Poll of the Day > I feel dirty, PotD...

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm measuring out space for a new TV, and I just used the Pythagorean Theorem to figure out what size TV would work best in the spot I have in mind.

THE MOTHERFUCKING PYTHAGOREAN THEOREM.

I haven't thought about that shit for like 30 years.

It just makes me feel kind of icky.

I dont have any good math puns to share atm, so Im gonna refrain from posting in this topic.

I woulda just eyeballed it

Ahh, just as Pythagoras intended!

My basic method for deciding a TV is looking at what I have, going "could I use a bigger TV?", then ultimately getting something bigger.

So far I have a 65". Thinking when I need to replace that I will probably go up to a 75" or 80".

Sarcasthma posted...

I dont have any good math puns to share atm, so Im gonna refrain from posting in this topic.

You just need to approach it at the right angle

SilentSeph posted...

You just need to approach it at the right angle

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/463/047/7ab.gif

I don't remember the exact context, but I ended up doing that in reverse once to figure out how wide a TV was that I didn't have definite dimensions for: Take the known diagonal measurement, substitute 9L/16 for the height, expand everything out and solve the equation. Add a couple extra inches for the screen borders, and I had the size I needed.

Bust out that Sohcahtoa.

you could have just googled the chart

https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship

adjl posted...

I don't remember the exact context, but I ended up doing that in reverse once to figure out how wide a TV was that I didn't have definite dimensions for: Take the known diagonal measurement, substitute 9L/16 for the height, expand everything out and solve the equation.

That's sort of what I was doing. I calculated based on the max height I had available and then figured out what the other two dimensions (width and diagonal/screen size) would wind up being, then I calculated what I'd get from a specific max width, and sort of played around with stuff a bit. So I could come up with an optimal size for the space.

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".



ConfusedTorchic posted...

you could have just googled the chart

I actually did later (that exact page, in fact), but not because of the TV size, as much because I wanted to see the "how far away are you supposed to be sitting away from the screen" info.

I didn't go looking for it for the measurements because I didn't really need to at the time. I actually just found it easier to pick up a calculator and do the math than it was to go look up charts or anything pre-established.

Though the sad part is afterwards I mostly just shrugged and decided I'm probably going to keep my two 32" screens I have (side-by-side for multitasking and for two-screen co-op gaming) rather than upgrade to something bigger anyway. Though I might still change my mind.

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.