What is the Correct TV Mounting Height?

To most people, discovering the best TV mounting height doesn’t seem like much of an issue. As long as you can see the picture, you’d think it’s good enough. Or so it would seem.

However, there’s a knack for finding the optimum height to watch your favourite shows. It’s a feat that you don’t notice until you stumble across that eureka moment

Once you discover the ideal height, you notice how much better pictures are. Colours appear more vivid, you pick up extra details and the entire viewing experience is enhanced. So what is the ideal correct TV mounting height?

Determining How High to Mount TV

Let’s be clear – there is no set distance or height for all TVs. This varies quite considerably. This comes down to numerous aspects such as:

• Size of the screen
• Size of the room
• Overall mounting height

All these aspects will mean that the optimum height in your home will vary from room to room. What works in the living room will not be the same as in the bedroom.

Calculating the Correct TV Mounting Height

When it comes to working out the TV mounting height itself, you need to take into account two main aspects. These are:

• Height of your eye level
• Viewing Distance
• Size of the screen

Getting these factors is critical if you want to get the best viewing pleasure at home. So how do you determine this? It’s a simple case of measuring and basic maths.

Working out the viewing distance itself is relatively straightforward. All you need to do is take the screen size itself and divide it by 20.

Why 20? Well, many AV experts suggest that the distance should be around 2x the width of the screen itself. So if you had a standard 42in screen, you would divide it by 20 giving a maximum range of around 2.1m (7ft).

Now, it’s time to work out the eye-level height. You simply just measure the height of your seat from the floor to the level where your eyes meet with the bridge of the nose.

From here, it’s time to add the screen size to the eye-level height. Once you have this figure, just mark out the point where it matches the wall based on the viewing distance.

This becomes the ideal height should you want to watch things directly at eye level. So, to watch a 42in screen at eye level, the correct TV mounting height would be 142cm (4.8ft).

The Tilt Factor

Watching things at eye level gives a good viewing experience but it’s not the best particularly if you are relaxing or sitting back in a chair.

It’s here where we need to factor in the tilt angles to find the ideal TV mounting height. Thankfully, these angles are easy to work with.

Thanks to the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers, we know that the
recommended tilt angle for a TV is 30˚.

Furthermore, they also state that the average recline of leisure seats sits at around 12.5˚. These figures now give us the numbers we need to alter the height (and find a use for trigonometry!)

What you need to do is to imagine a triangle:

• A horizontal line covering the viewing distance (at eye level)
• A vertical line going up from your eye level mark to the length of the center of the TV screen
• A diagonal line from the higher line dropping down to where you are seated

You will likely need to use a calculator with a tangent of 12.5˚ which will equate to around 0.21. What this gives you is the answer based on previous calculations.

The formula being

(Correct Mounting Height = Viewing Distance + Eye Level Height x Tangent of Recline Angle)

Working on our example, this is broken down into the following figures:

With a max viewing distance of 210cm and then an eye-level height of 100, this equals 310. However, multiplying by the tangent of the angle, lets us know that the ideal mount height would be 144cm (4.8 ft).

As you increase the size of the TV, the numbers will change. For example, a 60in TV would require an ideal mounting height of 2.47m (8.2ft) to get the best viewing experience.

FAQ

What happens if I use a TV Stand?

Realistically, the need for a stand would mean that you keep the TV at the default eye-level height for best viewing.

What happens if I vary the tilt angle?

Affecting tilt angles will mean that you will not be able to get the best viewing experience possible. It means that some colours will appear darker in the corners or it will not be easy to view every detail if you do not have the correct TV mounting height.

How concrete are the tilt angles and viewing heights?

There will be some slight variations in each number depending on how your room is set out. The guidelines set out are averages compiled by industry experts and give a safe guideline into how to work out the exact heights and measurements you need.

Conclusion

Overall, discovering the correct TV mounting height can take a little bit of tinkering to get right. It’s essential to take in your surroundings and work out the right distances to suit both the room you are in and the size of the TV itself.

Once you can get the base figures locked down, you can use the formulas and steps above to find the ideal height you are looking for. After everything is finished, you will see how much finding the correct TV mounting height improves your viewing pleasure and let you enjoy everything to the fullest extent possible.