LogFAQs > #979476789

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's generally easy to work with the three dimensions if you remember 3/4/5 for the sides of a triangle (which TVs generally conform to), and only resort to the full a + b = c if you really need to. So I was able to, say, calculate out pretty easily with 44" wide I'd get 33" high and a diagonal/screen size of around 55".

That's an okay approximation, but it's really only accurate for 4:3 screens, so it's not the most reliable now that widescreen has become so standard. For 16:9 ones, using a 4:3 ratio to calculate will result in underestimating the width by ~25% if you start with a known height, or overestimating the height by ~33% if you start with width. That's offset a little in that the screen border tends to be a bit wider on the bottom to fit the controls in, but 3:4:5 is still going to be a pretty rough estimate.

Of course, I'm also the sort of person who routinely uses algebra to help with video games, so perhaps I'm a bit more of a stickler for doing the math than most.