Well, we all knew it would happen. Customers calling us wanting us to hook up their $2000 plasma display. These have few or no descretes and dont do well when changing formats i.e. 480i to 720p. Last week I instaled one made by Vizio, the best $2000 unit I've seen (Would compare to the low end Fujitsu). The factory supplied remote came with descrete inputs, but no decrete power. A month ago, I was asked to install my first $2000 42" display. This display came from Circuit City and showed the name brand (esa). No desrcretes for thi lil bugger. I called the mfg. after 1 hour on the phone I got an e-mail from their top level tech support and in that e-mail, I got a pdf. that was the layout for the remote. (The pic of the remote with arrows to each button and its funtion). I was told that was all I needed for my descretes. ""After all the anger I had inside towards tech support, I went down my own path and discovered that (FYI) Samsung descrete's work with this unit, with the exception of inputs.

I understand now that you may not know where I am trying to go with this post, nor do I. I guess I'm just venting early on a Sunday morning.

Second topic of discussion. Cheap LCD's.
Being the geek I am, I spend alot of time each week at our local geek depot, Micro Center. As I was leaving the store last week with my new MP3 player I turned to notice a 30" HD LCD that looked great and for only $999 after $300 in rebates. Our 30" LCD comes in around $2500 to $3500 depending on the mfgr.

Reason for this post in general......

Its getting harder each day for us to sell the entry level customer, but if a few of the products above were put into an A B situation. (With the exception of the eas piece) it would become harder to sell the intermediate customer.

A month ago, I was

Let me guess, the customer then spent another $700.00 in Monster power conditioners, cabling and an extended warranty for it too?

lol, Im not sure if they did or not. I used our typical interconnects, bulk mini RG59 and charged our normal flat fee to hook up a table top plasma

Got a call from one of my customers at his vacation home, I priced him a 42" plasma "TV" not monitor. He bought a monitor for cheap and called me to ask how to hook up, he needed a VCR to demodulate cable and speakers to actually hear what was going on, the more I told him what he needed the less enthusiastic he sounded. I haven't heard back from him yet but I know it wasn't what he was looking for.

On another note, I got a call from a customer who told me he could buy a plasma TV for $2000, I told him not to buy because the picture quality would be on a par with the price. When he balked at my answer I asked him why he had a Mercedes SL500 in the garage when he could have bought a "convertible" car for less than $20,000, after all, it was only transportation...right? I think he got the point and is now negotiating something decent for his house. I'll take the negotiation as now I am mentally on the same playing field.

I hate nothing more than installing equipment that is puurchased elsewhere. We charge 20% more for our labor when installing someting bought elsewhere. WE also charge for any return trip because the customer cannot figure it out, push a wrong button, etc. We did a job where we were following another installers footsteps. NEC plasma, HK DVD, JVC Recever, Philips VCR, and Onkyo CD. The original company sold hime an MX500 remtoe control and never got it to work. This Comapny put fourRCA pyramids to jump the IR signal aaround the house to the equipment cabinet. WE went in to but an MX800, and no discretes on any of the equipment including the TV. Called NEC, JVC, and they both said they do not make discretes for this product. The custoemr in turn has the hardeest time figuring out how to work his equipment because of no discretes. also, he has a CCTV system with 8 cameras. Like I said, we charge 20% more, offer no custom instruction manual, and charge for any time we have to go to the custoemrs house. We also now implement a form that requires the custeomr to sign and explains to him the charges that he will incur because he didn't buy the EQ from use. Let me know if you would want me to email this to you. I got it off of Integration Pros.

Also you guys need to check our www.integrationpros.com as another forum.

Mike

We have learned to 'just say no'

Why have a customer who isn't happy, isn't going to be happy, and might be annoyed that you are charging him more and more often?

The boss often says (though not to the customer's face, of course) "Don't go away mad, just go away!"

Hey All,

I tell my "Crestron Level" customers that they buy the Plasma's I spec out, or they pay a heavy hourly fee. Many of my clients started out with the Sampo plasma's. After several returns and repairs, all of them switched to Panasonics or the like. When a new customer try's to give me the .."I saw one at Costco for $ 2k"...I have them call one of my other clients who has gone through this "phase"! Works every time.

I'm also in the process of weeding out models that do not have discrete codes. I LOVE the look, style and performance of the new Samsung LCD's (LTP-1795W)...but guess what? No discrete codes! (Yes..using the Samsung DLP codes will get me On/Off and PC...oh and the all important MENU discrete)...but no Inputs!

So I no longer sell them to my customers. They are upset...but they hate having to cylce through the Inputs everytime they switch from Svideo to Comp!

How are the rest of you handling this issue? Has ANYONE heard a decent reason from the manugfactorers about WHY they cant include discrete codes?!

TIZ

Dwayne

I've gotten past the Samsungs with a few button presses: TV/Video, delay, arrow down, delay, arrow down, delay, enter, to give you an example. They usually only recognize inputs where you have plugged in a cable, so there aren't a ton of unused inputs to shuffle (arrow down) thru.

You might have to hit an arrow right from the menu or something to fit your particular TV, but you get the idea. Not as slick as a discrete, but a reliable workaround.

=Tom

Thanks Tom. I've been working on that type of fix.

It just seems like we should be past this gludgey type of install....

D