Movie theatres have been having a rough go of it lately — maybe you’ve noticed? Although theatre re-openings across the country have recently resulted in tickets sales bouncing up from their all-time pandemic lows, research has shown that theatre attendance is still significantly below what it once was, and shows no sign of returning to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon.
It’s not all bad news, though: Increased demand for ways to watch movies and shows from the comfort of a familiar couch (with a markedly lower risk of contracting an airborne virus) has kicked off something of a renaissance for home theatre equipment. And for anyone inclined to shell out big bucks for an immersive home theatre experience, LG is introducing its DVLED Extreme Home Cinema: the company’s first-ever Direct View LED (DVLED) display home theatre series designed specifically with the high-end market in mind.
According to LG, the new displays, announced on Tuesday, are designed to allow “viewers to immerse themselves in the captivating brilliance, vibrant colour, wide contrast ratio and breathtaking screen sizes of their commercial counterparts, but in a more intimate setting — your own home.” The new screens range from 2K to 8K configurations, but the real showstopper is the Direct View LED display, which is great for providing scalable, high-quality images, even at commercial screen sizes.
The displays themselves are available in nine sizes, ranging from 108 inches all the way up to a massive 325-inch display. For reference, standard cinema screens start at about 540 inches, which makes these truly theatre-sized displays that aren’t for the faint of heart — or wallet. If you’re already a member of the I’m-able-to-afford-a-home-theatre income bracket, you probably already know that these babies don’t come cheap. Pricing ranges from $70K up to $2 million based on the size, pixel pitch, and resolution of the display — gum stuck to the underside of your chair’s arm rest sold separately.
These are luxe displays and LG is pulling out all the stops to market them accordingly, even offering to send the equipment home to you in a gimmicky custom ATA flight case in order to safeguard against the threat of damage en-route.
Still, if you’re someone who can afford a home cinema — and I’m talking to you like you aren’t, but I don’t know you, maybe you are! — these are some of the highest-quality displays currently available for commercial purchase, which should make it worth your while. Still, the least they could do would be to throw in a coupon for some free popcorn or something, geez.