Aim for “Centre Centre” With Your Television Mount

I don’t know how frequently people are buying a new television for their home these days but now that we have flat panel displays we now face a choice of either having it on a stand or mounted on a wall. Of course, when you have the television on a stand it affords you the freedom to reposition it whilst sacrificing some physical space. Conversely, mounting a television on a wall can saves space but you really do get one shot at getting it positioned correctly.

Now, while it might seem obvious I still think it’s worth mentioning how you should position your new television (mounted or unmounted) using something I call the “centre centre” principle. What this principle helps to provide is an optimal picture when you are viewing your display by minimising how far off you are from being perpendicular (or at right angles) to the screen.

Basically, you should aim to have the horizontally screen positioned at the centre of where you will mainly be viewing it. So, if you will be watching television on the couch normally then you should position it directly in front of the couch (not a metre or two to either side). Similarly, you want the middle of the vertical axis of the screen to be at eye level (so if eye level on your couch is lower down then you should position your display at around that height).

For 2D viewing, the positioning of the screen will be far more forgiving compared to 3D viewing for two main reasons. When viewing content in 3D with passive glasses (so the plastic glasses with the polarised lenses without batteries) the picture quality and the phase of the picture presented to each lens will worsen the further off-axis you are from the screen.  However, if your television uses active glasses (so the shutter glasses running on batteries) you may find that the glasses may not sync reliably or at all then further off-axis you sit from the screen. The last thing you would want to be doing to sitting or standing awkwardly in order to make the 3D work (like some people had to do with an analogue antenna when you would only get a clear picture standing on one foot, leaning to the left with your arm outstretched standing in the doorway).

So when you are positioning your television keep the “centre centre” principle in mind to get the best viewing experience from it.