After reading the 720p/1080p thread posted here I ended up getting a 720p, 50 " plasma. After watching it for only 30-40 minutes at 11' I started to feel an eye strain type of headache/motion sickness coming on. I get this same thing after playing CoD4 for long periods on my 16" pc CRT. So I hit the web to find anything on eye strain/large TV's. Found this about distance from the Canadian Association of Optometrists. They recommend a seating distance of 5x screen width, WOW! That's almost 18' for a 50" screen(screen width of 43+"). I'd have to sit outside, look in through the window and it's way too cold.

http://tv.about.com/od/frequentlyaskedquestions/f/viewingdistance.htm

The 720p/1080p thread says 117" which is 9'-3/4", approx. I think for those that may be prone to eye strain/motion sickness, due to your eyes having to dart around the screen to follow action, a further distance may be required.

Set is much bigger home then in store. Bummer...

There is hope.... I felt that way at first and about 2 weeks later it went away. Now I have done a 180 and I would say I could even go bigger. Hope that happens to you.

Yeah, gunna give it some time. Have 30 days to exchange. Just thought I post what i found to maybe help others.

They do in fact shrink. Over the years, my displays sizes have been 19, 27, 32, 42, 50, 52, 60, and every single one seemed huge at first. There is both good and bad to this. At first, your initial response is "Holy S%^*, this thing is huge". 2-3 weeks later..."I need a front projector". :p

They do in fact shrink. Over the years, my displays sizes have been 19, 27, 32, 42, 50, 52, 60, and every single one seemed huge at first. There is both good and bad to this. At first, your initial response is "Holy S%^*, this thing is huge". 2-3 weeks later..."I need a front projector". :p

So true, these things do shrink, I'm currently considering a 50inch Panasonic Neo PDP coming soon, but I have to wonder if it will be too small after a while and require yet another upgrade down the road. (currently have a 42inch 720p set.) If only Panasonic released their 58 inch sets at the same time as their 50inch and under sets....

When I was building an entertainment center for my first HDTV (a Samsung 61 inch DLP years ago), I put my 35" Sony trinitron in the living room which had me about 6-7 feet from the screen. At first it gave me headaches and almost dizzy. I was so close I had a hard time focusing. Like the other posters stated I got used to it after a few weeks.

I'm not sure I'm 11' from my 60" screen and it's not near big enough for me. I could easily go 80". There is hope for you. ;)

I personaly found that if the brightness/contrast is set to high it gives me a headache. maybe try droping these settings a bit and see how you feel after.

I think it's the combination of motion - the faster and jerkier the worse - and the area of your eyes that is exposed to it. In real life, the image of a passing car occupies only a small percentage of the eye sense area plus the motion is smooth and predictible as far as the trajectory goes. Change that scene to that idiotic "shaky hand camera", sit really close to the screen for the immersion efect and you are going to get dizzy. That's how mother nature is telling you you are doing something she doesn't like or approve. As far as I know, the THX standards do not deal with the exposure time, only screen size and distance. This may be a bad analogy, but that fun ride on a roller coaster humans were never meant to take should be done for a short time once per very long time, not 4 to 6 hours a day, every day.

ramazur---I agree with lots your saying. It's a combination of things. The picture is fuzzy. Not sure if that's how SD channels are in general. Some are a bit clearer but most are fuzzy causing eye strain. The fast motion pans of the camera is another thing. Even a simple change in focus from one object to another on this bigger set is amplified. I have brightness and contrast settings down to about 50% for break-in so I don't think that's it. Second day with it and it's not as bad but still there. The fuzzy-ness of the picture is bothering me though. Perhaps that what CNET refers to when they say certain sets do SD better then others and some don't do it well at all. It may not be bad for an HDTV but it's new to me and maybe something I need to get used to. I have upconverting dvd player and movies don't really blow me away with their clarity even adjusting settings to try and make it better. I don' know...keep playing.

I am getting headaches watching my ln52a630

I was in CC the other day looking at the samsung plasma for awhile and dont think I had the same reaction but now that I read your post it might happen with a plasma as well if I brought one home.

I turned the amp off or low which helped but still find my eyes refocusing all the time during motion. I came from a similar sized dlp that was in the same spot so I dont get it.

Has anyone found a solution?

would a professional Calibration alleviate the situation?

I am getting headaches watching my ln52a630

I was in CC the other day looking at the samsung plasma for awhile and dont think I had the same reaction but now that I read your post it might happen with a plasma as well if I brought one home.

I turned the amp off or low which helped but still find my eyes refocusing all the time during motion. I came from a similar sized dlp that was in the same spot so I dont get it.

Has anyone found a solution?

would a professional Calibration alleviate the situation?

Interesting. I actually convinced myself that Plasma's gave me headaches while watching them in a store. Well, I bought one anyway and I never once have gotten one. Go figure

For some reason this always seems Counter-intuitive to me.

You buy a big screen tv but have to sit further away from it, which makes the size of the tv in your viewing range smaller.

For some reason this always seems Counter-intuitive to me.

You buy a big screen tv but have to sit further away from it, which makes the size of the tv in your viewing range smaller.

A lot of us don't sit farther back when we upgrade. I sit 6-8 feet from a 42 inch right now, and I am looking at 58inch sets right now. (I decided that a 50inch set was too small of an upgrade in size) I won't be sitting any farther back either.

I am in a similar situation in that I got a 43 inch Pio elite in 2004 and thought it was the perfect size. For the last year I have been looking at a 60 inch, but everytime I see one in the store with fast motion it is unsettling. I am at 10.5 feet max . I am probably going with a 50.

For some reason this always seems Counter-intuitive to me.

You buy a big screen tv but have to sit further away from it, which makes the size of the tv in your viewing range smaller.

You're right. There are THX & SMPTE standards for proper home theater viewing distances, and recommendations of just how far you can sit from a particular 1080p display and still be able to resolve the detail of the pic. Otherwise, why bother w/HD at all? I guess that "postage stamp" viewing might be adequate for the evening news, but for movies and HD content shows I'd much prefer the SMPTE standards.

When I first got my th-42px80u a few weeks back I was getting a headache. I then turned down the pixel orbiter from automatic to force 1. From what I read the automatic constantly shifts the image slightly. With it on force 1 it shifts the image every 1 minute. This may help or not. Or maybe I just got use to the picture.

Our friends have a 58" Panasonic rear projection with the couch like 8 feet from the set. It's great, but the first time I saw it they were playing Cars for the kids and it had just started. I was feeling a bit of motion sickness/eye strain during the race at the beginning too.

ramazur---I agree with lots your saying. It's a combination of things. The picture is fuzzy. Not sure if that's how SD channels are in general. Some are a bit clearer but most are fuzzy causing eye strain. The fast motion pans of the camera is another thing. Even a simple change in focus from one object to another on this bigger set is amplified. I have brightness and contrast settings down to about 50% for break-in so I don't think that's it. Second day with it and it's not as bad but still there. The fuzzy-ness of the picture is bothering me though. Perhaps that what CNET refers to when they say certain sets do SD better then others and some don't do it well at all. It may not be bad for an HDTV but it's new to me and maybe something I need to get used to. I have upconverting dvd player and movies don't really blow me away with their clarity even adjusting settings to try and make it better. I don' know...keep playing.

In my opinion I don't think any HD sets really do SD well. Now older RPCRT sets that could natively scan 480p were great for that.

The perfect set-up will never be attained but we can get reasonably close to it. Here is mine:

1. The source is an all-digital Comcast box. This eliminates all the crappy analog channels and the fuzziness that comes with it. The SD channels, as long as they are digital, look anywhere from just fine to actually very good.

2. The set is LN46A630. No glare, high contrast, deep blacks day and night and low judder thanks to AMP. Those still shopping should ignore the comments like "AMP makes me sick", "soap opera effect", etc until you try it. The complainers probably get sick of many other things normal people don't like elevator and plane rides. I set it to medium and it works without any artifacts. If there are any I don't see them.

3. The distance is 8 feet or 2 times the diagonal. It is on the short end of the recommended distance but thanks to the very effective frame interpolation (thanks, Samsung) the judder, the single most annoying aspect of TV watching, is reduced to a neglegible level.

4. Up-down set elevation is at the eye level. Hanging a set over a fireplace is asking for trouble as in most real-life situations we tend to look straight ahead or down. Looking up is a pain in the neck, literally and figuratively.

5. I never watch in a dark room.

6. I avoid watching laying down.

7. I refuse to watch soft-lens programs like those they used to do with B. Walters. With the HD network programming, the public would be too outraged so these abominations are seen less often.

8. I never ever watch "shaky hand camera" and other forms of assault on my nervous system. Don't buy into the notion that you are obligated to suffer a headache because it was a "director's intent". The program or a film will be shown on my TV set according to the person in charge and that is me.

9. I try to avoid SD channels and the HD channels that show a lot of 4:3 material. I realize that my individual action is not known to anyone but together we can make a difference. You can bet that the network fat cats do read the Nielsen reports.

After reading the 720p/1080p thread posted here I ended up getting a 720p, 50 " plasma. After watching it for only 30-40 minutes at 11' I started to feel an eye strain type of headache/motion sickness coming on. I get this same thing after playing CoD4 for long periods on my 16" pc CRT. So I hit the web to find anything on eye strain/large TV's. Found this about distance from the Canadian Association of Optometrists. They recommend a seating distance of 5x screen width, WOW! That's almost 18' for a 50" screen(screen width of 43+"). I'd have to sit outside, look in through the window and it's way too cold.

http://tv.about.com/od/frequentlyaskedquestions/f/viewingdistance.htm

The 720p/1080p thread says 117" which is 9'-3/4", approx. I think for those that may be prone to eye strain/motion sickness, due to your eyes having to dart around the screen to follow action, a further distance may be required.

Set is much bigger home then in store. Bummer...

Have you done any calibration to the set to help optimize the picture? In the plasma section look in the owners threads for some recommended settings. If you're using the settings out of the box that could be your biggest problem.

18' for a 50" panel is assinine unless it's for 480i.

I've viewed a 57" for 2.5 yrs at 8.5' and could do a 65" and no eye strain whatsoever feeding HD.

If this was factual for 1080P then there be tons of folks with eye problems as virtually all RPTV's are bigger than 50" and I owned a Panny 50" and it was not large at all especially after a 60" SXRD.

However, I did get eye strain with SD on the SXRD but it's HD was Kick ass and loaded with WoWs where the Plasma 50" had none.

I do not get any eye strain at all on my 57" LCD and I can get within inches before seeing any pixels via dot mode and it does SD pretty damn well and better than the Plasma or SXRD the SXRD was heaven with HD but mine was horrendous with SD and gave me headaches and blurry - I have no such effect with my LCD's processing though and plasma provides zero wow to my eyes after owning one and it'll never be in the picture again no matter what.:)

Most eye strain can be mitigated by properly adjusting the amount of ight comming from the screen and the amount of ambient light in the room.

If the display is too bright it will effective "washout" everything else your eyes see. That coupled with the big screen size wil cause your eyes to work at full blast to try to follow movement and focus on every detail since they are all super bright and moving.

The picture will dominat your field of vision and for some people that level of immersion is unplesant, especially if you are prone to motion sickness.

I can read a book while riding in a car or even look at the repeating objucts out the window and it wont bother me one bit but depending on you eyesight a lot of high contrast movemnt can casue you issues.

So buy having a reasonable light output from the display and decent ambient light in the room you allow the eyes to relax a bit more and your'll tend to have less eyestrain.

As for resolution and distance, people who work in grapics and design ofter use monitors with huge resolutions and sit no more than 28" away form their screens back in the CRT era. Waht they did is have a properly calibrated screen and proper lighing to reduce eyestrain and in the LCD era people have those 30" monitors and get buy with the same type of viewing distance.

You probally wouldn't want to go driving around on a really bright sunny day without some sunglasses because of the eyestrain its would likely cause. So double check the viewing environment and display setup. Afeww minor adjustments can make it very much worthwhile to have huge screen at home .