Television resolution and the human eye
This entry was posted on Apr 03 2007
Audioholics had a interesting article about 1080p resolution and how the human eye can/can’t see that well. There were some really interesting points on how human eye site is measured and what that means for television resolution. A few points I got out of the article were:
- 20/20 vision means that you can read the eye chart (Snellen chart) from the same distance as average people, but 20/10 means you can read from 20 feet what the average person has to be 10 feet to read.
- A movie theater screen subtends a viewing angle of 30 degrees or more.
- The resolution of our eyes is 12 vertical lines per arc angle (one line per arcminute for 20/20 acuity) times 2.
- You can find the degree of your field of view your TV fills your eye’s by using the formula tangent x (half the subtended angle) = opposite side length (1/2 TV’s horizontal width in feet) ÷ adjacent length (distance you are from the TV) and multiplied by 2 (because your TV is twice as wide as the length we used).
- You can then find the resolution you can see by taking the degree of view x 2 x 12 (or whatever vertical lines your eyes can see). This number will give you how many pixels you can see from the distance you are sitting (in the example it was 672). This means that if they had a 720p 50″ TV and they sat 8′ away they still would not be able to see 1 pixel let alone if they had a 1080p TV.
- The source of the video is still what matters most in your viewing pleasure.
I found it very interesting and is a great argument against upgrading just for the sake of having a 1080p television.