Althouse: "You know, I have to admit that I look at the 46″ TV in my basement — which seemed huge a couple of years ago..."

February 1, 2011

"You know, I have to admit that I look at the 46″ TV in my basement — which seemed huge a couple of years ago..."

"... and now I think 'Hmm, maybe a 60″ would be nice.' Is that wrong?"

It's not wrong, but have you ever noticed you can make the TV you already have bigger by just scooting your chair closer? Only get a bigger TV if you watch with enough other people to make it impossible or inappropriate to move your chair forward. But if you do want to buy a new TV, get a nice one. Go all out if you can and get something extravagant that just became available today. If you're watching alone or with one other person, and you want bigger, but you're thinking of getting a relatively ordinary but larger TV, may I suggest these?

32 comments:

Bryant Likes said...: "have you ever noticed you can make the TV you already have bigger by just scooting your chair closer?"

LOL!; 2/1/11, 9:21 AM
Unknown said...: Actually, if it's an HDTV, you can't just scoot closer without seriously degrading the picture quality.

To give you an idea... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_HDTV_viewing_distance; 2/1/11, 9:26 AM
kjbe said...: Back about 10 years or so, a brother-in-law bought a huge flat screen. He was pretty proud of it. Turns out that it was too big for the room they had it in - they couldn't get far enough away to actually see the whole thing at once.

They returned it for a smaller one.; 2/1/11, 9:31 AM
Ann Althouse said...: @Legal I think that Wikipedia article proves my point. If you get a larger TV, you have to move farther back, so there is no point in going larger unless you want to sit farther back (or just get a thrill about the idea of size... and I will let you rewrite this post in your head as a woman's interior dialogue about her sexual partner).; 2/1/11, 9:32 AM
Peter Hoh said...: I'm still happy with a 19 inch TV.; 2/1/11, 9:33 AM
campy said...: I do all my TV viewing on the smallest of the 3 we own: 14 inches.; 2/1/11, 9:38 AM
Wince said...: Didn't your mother tell you "don't sit too close to the TV set or you'll ruin your eyes."; 2/1/11, 9:43 AM
Ray said...: Just got a 47" HDTV for my birthday, but giving up my old 55" SDTV makes it still seem like a downgrade.; 2/1/11, 9:44 AM
Anonymous said...: TV sets are getting larger and their quality is steadily improving. TV shows, in contrast, are as bad as ever.

Peter; 2/1/11, 9:46 AM
Skyler said...: Um, sometimes people watch tv while doing other things besides sitting. We usually watch tv while cooking dinner. Moving a chair is useless advice.

I know it was meant as a kindly suggestion, and it is taken as such, but your advice to move a chair is why people in government should not have power to tell people what to buy. Busy bodies, especially environmental whackos with light bulb fetishes, will tell us what we should buy.

I will buy whatever kind of tv I want, that I can afford, and that the market offers. Busy bodies can bug off.; 2/1/11, 9:47 AM
Unknown said...: The Blonde insisted we get a 65" TV a few years ago and, no, sitting closer does not help the picture.

PS As to the link, Ann, you are a keeper.; 2/1/11, 9:52 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Hmm. Two of those casters come with "breaks."; 2/1/11, 9:54 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Didn't your mother tell you "don't sit too close to the TV set or you'll ruin your eyes.""

Now that we all sit less than 2 feet away from computer screens... what does that even mean?; 2/1/11, 9:55 AM
dbp said...: When I was a kid, sometimes for fun I would sit far away from the TV and watch it with binoculars. The effect is much like being at a drive-in theater.; 2/1/11, 10:25 AM
MarkW said...: Maybe it's just me, and I have no particular explanation, but I find that when we watch movies with our projector (on a 8 foot wide screen), it doesn't feel the same at all as sitting closer to the TV. There's a sense of space and scope that feels much more like a theater than sitting close enough to the TV to have the same visual angle.; 2/1/11, 10:40 AM
madAsHell said...: That's what I need....a huge billboard in my living room with large commercials!!; 2/1/11, 11:03 AM
virgil xenophon said...: Right on tgt, Skyler! Fire for effect! There is a move afoot in CA to ban and/or limit the size of plasma Tvs as "energy hogs" under "climate control" legislation...yet MORE "big brother" statist legislation based on ideologically-driven fake science. Ann is becoming an enabler, I'm afraid--especially after reading her semi-approval for an Obamacare carve-out from any limits to the commerce clause she just got thru advancing under the guise of "analytical pondering."; 2/1/11, 11:10 AM
William said...: Years back, I read that those whose jobs consisted of sitting in front of a computer screen suffered a higher incidence of cataracts. I have read no more of this. Perhaps the writer's facts were wrong or perhaps he died in an untimely accident.....A couple of years ago I bought a huge HDTV with an expensive sound system. There was a rush for the first couple of weeks, but I can't really say that my present appreciation of TV is greater than when I had a b&w with rabbit ears. The high end tv simply brings greater clarity to your ennui......I'm at the age where mortality, while not a pressing concern, is an issue. I bought a cashmere sweater recently simply because I had never ownded a cashmere sweater and did not wish to die without the cashmere experience. My judgement: Cashmere is more comfortable and warmer than my usual sweatshirt. Down side: one cannot eat bbq with the proper sense of abandon while wearing cashmere. On balance, I feel that my life decision of foregoing cashmere in favor of sweatshirts was correct.....Besides fresh squeezed orange juice and gourmet whole bean coffee are worth the price. All other luxury items are mostly a matter of marketing.; 2/1/11, 11:13 AM
the wolf said...: Your TV should be sized appropriately to your room. Since I'm just a poor working stiff and not a wealthy lawblogger (zing!), a 46" TV fits my living room just fine. So it's not a matter of rearranging furniture (who sits in a chair they can scootch around the room to watch TV?), but of getting the right size for your existing viewing area.; 2/1/11, 11:18 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: I honestly have nothing against capitalism, the rich, anyone making more money than me - none of that - but Glenn Reynolds is infuriating with this shit:

Gee, Glenn, your TV's not big enough any more? Tell us about it.

How's the purchase of your new car - the Nissan Leaf - coming? Tell us about it.

Got a good deal on a vacation package? Tell us about it.

What else have you bought/thought about buying recently? Tell us about it.

Those of us on the bottom end of the scale are just thrilled!; 2/1/11, 11:24 AM
BJM said...: This with a 100" screen is a better buy than a 60" LCD or plasma TV.

Real3D can create nausea and/or headaches in some folks so it's a good idea to try it out in a retailer's home theater viewing room before popping big bucks.; 2/1/11, 12:27 PM
Mary Beth said...: Some men spend too much time worrying about size.; 2/1/11, 12:29 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Mary Beth,

Some men spend too much time worrying about size.

For real. Now even his television isn't "big enough".; 2/1/11, 12:34 PM
traditionalguy said...: Don't do it. Anything over 42 inches is not "normal room size" friendly. Sitting about 12 feet back would be normal room size. A 60 inch needs a 25 foot setback. The shows today beat with a flashing of strobe lights and upside down twisty images until they become annoying, and the closer you sit the worse it seems. If they used these TVs on lab rats, the rats would go insane, but we seem compelled to do it to ourselves.; 2/1/11, 12:58 PM
El Presidente said...: "there is no point in going larger unless you want to sit farther back"

So this is why my ex-wife was always sitting across the room.; 2/1/11, 1:57 PM
El Presidente said...: I think you need a "Getting Paid" tag.; 2/1/11, 1:59 PM
Anonymous said...: ''That's what I need....a huge billboard in my living room with large commercials!!''

We're getting that for free already. Across the alley from us (we're in Chicago) and several houses north of us, somebody has a HUGE TV that we can watch from our kitchen window without even trying.

There's no sound of course, but since the owner mostly watches sports for games I'm not interested in, it's more a joke than anything else.; 2/1/11, 3:21 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: Mary Beth said...
Some men spend too much time worrying about size.

Well, some of us have to be careful not to trip over it.; 2/1/11, 3:36 PM
Synova said...: I got a 26" monitor for Christmas and I think that anything larger for my computer would be beyond silly. I have pushed it back as far as it will go because I can't focus on anything close anyhow. I had joked about something bigger and my husband said that people who use computers for gaming have found that a big screen may be pretty but quickly starts to degrade the ability a player has to register all the information they need. At a certain size you have to start looking *around* the screen to see everything. Better to have a smaller field of view with more in it.

I watch television on my computer in an open window and rarely maximize anything.

A big television is nice but I think that there would certainly be a point where too much becomes too much for many of the same reasons.; 2/1/11, 4:50 PM
Anonymous said...: "Hmm. Two of those casters come with 'breaks.'"

And four of them come with a wildly overpriced price tag. Full price of $105 for four little rubber wheels with a bit of metal bracket attached to them? That's 25 bucks for one crappy little wheel. You can get an entire car tire for $25 that will give you tens of thousands of miles at highway speeds. Even at "half price" of $54 they seem overpriced.; 2/1/11, 6:37 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Hedonistic adaptation. Or is it adaptive hedonism?; 2/1/11, 7:38 PM
DaLawGiver said...: Recently got a 55 inch Panasonic with built-in internets...Skype...Netflix...etc.

Very cool. I skype my grandkids in DC. It's got a wide angle lens so they can see my whole living room.; 2/1/11, 7:47 PM