Will I be able to tell the difference between a 47" and 50" television?

"Long Post", short answer... No.

The tech behind the 2 is different. It is not just difference in size. I guess you've already seen for yourself and should know which one you prefer.

OTOH if it is same model LCD TV and difference is just size of 3" it may not be much a difference.

At 15' distance, would seriously consider a larger display - something in the 55 - 60" range - even if it meant "stepping down" to a lower-end plasma. Look at LG, Samsung or perhaps Panasonic (the Pan S30 might be priced low enough to compete with entry LG or Samsung models).

what's your budget? and any particular sets that you've been eyeing so far? The size isn't a big difference so I would go with the best picture but in my experiences the cost difference between a 46/47" and a 50" is usually pretty minimal. Now an upgrade to a 55" might be affordable and from your distance you could likely accept a little less in picture quality to obtain a larger display. Is there a reason you're not considering a plasma? They are typically a little cheaper to comparable LCD sets. The Panasonic ST30 is a very good bang for the buck type set and can be had very reasonable in a 50" or 55" set.

No, you will not be able to tell the difference at any reasonable distance between 47 and 50 inches. Yes, 55 or 60 inches would be a lot more.

How much is this mythic 47? I am inclined to agree that an inexpensive large plasma is an option, but there are also some inexpensive LCDs to consider.

what's your budget? It's to bad you rule out plasma over fear of burn in as it's not very common and would pretty much take a person who abuses his set to experience it. My plasma is going on 5 years now and very little early IR and never any worry of BI. Unless your room just won't work well with a plasma there are some bargains to be had as you're missing out on some very nice sets in the 50" and over range for some bargain prices. .

I guess size matters for me. Id take the 3 inches. I don't see the big price increase you describe though.

Heck at 15' I would value size very much even a 720p Panny X3 should be considered. At 50" its not much more than a bad night out at the bar.

15 feet 60'+ inch.

If you want blacks/natural color go Plasma.
FAQ - burn in & break inhttp://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=21270

If you want brightness go LCd.

The 50" display is almost 15% larger, so it may be noticeable. A 50" display at that kind of distance is tiny, though. Hell, any TV is, I would be looking into projectors or moving closer.

6% diagonal, 13% area.

Denying yourself the benefits of a projector by worrying about lamp costs is just silly!! Lamp costs are about ten cents an hour.

Also, with a small 50" screen, from 15 feet you won't even be able to resolve 720p resolution let alone 1080p!! It will all look identical to 480p standard definition TV.

Sorry but you are forgetting about other variables (aspect / vision etc). The chart is a an excellent guideline and your point about 720p is on target but it will not look identical to 480p standard def tv.

Standard definition TV is not 480p. Not even close.

DVDs are 480p.

Anyway, you might want to consider a DLP. Lots of real estate and good picture quality for low prices.

I believe that Cable and Sat SD is in most cases 480p.

Analog broadcasts/cable are all "480i" if you want to call it that (it's really NTSC). Digital stuff can be 480p but it's almost always either 720p, 1080i, or old NTSC/480i content broadcast in 720p.

Well since they mandated all analog cable abolished I can tell you that almost all (if not all) of my digital sd content is 480p.

Cm
Just checked on my TV and the SD stations send a 480i signal through Comcast Cable.

Just checked mine and HD are 1080i and sd are 480p. Now I have to check out the passthrough as it reported espn as 1080i and I am almost certain thats 720p.

SD stations are typically not in 480p. There are surely exceptions to that, but I suspect not terribly many.

In Europe its 576i. I receive channels from many European country's so i can tell.
Just a few with 576p, all of those have bad quality so it doesn't matter anyway.

I let my HDsatellite receiver upscale 576i to 576p, big improvement IMO.

First and foremost, interlaced exist for 2 reasons: CRT slow raster when broadcast was introduced (latter CRTs do not have this issue) and transmission bandwidth.

So with larger bandwidth now it is possible to have 480p for transmission. But 1080p is not a standard in transmission for the same reason: bandwidth.

And probably most 480 transmission stays with interlaced format simply for legacy issue or convenience as they are native in 480i


Which brings to the next point. Most Hollywood movie DVDs are encoded in 480i/576i. This is logical because they were introduced when CRTs were the norm. The player needs to inverse telecine them to 480p.

Most HD TV are progressive displays hence they will have to do i/p conversion if fed interlaced, 1080i or 480i/576i. I do believe interlace is legacy and will be gone relatively soon (with bigger broadcast bandwidth) as with component/composite interface.

Mea culpa. I said "TV". I shouldn't have. I should have said "image".

And let's all not get our shorts in a knot over 480p versus 480i. The resolution of both is the same: 853x480 for a 16:9 image! The same applies to 1080p versus 1080i - the resolution of both is 1920x1080.

So I'll start all over again:

"With a small 50" screen, from 15 feet you won't even be able to resolve 720 resolution let alone 1080!! It will all look identical to 480 standard definition image."
Period.

Theoretically they should be the same but they are not due to the processing and deinterlacing on the fly. There's a big difference when real-time processing is needed. There's literature out there that says 1080i post processing is more like 720p to the eyes (which I guess is subjective depends on how videophile you are).