Furthest viewer
Stand at the furthest point someone will read the screen from and measure back to the wall. This single number drives more of the specification than anything else.
Guide
How to Specify a Screen for a Room
Almost every disappointing screen installation was specified from the wall rather than from the audience. Here is the order the decisions should actually be made in, and you can do most of it yourself with a tape measure.
Six measurements, in order
Smallest thing they must read
As a working rule text height should be about one two-hundredth of the viewing distance. Eight metres away needs roughly 40mm characters, which sets the minimum screen size for your content.
Closest viewer
For LED, this sets the pixel pitch: the minimum comfortable distance in metres is roughly the pitch in millimetres. Getting this wrong in either direction is expensive.
Light
Look at the position at the brightest time of day, not when you happen to be surveying. Direct sun or a bright window behind the viewer both demand a brighter screen than a standard indoor panel.
Orientation and shape
Decide from the content, not the wall. A list of items wants portrait; a scene or a data board wants landscape. Then check the display is rated for it.
Power, network and service access
At the exact position. In an older building this is regularly the largest cost in the whole job, and it is the one most often discovered late.
Mistakes this order prevents
- Buying the screen that fits the wall and finding nobody can read it
- Paying for a fine pixel pitch in a room where nobody gets within eight metres
- Specifying a standard display for a window and replacing it a year later
- Mounting at a height that looks right on a drawing and is unreadable standing up
- Discovering on installation day that there is no power within four metres
- Fitting a screen that cannot be serviced without closing the space it is in
Questions people actually ask
How high should a screen be mounted?
For a standing audience, the centre of the screen at roughly eye height, which usually means the middle around 1.5 to 1.6 metres. Higher than that and people are looking up, which is uncomfortable and reduces how long they will read for. Above a counter you often have no choice, in which case the content has to be designed for the angle.
Is a bigger screen always better?
No. Too large for the space is as bad as too small: people standing close to a very large screen cannot take in the whole thing and have to scan it. Size follows the furthest viewer and the content, not the budget or the wall.
Keep reading
Other guides
Start a project
Tell us about the space. We will tell you what belongs in it.
A first conversation costs you nothing and usually takes twenty minutes. Bring a photo of the wall and a rough idea of what you want it to do.
- A written specification you can price against anyone
- The platform we would run, named before you sign
- Hardware and content costed separately, so you can see both
- No obligation, and no pressure to buy screens you do not need