What would be the difference, visually speaking, between a big screen television set that is far away, and a smaller TV that is closer to the viewer so that the screen occupies the same portion of his visual field? If there isn’t any difference, what the point of owning a big screen when you could just pull your chair up closer??
I’m not talking about an HDTV big screen, but one with a standard resolution.
Thanks.
I guess the same reason that big pictures look better on a wall than small pictures.
The eye/brain still used everything as a frame of reference, and small is still small, no matter how close you get to it.
Take a tiny crumb…observe it from ten feet away…it’s a tiny crumb…get closer…like just above it as it sits on the table…guess what? It’s a tiny crumb…still is tiny. Everything your brain knows about it and it’s enviroment makes you think “tiny”.
TV is the same way. While you can force more the field of vision to be the TV, what your brain knows about everything makes you think ‘small’. And, things ARE smaller on a big tv.
On a 60" TV, baseballs look bigger, people, cars, etc…because they really are.
And more people can see more from more distances.
Oops…was supposed to say, “…and things ARE smaller on a small TV”
Loosely speaking you should sit about 2.5x the diagonal measurement of your set from the TV for optimal viewing (roughly 7.5’ for a 36" screen). Note, this measurment is for standard TVs and not HDTVs. For an HDTV you could sit closer as the lines of resolution on those sets are smaller.
The problem with sitting too close to a large screen TV is that the lines of resolution become noticeable and distracting. If you sit too far away the screen takes up less of your field of view. For the ‘ideal’ (subjective I know) viewing distance you want to sit as close as possible without losing picture clarity.
Because the large screen packs more information into the viewing area the large screen at a distance would be clearer than a smaller screen positioned to cover the same field of vision.
My WAG at least.
Should be the same. I believe the way to sit, as peoples eyes aren’t the same, is to sit
just far enough away so you cannot see the dots. Then eveything should be about the same
from tv to tv.
I think part of it is our eyes naturally focus at a distance further away (naturally meaning not intentionally focusing) and it is more relaxing to view a big screen far away then a small screen up close. To view something close up we have to use those eye muscels to change the eye lens focus length.
btw does anyone know what distance the eyes do focus on if you just relax them, I know it’s not close up because the text on the computer becomes blurry.
I think it’s two things that have been mentioned here.
Resolution. Though as I type this i realize that the number of lines (and pixels/line) are the same whatever the size, so if the pixel is twice as big, but takes up the same arc of your vision, it should be the same
Plane of focus. I think it’s easier on your eyes to be focused (For all intents & purposes) at infinity. If the set’s too close, you focus on the screen, but are seeing images at different “distances” which confuses the mind.
Some people enjoy watching with company and a bigger screen makes it less likely you’ll bump heads. 
PC
Most of the time, you won’t be setting viewing distance based upon the size of the tv, you’ll have a setup in the family/living room that accomodates a tv. Given this, the thing to do is determine how far away the tv will be from the primary viewing position, and get the largest tv that doesn’t look distorted at that distance. For example, in my old apartment, the furniture arangement led to my sitting about 5 feet from the tv. At that distance, it wouldn’t make sense to have a tv larger than about 27". When I moved into a house with a larger living room, I had an 8’ viewing distance, which prompted me to buy a 36" set. Of course, I’ve recently replaced it with a 56" HDTV, which enables me to move in a little (no scan lines visible at six feet, but my wife throws a fit if I sit that close, so I do that only if she’s at work.
If you can actually design the viewing area around the tv and not vice-versa, cost and the number of viewers would be the primary concerns.