CEDIA 2022

The custom installation industry is squarely aimed at affluent customers willing to pay the price of early adoption. So, it is perhaps fitting that LG chose CEDIA 2022 to mark the U.S. debut of its G2 97” OLED. This epic TV brings a home theater-like viewing experience to any room and offers image quality that even the most advanced home theater projectors will struggle to emulate.

The impressive picture is thanks to OLED’s essentially infinite contrast and ability to render ultra-bright, discrete HDR highlights at luminance levels well beyond what you’ll ever see in a commercial cinema. The result is as jaw-dropping as it sounds. Normally I hesitate to make performance judgments on a show floor, the environment is not reflective of home viewing. However, I am already familiar with what the G2 OLED can do in a smaller size. So, the only thing I really needed to judge is the impact of the 97” screen.

After checking out the demo loop, which includes cinematic scenes but also sports, I can tell you that impact is the right word. The scenes coming out of the 97" G2 OLED possess a sense of depth that goes beyond what projectors achieve. The kicker is you can enjoy this level of fidelity without any need to build a totally black, dedicated home theater room. (which is a prerequisite for getting the most out of a high-end projector). With this TV you can experience cutting-edge 4K picture quality in your living room, family room, or wherever else you choose to put it.

Of course, projectors can go larger than 100-inch screens. One demo room here at CEDIA features a 220-inch screen. But with projectors, the bigger the screen, the dimmer the image. there’s a trade-off in HDR handling that today’s projection-based systems cannot overcome, they are simply not bright enough.

While the 97” G2 is not new news, seeing is believing, and its U.S. debut at CEDIA 2022 creates an attractive new option for anyone seeking an OLED that does justice to cinematic 4K HDR, while also handling gaming and sports and just about anything else 4K you send its way. This awe-inspiring OLED has an MSRP of $24999 and is available now.