What size TV would work best

[utmck]

It is for my bedroom and will be sitting on top of a chest about 5' off the ground. There is 12' from the head of the bed to the TV. So my question is what size TV works best. I was thinking 37" but would a 42" be too big?

 

[txzen]

Hard to say - very personal. The folks who want a theater experience will say that 10' should mean at least a 52". But it's your bedroom. Personally, I think 42" would be just about right.

 

[Owlhorn]

I have a 37" only 6' from the bed and it feels pretty big. I think you could easily get away with bigger and feel emersed

 

[GhostOfTomJoad]

Two questions:
1) are you the only person using your bedroom? (not trying to be tacky but if you're married/living w/ someone they might not want a home theater in the bedroom)
2) is this going to be your primary HDTV or do you already have one in another location?

I just put a 32" LCD in our master bedroom & the dimensions sound almost identical to yours, right down to the height of the chest it's sitting on. I didn't want something to dominate the room & we've got a bigger set downstairs in the living room. The 32" is really a perfect fit for our room. It's the exact same width as the chest it's sitting on, the image is plenty big, & it's not so big that you feel like you can't escape it when you're in the room.

A good deal of this is personal preference, but unless you spend a lot of time watching TV in your bedroom I'd suggest going with the smaller of the 2 units you're considering.

 

[DieUCLA98]

If this is your primary HDTV, I'd say venture into the 50" range if your budget allows. Otherwise, I would go with a 42" minimum.

Take what I say with a grain of salt, I watch a 56" at 10' and think thats perfect.

 

[Roger]

42" would be perfect anything smaller and you are too small

 

[William Cannon]

37" would be the min.
42" would not be too big.

If you google there is a chart out there for size vs. distance.

 

[utmck]

This tv is simply for my bedroom, not looking for surround sound but simply a nice HD TV. Still trying to figure out if 37" will be too small or if 42" will be too big.

 

[TheFied]

I have a 30" Samsung HDTV slimfit CRT in my living room. I am guessing you guys think that is tiny. From the tv screen to the sofa might be ~8'. From the kitchen 12'.

We have it in an armoire and the wife wanted the armoire. I have probably 3" space on each side so eventually I could get a bigger tv in there but I don't think a 42" would fit in there. Do they make 36"? I realize that the inches are corner-to-corner.

 

[mishatx]

Most of the charts online are for the home theater experience. If you were getting a regular TV, what size would you get? Get the 16:9 equivalent.

I have a 32" in my living room. Seats are 6-15' from it. It looks fine. We don't want some big *** TV, we just wanted one that was HD and comparable in size to the TV we had.

 

[leeroyjenkins]

I've always heard the advice of pick your size and go one size larger. Nobody ever says they wished they had bought a tv a little smaller, but plenty wish they had gone bigger. Of course, that's for the theater. Around 40 inches seems pretty big for the bedroom in my opinion. Although the more I think about it, the more I may have to talk the wife into it.

 

[utmck]

I am leaning towards a 37". What technology is better at that size Plasma or LCD. It will be sitting on an amoire, so thickness does not matter..