Although movie theaters around the US are already dying a slow death due to the influx of great streaming content and declining ticket sales, there’s a new MicroLED TV that’d make me swear off going out to the movies for good if this set ever made its way into my home.
The TV I’m talking about is the new 136-inch 4K MicroLED TV called the LG Magnit. Not only does it have a number of features carried over from LG’s best OLED TVs like the new LG C2 OLED, but its MicroLED panel makes movies look even better.
The 136-inch LG Magnit made its debut at CEDIA 2022 this past week in Dallas, Texas, alongside other massive screens like the new 98-inch Samsung QN100B Neo QLED TV and it’s already making quite a stir in the world of home theater lovers.
It’s unclear how much the LG Magnit going to cost, but considering that you’re going to need a custom installer to come to your house should you get one, it’s unlikely to be cheap. You can’t blame me for dreaming about one, though.
What goes into a massive 136-inch MicroLED TV?
So what’s the big deal with MicroLED? Imagine if you could have the brightness of QLED but the color saturation and black levels of OLED — that’s MicroLED. MicroLED trades out a standard liquid crystal display with an LED backlight for millions of individual diodes that can be completely turned on and off.
The numbers provided by LG claim that the Magnit can reach a peak brightness of around 2,000 nits — in the realm of the brightest QLED TVs we’ve seen this year — and has a native 120Hz refresh rate. Behind it are four HDMI-in ports, digital audio out, two USB-in ports and an RS232C port.
Inside, the Magnit uses LG’s Alpha a9 AI Processor that can reduce picture noise when upscaling content. The screen also has a built-in light sensor for dynamic HDR that can turn up the brightness and contrast when it detects a large amount of ambient light in the room.
Want to Cast movies from your phone? The Magnit has built-in AirPlay 2 and Miracast, plus it uses the webOS smart TV platform if you want to peruse some streaming services.
What about sound? LG is collaborating with Bang & Olufsen to bundle a Beolab 90 home speaker with every sale. These speakers have 18 drivers — seven tweeters, seven mid-range drivers and four subwoofers — that can output sound in every direction. Typically they cost about $85,000 per pair, so you have to imagine the sticker price of this home theater setup running at least a couple hundred grand.
Would I really give up going to the theaters for a 136-inch TV?
First off, this isn’t any 136-inch TV — it’s a MicroLED TV. It’s the technology that I genuinely expect to replace OLED in 10 years’ time. And theaters? They’re fine — I worked in them and made some great memories there — but these days, it’s hard to justify a trip to the theater.
The film industry doesn’t want to admit it, but watching films at the theater is wildly inconvenient. They’re usually full of people talking during the movie and there’s no way to pause the film when you need to get up. Theaters force you to watch a film in a group setting and often charge you an arm and a leg for the experience, especially if you want a snack.
That said, I do love that movie theaters are a community resource. Yes, they’re expensive compared to a streaming service that will run you $9.99 per month, but they are much less expensive than going out and buying a 136-inch TV for your living room. For folks looking for a two-hour escape from their homes, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better venue.
On top of the escapism that theaters provide, the price of super-sized TVs is prohibitive from ditching them for good — and it will probably be that way for at least another decade. We’ve seen the price of larger-screen TVs come down drastically over the last decade, but TVs larger than 100 inches are still going to cost more than most of us will ever spend at the theater.
Still, you can’t blame me for wanting to ditch the cineplex completely. Heck, the reason I cover home theater is so that I can help movie-lovers like myself re-create the magic of the movie theater in our own homes. It’s the magic of the silver screen without any of the inconveniences.
The 136-inch Magnit TV is going to provide that experience to some folks — just to a very select few who can afford it. (Not me.) So…I guess I’ll see you at the theater?
