The relation between picture size, viewing distance and picture quality

Abstract

The paper describes experiments to determine the preferred viewing distance for a number of different types and sizes of picture, including 405-line and 625-line monochrome television and a 405-line colour television picture, all with varying bandwidths. The criterion ‘preferred viewing distance’ proved to be surprisingly consistent and repeatable, and the results obtained indicate that, unless some new development such as receiver picture storage improves matters, the present European standards of television are wasteful of bandwidth. Various methods of using this surplus bandwidth are discussed. The investigation also covered the use of spot-wobble on the 405-line television picture and two television scanning innovations—‘synchronous spot-wobble’ and ‘sampled synchronous spot-wobble’.