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Reconsider diagonal size when getting a new screen/TV

Posted by The Technocrat | Filed under Geeky, Hardware, Home & Auto

Here is some advice when looking into some of the newer widescreen-format TV's… with excel sheet data, of course…
(by the way, 16:9 (for example) is a type of measurement in how the sides of the screen relate to each other. 6 inches tall for every 9 inches wide. This is called aspect.

So basically, throwing the marketing aside, I have a 30" Sony Wega. Here are the stats for that unit:

(also 163 pounds. That doesn't have to do with anything, it's just fun to point out how ludicrous moving it around is…)

So if I wanted the same amount of screen space (square inches) in a 16:9 TV, I would have to do the following: 31.8-inch diagonal

So now that we're viewing the signal from Comcast in widescreen mode, I can see more of the signal being sent to me. In the past, where my TV would have been cutting off the sides of the signal to show it in 4:3, it now shows the entire signal being sent in its native 16:9.

But wait! Something's wrong here. If I watch a DVD on both TV's, it's true that I get to see more of the picture with the widescreen (1.85 inches on either side). But because this is 16:9, my "32 inch" 16:9 TV displays people in the movie 2.4 inches shorter! In effect, a person on my 16:9 TV is the same size as on a "26 inch" 4:3 TV. I gained extra picture on the sides of the 16:9, but the actual size of what's being displayed gets smaller on a 16:9 if you compare the 16:9 and 4:3 "32 inch" TV's next to each other.

Well that just won't do. I want to keep the same image size I'm used to, but just get the extra inches on the sides that I've been missing. In order to replace my 30" Sony and keep the same image size, but add the extra picture on the sides, I would have to look into a 16:9 TV with the following specs:

Whoa! A "36.7 inch" TV? Yep, if I wan to keep the picture I am used to, but get the benefit of the extra picture on the sides, that's what I'm looking at. And that's what you should be looking at if you're thinking of switching from a 4:3 TV to a 16:9. So what if you don't have a 30" TV? Well, the chart at the bottom should help you out.

So what's the bottom line? Well, it just so happens to work out that no matter what size diagonal your 4:3 TV is, if you take the inches diagonal of the 4:3 (30", for example) and multiply it by 1.2238, the number you get will be the size diagonally that you will need in your 16:9 so that you have the same height screen as your 4:3.Here is the excel sheet to prove it!

Comments (1) | May 1st, 2006

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