Size and Your Room

Generally, 32-inch and smaller sets are great for bedrooms or guest rooms, but too small for the main living room. TVs with bigger screens are large enough for the whole family to enjoy and will probably be too much for most small bedrooms.

If you're mounting the set inside an entertainment center, be sure it fits in every dimension. Also, leave an inch or two on all sides so the TV has enough ventilation. If you're getting a bigger set, you might want to consider a dedicated stand. Many TV makers sell matching stands that increase the aesthetic appeal of their hefty boxes.


Widescreen HDTVs showing upscaled DVD and high-resolution Blu-ray also look better than regular sets, allowing you to sit closer and experience a more immersive, theater-like picture.

With such panels, you can be seated as close as 1.5 times the screen's diagonal measurement and not notice image pixelation, while sitting a distance of more than three times the screen size means you're likely to miss out on the immersive feel and finer details. Here's a rundown of minimum and maximum recommended viewing distances for widescreen sets.

HDTV diagonal screen size (in inch)	Min. viewing distance (in meter)	Max. viewing distance (in meter)
26	1.1	2.2
32	1.4	2.7
37	1.6	3.1
42	1.8	3.5
46	1.9	3.8
50	2.1	4.2
60	2.5	5