Press pause: is it time to step away from the ultra HD television?

Researchers from the University of Cambridge described the resolution limit of the human eye in a new study published in Nature Communications.

The study includes an online table where readers can determine the most suitable resolution for their television based on the viewing distance and screen size.

“Increasing the resolution beyond [the predicted resolution limit] would not make the image look any sharper,” the authors explained.

For example, in order for someone to be able to fully appreciate the detail of a 32k resolution television, they would need to be seated less than a metre away from an 80-inch screen.

Study author, Dr Maliha Ashraf, from Cambridge’s department of computer science and technology, highlighted: “As large engineering efforts go towards improving the resolution of mobile, augmented reality and virtual reality displays, it’s important to know the maximum resolution at which further improvements bring no noticeable benefit.”

Co-author, Professor Rafał Mantiuk, explained that the researchers wanted to calculate the point at which it makes no sense to further improve display resolution.

“If you have more pixels in your display, it’s less efficient, it costs more and it requires more processing power to drive it,” he said.