If "the human eye cannot see more than 30fps" was a big meme, I feel like an actually true contender could be "the human eye cannot see more than 1080p from a normal viewing distance".
A big hubbub is made about the low-resolution of console games, but let's face the facts: the average TV size only finally exceeded 50-inches in 2023. In terms of viewing distances, I have no idea how to get data on what's typical, but the recommended distance for a 50-60 inches is a mere 2 meters.
Yet, almost every home I have been in and in any given online video of people's setups, the TV is typically many meters away from the couch. If you sit even 3 metres away rather than 2, are you really going to have a 98" screen appropriate for that distance? Fuck no you aren't. And yet, that is what the recommendation from THX would be (3 meters = 118 inches, x 0.835 as per their calculations = 98.53 inches). Now think about all the people sitting even further away:
I wonder if the 'rich people' who own this living room would be able to even tell the difference between 720p and 4K from that distance!
I came to the realization that a lot of resolution analysis is educational but also is just mental masturbation for most use cases. It's splitting hairs. On paper, a 200-400p difference might sound gigantic, but who is really going to notice the difference? I'll make a big exception for PC gaming and monitors, as these are under a meter away from our eyes. But for an average sized 4K TV at an average distance in a average living room, viewed by a person with average vision? You're going to need to take a Pepsi challenge to actually tell the difference.
