I've felt for a long time that it is time for us to start fighting back against manufacturers that continually dump flawed products on us. The purpose of this thread is to maintain a list of products that do not perform as they should as well as to reward those manufacturers that provide us with well built and/or designed products. Perhaps at some point this will become a project all of its own. For now, I'm going to keep editing this first post to keep it up to date. Hopefully I won't drop this after a few days :-).

I do think this will quicly need to change to another format such as a dedicated web page or whatever and perhaps this will just be a link to it.

I think it is very important to attempt to maintain objectivity as well as to give manufacturers that wish to an attempt to respond. So I want to do our best to achieve some level of agreement before posting about something here. I don't want to trash on something just because one guy is complaining.

The thing that made me start this was that some other posts here saved me from trying a few products that caused others nightmares. I've also lost thousands as I'm sure most of you have with products that I would not have used had I been able to obtain all the necessary info...the type of info I hope to include in this thread.

At some point I would like to achieve and objective criteria for ratubg components such as:
1. Do they have discretes
2. Do they have RS-232 or Ethernet
3. Do they have an IR jack to avoide the hideous IR emitter that should not even need to exist any more in our industry.
4. Etc.

JUST the beginning...

Bad Products
OmniMount Plasma TV Mounts
It would appear from here [Link: remotecentral.com] and here [Link: remotecentral.com] that these mounts should be avoided like the plague. If anyone would like to step up in defense, I'm all ears.

Good Products
Sanus
It would also appear from those same threads that everyone seems thrilled with Sanus plasma TV mounts, I know we are. Here's an example of a comment from Tom Ciamantro: With the Omni, we must have pulled the monitor off the mount over a dozen times to adjust that pivot point and retry. No way to adjust tilt with all the weight on it. My knee has been bothering me ever since.

With the Sanus, we just hung the pup. Loosen two allens to level it, 60 seconds later that's done. Two knobs tweak the tension for adjusting the tilt. We hung it once, adjusted, and were done.

To be continued...please post your warnings and raves.

Good Product:

B&K CT600 and CT300

Bad product:

Xantech InWall Color touch screens? Everyhting I've heard indicates they are flakey and a pain in the ass to program. Dragon Drop software sucks compared to many other programs.

Good:

Chief Brackets - solid, and have never had a problem.

Bad:

Here's a good example, Q. I would have to say Imerge. This is based on our experience at the shop with one unit. The control was ridiculous, and features weren't great. However, this was a long time ago, so it may be better now, and we wouldn't know. Once burned, twice shy. So take that with a grain of salt.

If there is a list to be created, I would suggest that admissions should be from first hand experience. Of the dozen or so splcd's we've done, we haven't had any big issues.

Second good vote for Chief, especially the RPA projector mounts.

I agree.

Another good one would be rating for tech support.

Here's a small list:

Good:
Hitachi pro plasmas - easy as hell to calibrate, good discretes
Yamaha electronics - reliable rear ir, great discretes, easy to control,
Fujitsu plasmas -
Sonance - great customer support

Bad:
Yamaha DVD players, iffy discretes, inconsistant ir/toggle bits
#V#D - Billing is a nightmare

OK guys, how about the following levels for "useablity" (oversimplified, but it's a beginning).

1. Excellent (components with full discretes and either an 1/8", RS-232 or ethernet jack for control). IMO any component that requires an emitter cannot achieve excellent status. While we could divide components into those with good protocols and bad, I'd rather reserve that for another project or put products with bad but workable protocols into level two.
2. Good (components with full discretes but require an emitter).
3. Bad (components without full discretes but with workarounds available, i.e. channel up, then press video input twice)
4. Horrible (components designed so poorly that no reliable workarounds are available for the lack of propoer discrete codes, or they are not practical to implement).

Don't be so quick to write off OmniMount plasma mounts...

This one is the one to avoid...

The OmniMount UCL

But this one is a real winner...

The OmniMount UCL-L from the "wishbone" series.

And this one is the beast of all time...

The OmniMount UCL-X from the "wishbone" series

Also, the U3 flat and U3 tilt mounts are outstanding.


I have video files of each of the wishbone and current wallmounts in stress tests connected to a pneumatic winch...
IMO, they are the strongest mounts you can buy.

Good:

Newcastle - Discretes across the line. Best product support of ANY company I've ever dealt with.

Russound - Always been a top notch company. Good tech support.

Me.....lol

Bad:

Sooooo very many distributors fit this category I can't list them all....

Netgear - Tech support is a joke.

Sony - Tech support? Sorry, we have none of that.....

Me - Well, on some days....lol

I'm thinking that instead of rating products as "good and bad" (my original idea), we should rate products on:
1. Useability (discrete commands)
2. Performance (does the product *perform* as it is supposed to/should
3. Reliabilty (a product may perform well but have high failure rates)
4. Company support
5. ......any other suggestions?

Rick,

That is really valuable input. Thanks. So no we know, [at least based on your opinion :-)], what the mount is that everyone has been complaining about. Is the "bad" mount still available? Do people still have to worry about knowing NOT to purchase that one? Anyone else on the Omnimount?

It is my understanding that is still available, but OM are actively steering their dealers and distributors into the new models.


I would bet that as soon as the demand dies down (which should be VERY quickly) that OM (or some agent) will blow these out through a liquidation outlet such as Sam's Club or Costco.
It's not that they are unsafe, they just sag when they are extended... and does anyone here care if some cheapskate who shops for high-tech electronics at CostCo has a sagging plasma installation??

Good - LG Plasmas Discrete IR and RS232, Fujitsu Plasma Discrete IR and RS232, Denon Discrete IR and RS232, Sony REliable and consistent IR. Their SXRD and LCD Products are top notch.

Bad - Sharp (Do they ever keep anything consistent), NEC, Panasonic, Samsung DLP, Sony Tech Support and availability.

Mike

I agree 100% on the Omnimount UCLs. It's the only bracket that I've ever installed that sagged and gave me the impression that perhaps it wasn't safe.

Then again, I assume that it's held up okay since I've not gotten any screaming phone calls, but that experience was enough to steer me away from Omnimount plasma brackets.

Oh and of course, at the time, they'd NEVER heard of any problems before with that bracket.

However, in their defense, I do like their LCD mounts. No discretes though.