How do I calculate TV size with aspect ratio and diagonal inches?

[tahoedrew]

I'm in the market for TV's and I'm debating between a 36" 4:3 Tube TV and a 32" 16:9 LCD. I'm not sure which one I'll go for yet, I'm still "weighing" the decision (which is about 180 lbs or so!).

What I guess I really want to know is what would the measurements of a 16:9 DVD be on a 36" 4:3 aspect ratio TV?

Thanks for the knowledge!

~A

[SDGuy]

Well - with a 36" diagonal, and a 4:3 aspect ratio, that screen will have dimensions of 28.8" x 21.6".

That means the 16:9 picture will have a width of 28.8" maximum. With a 16"9 aspect ratio, the picture height will be 16.2". This would be the equivalent of a 33" 16:9 aspect ratio screen.

All of the above was calculated using the Pythagorean theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem

Hope this helps. If it were me, I'd get the lcd, just to save myself from a herniated disc.

[SDGuy]

Oops - that should read "With a 16:9 aspect ratio", not "With a 16"9 aspect ratio".

On a different topic - tahoedrew - are you in Tahoe? Just wondering how the snow conditions are. I've got an itch to hit the slopes soon, but haven't heard anything good about the local mountains, and a coworker who went to Mammoth a week ago said that the upper mountain is still closed.

[RAMd®d]

Within the last three or four days, somebody posted a link that showed exactly what you want to know.

You could pick two different screen sizes and compare different image sizes on each screen.

My current main TV is a older Sony 32" XBR. To watch a 16:9 DVD on a TV that would give me the same height image as on my 32" 4:3, I'd have to get a 42" 16:9 TV (or bigger).

I wish I had some keywords to help you find that link. I neglected to bookmark it.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

RAMd®d, I searched for it here but could not find it. Then I realized it was on the other forum.

http://www.cavecreations.com/tv2.cgi

[RAMd®d]

Sorry about the herring.

I bookmarked it this time.

[Dick Moore]

Definitely go with the HD LCD and not the CRT, if only for the weight -- you won't be able to carry the Tube by yourself... but the most important reason is overall compatibility and picture quality. Everyone always says that Tubes don't have a native resolution, which is BS. The native res. of color CRTs is the dot (or stripe) pitch, and it's no better than HD flat screens.