TVs in the corner

[danlightbulb]

Every sales photo of a big screen (50" +) TV shows it on a flat wall, surrounded by the perfect configuration of sofas in a flipping massive open room.

Is it just me, or this configuration pretty impractical for most UK sized living rooms?

Every house I have owned or lived in, and all of my family and friends houses that I can think of, have the TV in a corner.

What ideas do people have to make this work? A 60" TV is over 1.5m wide. Thats a lot of dead space behind if you have to put it in a corner.

 

[danlightbulb]

I don't think any of my family have a TV in the corner any more, aside from my Nan who has a 28" LCD in the corner of a very small room!

A 50"+ TV in the corner sounds silly to me unless the room gives you no choice but to do that.

Unless you've either removed fireplaces completely (a real shame) or have the TV 6 feet up in the air over the fireplace (stupid) then I don't see how people avoid corners to be honest.

A typical living room will have a fireplace on one wall, a window on another wall, an interior door and perhaps a radiator on the third wall and you need the fourth wall to put your sofa up against. How do you avoid the corner?

And even if you have removed a fireplace, unless you only have one sofa then you'd always have one sofa perpendicular to the TV and suffering from poor viewing angle.


Example 2 sofa + fireplace layout.



If you put the tv in the bottom right corner, both sofas have a good viewing angle. If you put it on flat bottom wall, left hand side sofa has poor viewing angle.

 

[danlightbulb]

Mostly being pedantic but also pointing it out in case you're measuring up for a new TV: 60 inches doesn't mean 60 inches wide, it means 60 inches diagonally corner to corner. So a 60 inch TV is actually nearer 1.3m wide.

Fair point, thanks.

Mines on the short sided wall of a rectangle, fireplace on long side. No way would I have tv in the corner or above fireplace.

Where are your windows, doors, rads, other furniture?

If you have sofa opposite fireplace, you'll be end on to TV. If you have sofa opposite TV, you'll be end on to fireplace. You can't win.



Magazine living rooms hardly ever show TV in them. https://www.google.com/search?q=per...ECA4QAw&biw=1920&bih=969#imgrc=Y6OImVkk7epe9M

 

[danlightbulb]

I am going to have a similar dilemma when(if) we exchange on our new home.

Where to put 55" tv in the living room?

I have a very similar room to this, be interested to see how you do it. Do you put TV in bay window, or sofa there? Then tv can only really go on opposite wall to bay window. If you put TV in bay, you can have sofa's on both walls but the TV will restrict your curtain options.

 

[danlightbulb]

At 12-14Feet you need 100" for 1080p never mind 4k.

I picked this one as its easy to understand, there are many others inc THX ones (you can take what you like from it).

This is crazy! Is this seriously suggesting you should sit only 6 feet from a 70-80" TV? WTF!!

 

[danlightbulb]

It's suggesting Ultra HD is a waste of money unless you like to sit that close.

Seems legit to me. From about 9' I can barely tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on Netflix on my 49" TV.

I thought the whole point of a larger TV was so you DON'T have to sit close to it to see it properly.

 

[danlightbulb]

It is. That's why the lines on the graph slope upwards.

It's just that Ultra HD is a bit of a gimmick in that most people don't have a screen size/seating position setup such that they can actually see the benefit.

Oh i see what you mean now.

At an 8ft viewing distance, which is pretty standard for UK sized living rooms I guess, that suggests an 85" tv would be optimal for UHD compared to 50" for 1080p.

Id suggest an 85" tv would look stupid in a room that size.