Off-Axis Viewing
It’s important that your television present the same quality picture to any seat in the room, both horizontally and vertically. The picture quality of older technologies such as CRT projection television suffers when viewed off axis. The direct illumination of plasma, however, is ideal when it comes to viewing angle. As you move off center—either left, right, above or below—it retains its bright, rich, sharp picture.
Even as you walk across the room or lay on the floor, you get a consistent, high-quality image. Plasma can be viewed at angles approaching 160°.
Even at extreme angles, brightness changes only slightly in amounts unperceivable to the human eye. Black levels are unchanged throughout the horizontal and vertical viewing angles.* You can mount the TV anywhere. In the corner. On a shelf. Even above the fireplace. You get the same stunning, full quality picture most anywhere in the room.
* Plasma TVs provide the widest viewing angles of any flat-panel or rear-projection TV technology (performance on a par with CRT-based HDTVs). You can sit high, low, or off to the side and still enjoy consistent image brightness and contrast, both horizontally or vertically. On average, light readings taken at the widest horizontal angles (22.5° and 157.5°) were no lower than half the intensity (50%, or one f-stop dimmer) of the values measured on-center (90°). On the vertical axis, light readings averaged 51% of the on-center values.
At no point in this test did the readings show evidence of degradation of black levels (i.e., higher levels of black). From the test results, it is safe to assume that plasma TVs provide images of consistent brightness and contrast over a total viewing angle of 157.5° in the H-axis and V-axis.