Whats the best TV resolution your eye can see?
Super bowl Sunday is Fast approaching! You may be in the market for a new television. You might be hyped to go out and buy that new 4k Smart TV but are you just wasting your money? Can you really tell the difference with the naked eye?
Few things to keep in mind. 720, 1080, and 4k are resolutions of a TV. The higher the number the better the detail. 60 hz, 90hz, or 120hz is the refresh rate. This is how many times an image is replaced on your TV. Again, the higher the number the better the clarity.
We have one problem, there is no way to measure the resolution of our eye because our eyes are constantly changing and the outside work is constantly changing. So we have to measure it in a different way. We have to think of our eyes like a camera and compare it to the best cameras that are out there. Once this comparison was done Scientists figured out that the human eye was comparable to a 576 megapixel camera, which does not even exist(yet). Knowing that we just need to know the megapixels of a 4k or 1080p television. Well its just sad. A 1080p television is 2 megapixels while a 4k TV is just 8.3 megapixels. 8K TV's which are a few years away close the gap a little bit a 33 megapixels.
With those results you may be wondering why do TVs look so good? Well its really the second number you need to concentrate on, the refresh rate. You should check out this video the Slo-mo team did on televisions.
They discuss refresh rate and how newer TV's "refresh" even faster than ever before, making an image clarity the best it can be. The human eye can notice the difference though. The sweet spot seems to be between 90hz and 170hz.
I'm sorry fellas one thing we haven't discussed is size... and it does matter when buying a TV. Size in relation to how far or close you sit to you TV makes a big deal. The formula for TV's is distance from the wall to the sitting area in inches divided by 3. If you are 15 ft away that's 180 inches divided by 3 and that equals 60 inches.
The answer in the end is really simple no matter what you buy this year something better will be out next year that will be better. Until we hit that magic number of 576 megapixels, I don't think we will be able to see the real difference. If everything is still blurry after purchasing that brand new television maybe it's time for an eye exam...which is much cheaper.