How true this is. Here is a story you all might find interesting.

Back in the 2001, I flew to New York to attend the McIntosh "McMasters" program. Now I'm sure you all have your own opinions of McIntosh equipment, but I'm pretty sure that "State of the art" isn't the first phrase that comes to mind. I went to dinner with several engineers and executives the first night and I asked a simple question:

"So what products do you keep around to benchmark against?"

"Benchmark?"

Unbelievable. They had absolutely no competitive gear on hand whatsoever to compare their stuff to. So over the next three days, I was destroying these guys' egos with comment after comment about what their gear was lacking. They did, however, listen. Anyone remember the MX132? Fixed 80hz crossover, No sub possible when in stereo mode? $6000? I told them this was asinine considering the other options out there. This was three months prior to the release of the MX 134, and by the time it shipped, they had corrected the problems they had no idea existed.

The point of all of this is that if our concerns are heard by the correct ears, it's really not that hard to get this stuff addressed.

I feel that a scheme like this might overly complicate things and therefore be somewhat counterproductive.

I respectfully disagree here, to an extent...The level of education of consumers on the products that they buy has gone up pretty significantly since the internet age began.

Another poster mentioned the ISF ratings on video displays... The reason that the manufacturers are publicly touting what once were tweaky specs and design elements is due to the manufacturers seeing a REAL concern for these issues on the AVS Forum & Remote Central, among others.

The magazine reveiwers and tweaky dealers have often asked for product changes that seemed ridiculous to the manufacturers and were impractical to execute. (why would you want it to do THAT??)

They now see that there are concerned parties, from industry pros and hardcore enthusiasts to college students and housewives, researching these big ticket items online and communicating with each other on the open forums about issues (real and imagined), they know that some of these concerns are real and that they should be addressed.

It used to be just pros asking for high end setup features, now anyone who visits AVS forum will know what sets have user accessible multi-point convergence or input dependant color temperature settings.... and to avoid the models that do NOT offer these types of features.

The discrete control issue that was once the exclusive burden of pros, is now deeper into the common user because everyone wants to program their own Pronto or URC MX series remote and now understands what toggles and dicretes are all about.

It is getting better and we are the ones making it better by talking about it.

My gut tells me that the reason for this is pure marketing and not from the viewpoint you are espousing. Back in the days of the Regan recession of 1987 all video sales slowed but Home Theater and " custom" sales remained posative. TVs had been thought to be value items and few of the large electronic manufacturers believed low volume how margin sets would sell or be profitable. Hence Proton and NAD and the infamous Minsu 35 and 40 inch sets. Then the Yen wallopped the dollar and suddently a low volume high margin sets were being offered by everyone.

With competition forcing prices of displays down and profits to nothing coming up with some justification for the higher priced/high margin sets becomes a marketing necessity. You may be correct and these manufactureres are reposnding to demand but I suspect they are just grasping at some reason to sell more profitable products. Hey, I offer calibration as part of my installation fee. Times are tough so they are going back to niche marketing.

Alan

eastonaltreee: I used 5 categories because I thought that it can easily be represented as something people understand (i.e. 5 stars) it coulkd easily be 3 categories

gold= 5 = everything+
silver= 3,4 = everything
bronze=2 = basic
and anything below gets no medal

the box will just get the medal (or stars) and if anyone wants more info they can go on the web to find out wht it means


I just think pass/fail is too narrow a choice, if all you need is on/off do you care if it can do more?

Here are the e-mail addresses of some of the higher-ups at CEDIA. If any of you would like to fire off an e-mail to support this initiative, we will all benefit. I will compile a list of manufacturers reps who should also be contacted.

Executive director Billilynne Keller
[email protected]

Assistant Executive Director Don Gilpin
[email protected]

Senior Director of Public Relations & Marketing Joyce Townsend - [email protected]

Senior Director of Professional Development Margaret Sheehan -
[email protected]

Director of Certification Lori Justin
[email protected]

Director of Curriculum & Learning Scott McCormick
[email protected]

Director of EXPO Debbie Antrim
[email protected]

Director of Public Relations & Marketing Jamie Antcliff
[email protected]

Agreed. But should not the marketing arm or trade association of custom installation professionals not make the case to manufacturers of consumer electronics including cable boxes that this would be a good for them, the industry and not cost very much. It does not add much to retail cost to add a rear IR jack nor does including discrete codes in the unit's firmware. You do not need to change the remote's molds only offer the commands in ccf, mxf ( or whatever Universal's file extension is ) or some other format. Plenty of translation programs exist. I do not have the opportunity to chat on SMPTE chat sites nor do I regularly attend broadcast trade shows. Even if CEDIA is unsuccessful should they not be making the effort?

Alan