How to Measure a Wide-Screen TV

The popularity of wide-screen televisions continues to grow as more people enjoy watching television programs in high definition, movie aficionados prefer watching films in the original wide-screen format and gamers enjoy bringing their characters more to life. Before you buy a television, it's helpful to know how large a TV you want to get, both in the screen size and the overall size of the television.

Things You'll Need

• Tape measure

Instructions

1. Get a tape measure. Any standard tape measure will do the trick.

2. Find a friend or family member to help you if you are measuring a large enough wide-screen TV that you can't reach both sides.

3. Hold one end of the tape measure against the upper left corner of the television.

4. Stretch the tape measure across to the bottom right corner of the TV. The distance between the two points is the screen size of the television.

5. Measure the width of the television if you are trying to determine how much space you will need to fit the TV in the corner or into an entertainment center. Instead of measuring corner to corner, measure from the middle of the TV from left to right.

6. Use the screen size of the television to determine how far away you should view it. In general, you should sit twice as far from the television as the size of the screen. So if you had a 50-inch television, you should sit at least 100 inches from it, or just more than 8 feet.