What size TV should you get?

Your seat, your size

Your seat

How to measure your distance

Tap the button. Stand the plate flat against the TV wall, walk back to your seat, and read the number at your feet.

Viewing preference

Home cinema

40°

Dim the lights. A balanced movie-night view, with room to take in the whole frame.

Adjust viewing angle

20° sit back · 60° pull me in. 40° starting point

Recommended size

83″

Nearest TV size for home cinema at 2.5 m · 40.4° of your view. Preferred fit.

TV · 40° · Preferred fit · example seat

Preferred listed sizes: 83–100″ · target 40°.

Illustrative preview
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About this comparison

From 2.5 m, the calculated target for home cinema is 82″ (40°). The nearest listed TV is 83″, filling 40.4°: preferred fit.

20° sit back · 60° pull me in. The illustration shows immersion, rather than physical scale. The starting seat is an example until you enter or choose your own distance.

Choose your current TV or enter its specifications. Both screens open at the distance entered here. Wall-mounting it? The mounting height calculator takes it from here.

Compare sizes at your distance

SizeFillsYour fit
24 in · 61 cm12.1°Less immersive
32 in · 81 cm16.1°Less immersive
40 in · 102 cm20.1°Less immersive
42 in · 107 cm21.1°Less immersive
43 in · 109 cm21.6°Less immersive
48 in · 122 cm24.0°Less immersive
50 in · 127 cm25.0°Less immersive
55 in · 140 cm27.4°Less immersive
58 in · 147 cm28.8°Less immersive
60 in · 152 cm29.8°Less immersive
65 in · 165 cm32.1°Relaxed fit
70 in · 178 cm34.4°Relaxed fit
75 in · 191 cm36.7°Relaxed fit
77 in · 196 cm37.7°Relaxed fit
83 in · 211 cm · Nearest listed40.4°Preferred fit
85 in · 216 cm41.2°Preferred fit
86 in · 218 cm41.7°Preferred fit
98 in · 249 cm46.9°Preferred fit
100 in · 254 cm47.8°Preferred fit
110 in · 279 cm51.9°More immersive
115 in · 292 cm54.0°More immersive
How to read this table

Home cinema: target 40°, green through 50°. Colors show the actual fit. The outlined row marks the nearest size, independently of fit. Above 60° may feel too close. These adjustable starting points assume a centred screen near eye level, not a universal comfort limit.

Fills is the horizontal slice of your view the picture takes from your seat; THX recommends 40° for the best seat. Central pixels per degree describes angular pixel density. The 60 PPD reference is not a universal limit on visible detail. Larger sizes lean toward front-row immersion; smaller sizes suit the news and casual daytime viewing.

Common questions

Start with a distance guide: 2 m · 2.5 m · 3 m · 4 m · 8 ft · 10 ft.

How do I measure my viewing distance with an iPhone?

Tap Measure with your camera above. It opens a tape measure in augmented reality: stand the plate flat against the TV wall, walk back to your seat, and read the numbered mark at your feet. The tape is locked to true scale, so that mark is your seat-to-screen distance. Any physical tape measure works just as well.

What size TV does THX recommend for movies?

THX recommends a picture that fills about 40 degrees of your view, and that is the angle this calculator recommends for a cinematic home theater experience. A shorthand from the same math: divide your viewing distance by 1.2 to get the diagonal in the same units. From 2.5 m, about 98 inches, that is an 82 inch picture, which is why a screen that looks enormous in the shop stops looking enormous at home.

Is the recommended size too big for watching the news?

The recommendation is tuned for movies, sport and games: 40 degrees of view is a cinema seat, and immersion is what earns a big screen. News, talk shows and background TV are watched casually, often from across the room, and stay perfectly comfortable on a much smaller angle. For casual viewing, try News or TV shows above; every row shows the angle it fills and the sharpness it keeps from your seat.

When should you get a projector instead of a TV?

For the default 40° Home cinema target, past roughly 3.8 m (12.4 ft) of seating distance. More immersive targets reach projector sizes from closer seats. The largest TV this page recommends is 115 inches, the biggest size with sane pricing; larger sets exist, like Samsung's 130 inch Micro RGB, but at prices where a good projector beats them easily. From farther back no common TV reaches THX's cinematic 40 degrees, so this page switches its recommendation to a projector. A projected image is continuously sizable, so the page computes the exact diagonal that fills the view from your seat rather than snapping to a screen size. A 4K projector can exceed the conventional 60 PPD reference at these distances, but focus, light output, contrast and room control still affect visible detail.

Is 4K worth it at my viewing distance?

It depends on size and distance together. Use 60 central pixels per degree as a conventional comparison reference, not a universal visibility limit. From 2.5 m, a 4K panel stays above that line up to about a 126 inch diagonal, while 1080p crosses it at about 63 inches. The table above shows the sharpness every common size keeps at your distance.

Can a website read the distance out of AR automatically?

No. AR Quick Look, the iOS viewer this page uses, sends nothing back to the web page, and Safari on iOS does not support WebXR. The AR tape does the measuring at true scale; typing the one number back in is the manual step.

Every number on this page is computed from your distance with the DisplayMath screen size calculator. Free, no signup, runs in your browser. Nothing you enter leaves the page. Feedback? Email hello@displaymath.com or find us on Instagram. About · Privacy. © 2026 DisplayMath. All rights reserved.