am thinking of buying a Sonos Playbar for the TV / Family Room.
Mum has a smart TV which she likes very much. She’s a bit on an evangalist for it and is very proud that she managed to make it all work on her own.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-09-05 01:22 pm (UTC)My answer is that I get a better experience from watching on a bigger screen.
First, and obviously, it's larger. A bigger screen has a bigger picture, which has a more immersive nature.
This doesn't necessarily follow, of course. If you just magnify an image of a certain quality then you get a degredation in the quality of the image, and the experience actually gets worse.
So it's more about the quality of the image than the size of the screen.
When I started watching TV, off-air picture quality was as good as it got. VHS was lossy, and Laser Discs were for the rich or the technophiles. For rich technophiles.
A 26 inch TV was about as far as you'd want to go with that sort of signal uness (and this is going to get repititious) you could afford to spend a lot of money.
DVDs upped the game in terms of quality, and made a screen somewhere in the 30 inch range worthwhile. A couple of years later, the price on them came down to something I could afford.
Then came blu-ray, and I followed that up to 42 inches, which was as much as I could afford six years ago. Bigger screens with the image quality to display Blu Ray to best advantage were around then, but mostly in the £5-10k range. Did HD come out before or after Blu-Ray? In my head they hit town around the same time. Over the last six years, 60 inch screens have appeared that were almost in my price range, but they were the low end of the quality market, and my picture quality would actually have gone backwards.
In the last year or two, smart TVs have started to appear that cost around £2-3k and have either better picture quality or more features than my current TV. And that left room in the ecosystem for 60 inch screens which cost less than 4 figures and have at least as good picture quality and some more features than my current set.
So in my own "what you pay v. what you get" technology comparison, the time is probably right to buy.
As well, there's a limit to how much detail I can make out on a screen. Sitting 15-20 feet from the TV watching The Hobbit on Blu-Ray last night, the system was able to show more detail than I can take in. That movie is an extreme case, I know, but more and more of my viewing is done in HD or Blu-Ray, and a good 60 inch screen will do a better job of displaying that detail than a good 42 inch screen. (I know - I could sit closer. Or move to a smaller house. Not going to happen in the short term).
How I watch TV has changed too - I've never had it as a background, but now I only sit down to watch it if there's something I want to pay attention to on it. I generally give it my sole attention.
There's a couple of other factors, one being economic. I budgeted £1k for a holiday this year that didn't happen, so I can use that money elsewhere without robbing myself.
I'm spending more time at home alone, so I'm watching proportionately more TV.
I need a new telly for the cottage (where need and new are relative terms, of course - I do have a functioning TV up there, but it's on it's last legs - the old telly from the flat will go there if I buy a new one).
To sum up - the improvement in my viewing pleasure seems to be worth the financial outlay.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-05 01:42 pm (UTC)A 60 inch screen wouldn’t work for me because where we watch TV the distance from screen to sofa is too short. We’d be able to see the individual pixels.
But if you are sitting on a sofa quite a distance away and looking for a cinema experience then I see how a large screen is going to work for you.
I do quite fancy a projector for watching movies in larger groups in the red sitting room but as this is not something I currently do on my existing TV I’m loathe to spend the money on the kit.
I am thinking of buying a Sonos Playbar for the TV / Family Room.
Mum has a smart TV which she likes very much. She’s a bit on an evangalist for it and is very proud that she managed to make it all work on her own.