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News for the Industry Professional
Mom and Pop TV stores are all but gone, regional and small national C.E. stores are failing, and even some of the big box stores are having financial problems,, where can money be made?
With the like of Wal-Mart selling TV sets at impossibly low prices, sellers at all levels are looking for new ways to improve margins. Even Apex, the California company that markets very low priced televisions from China, is changing their product mix. At this years CES show in Vegas, Apex display was largely higher end LCD displays with a few DVD players. This may have been partially influenced by the fact that their supplier of cheap TV sets had the president of Apex under arrest in China. Seems Apex didn't think they had to pay for the sets they received, especially those that didn't work, or those that were shipped that hadn't been ordered. Business at the low end is rough. It is easy to see why Apex has shifted to a Taiwan source for LCD screen monitors, definitely upscale from the $79 econotube TV sets they had been selling.
Moving upscale has not been limited to Apex, or even the Television industry. Both DirecTV and Dish Network are in the process of increasing their High Definition programming offerings. They have also increased their offerings of new HDTV and DTV receivers, some of which can record high def. content to a hard drive. Video on Demand has been the buzz word for cable and now even Dish will roll out a new receiver that records numerous hit pay per view movies and allows the customer to purchase them instantly. Unfortunately Voom, the HDTV Satellite offering from the cable guys, did not have a workable business plan, and is in the process of selling off their hardware to Dish Network and shuttering Voom.
What is a retailer to do?
The beer is free, you just have to buy the meal, the razor is free, the blades aren't, and examples go on and on. In the Consumer Electronics. industry, most of the profits are made by selling service contracts and accessories i.e. batteries and cables. Monster Cable's ability to sell their products at monstrous prices with monstrous markups is an industry legend. Monster Cable even refers some of their dealers as MONSTERS. Selling half a million dollars a year of Monster Cable in some CE stores is not unheard of. Monster Cable has been so embraced by Best Buy that we have been told that each new store has 7 miles of Monster Cable built in to every new store they open. Undoubtedly Monster Cable has been responsible for keeping the doors open on more than a few retailers. For some retailers Monster Cable just plain works.
At the other end of the scale there are a lot of cable suppliers out there selling product based on low price, we saw them at the CES, their product was cheap and it looked like it,, you know the kind of stuff that can come back and bite you.
Somewhere between $60 and 60 cents for a hundred feet of coax there has to be has to be a high end product that offers a good markup to the dealer and good value to the customer, and perhaps, we have found such a product line. Enter Joe Cornwall of Impact Acoustics. Joe has been around the electronics and fishing industries for years. Joe has written for high and audio magazines.. Joe has worked satellite high definition distribution industry. Joe also designed and installed home theater.. When Joe contacted Electronicsinventions dot com and said that he had a better product at a price point that would reward the dealer, yet offer value to the customer, we were interested.
Impact Acoustics debuted its newest addition to its SonicWave™ line at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) – a complete line of HDMI®, DVI® and HDMI-to-DVI interconnect products! Designed to deliver state-of-the-art performance at the most aggressive price points in the industry, SonicWave HDMI interconnects are available in lengths from 0.5 meter to 5 meters. SonicWave DVI and HDMI-to-DVI interconnects are available in 0.5 meter to 10 meter lengths. All SonicWave digital video products are packaged in a colorful, high-quality, magnetic-closure retail box.
HDMI is an acronym for High Definition
Multi-Media Interface. The HDMI
connection delivers digital video, digital audio and inter-component control
signals all on one small, convenient multi-pin connection.
DVI, an acronym for Digital Video Interface, has become a computer
industry standard for transporting digital video signals between devices, or
from source to display. Both
systems allow an unprecedented level of video performance and are quickly
becoming the de facto standard for high-end home theater installations.
The Impact Acoustics SonicWave series of interconnects are well known for
amazing performance at MSRP price points typically 30% below equivalent product
from competing brands in the industry!
Impact Acoustics’ SonicWave brand HDMI and DVI products are fully optimized
for multimedia performance. Both
the HDMI and the DVI interconnects feature a 90% tinned copper braid over a 100%
aluminum foil shield for maximum immunity to environmentally induced noise.
The cables themselves are comprised of a combination of individually
shielded pairs of silver-plated copper conductors combined with individual
silver-plated copper conductors. All
conductors are encased in a high-density nitrogen-injected polyethylene
dielectric. All HDMI, DVI and HDMI-to-DVI interconnects feature 24k gold
contacts set in a chrome-plated zinc alloy shell. .
All Impact Acoustics SonicWave™ interconnect products offer meticulous construction and rigorous engineering in order to ensure optimum quality and are appropriate for the most demanding installations. All SonicWave products come with an unconditional lifetime warranty. Retail prices start at $69.99 for a one meter interconnect.
Impact Acoustics is a division of Lastar, a company many know through their computer computer connectivity business Cables to Go, They have been providing data and network connection solutions since 1984. Impact Acoustics can be found on the Web at http://www.impactacoustics.com . Joe Cornwall, Business Development Manager at Impact Acoustics can be reached at his Dayton, Ohio office via the net at jcornwall@impactacoustics.com .
Oh yes, we did say fishing, Joes book "Fly Fishing Warm Water Rivers,
Lesson Learned from Ohio's Great Miami" is scheduled to be released this
spring.
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CEDIA, More Then A Trade Show 
September 9 - 11, 2004 by Tom Taylor with Rita Conlin, David Conlin, and Tom Camery contributing
Every September CEDIA has a trade show / training extravaganza, usually in Indianapolis, Indiana. This was our first year covering this show and we were very surprised at the size and quality of the show. Indianapolis is not Las Vegas nor even Nashville. Don't get me wrong, Indy is a great city, I have been there many times, but people do not go to trades shows there to have fun, although you can have a great time there. People go to CEDIA to learn and to see. In a word the show is USEFUL. CEDIA is held at the RCA Dome and Indianapolis Convention Center. The RCA Dome is where the Colts play football. The area, usually covered by the football field and sidelines, was completely covered by merchants showing their wares. The football field was only a small portion of show floor, perhaps a fifth. The show consumed 232,000 square feet of exhibition space.
Then there were the seminar and training rooms, press conference rooms and more. In other words this was a large show, not as big as the CES, but large. CEDIA reports that their show is growing, reporting 21,000 in attendance by the second day. CEDIA provided attendees with 300 hours of seminars.
What makes CEDIA different from other trade shows is that it caters to showcasing high end electronics and training technicians to install and service the equipment. CEDIA and its exhibitors cater to the home theater industry. With home theaters, and premium audio and video viewing areas easily commanding five figures, having the right hardware and competent technicians is very important to the industry. Profits are very good for equipment suppliers, and quality installers can often demand wages commensurate with their abilities. Even the direct to home satellite people, who normally give away their equipment, were there showing their premium equipment lines with digital hard drive recording and multi tuners.
A Few New, Innovative, and Useful products we saw at the show;
DeCorp's Flat wire; DeCorp America introduced several new types of wire that you literally stick to the wall. If an installer needs to run wire where wire can not be run behind a wall or run out of sight, DeCorp's flatwire may be the answer. The preferred way to install the wire would be to stick it to the wall, put drywall tape and finish with drywall paste and paint. Wire for audio, video, and data cables are will be available by mid 2005. Wire will be either shielded and unshielded. One version of the wire will work as RG-6. The wire sample I have consists of strip of clear plastic 2 1/8 inches wide with two 7/8 inch strips of copper foil inside. Thickness is about that of two pieces of typewriter paper. The wire is so attractive that it could be left exposed and made part of the room decor.
Contact
Decorp at http://www.decorp.com
Style is everything at Bang and Olufsen. B and O is a maker and seller of high end and very stylish electronics through their own stores or stores operated under the Bang and Olufsen name. They have even developed a marketing strategy of opening company stores in major markets with these stores opening additional stores in partnership with select high end custom installation companies that have the right to sell Band and Olufsen products within a given location. Over 70% of B and O's sales in the U.S. come from large custom installation products B and O is a Danish firm with stores world wide. Their stores are even in Harrods, and Selfridges in London. B and O used CEDIA to showcase their new BeoVision 42 inch plasma screen. The Beo 4 sets itself apart from other plasmas as it is built around modularity with improved picture technologies and viewing comfort. The one they had running at the news conference looked very good, even when viewed off to one side. If a picture can define a company, the telephone below certainly defined Bang and Olufsen. Design, Design, and Design. Take a look at Bang and Olufsen's web site, go to their catalog and run your cursor over it, it is an amazing exhibition of simplicity and elegance. See Rita Conlin's story below.
http://www.bang-olufsen.com
Vantage Point; Vantage Point makes and markets devices for hanging televisions on the walls. They make the standard tray that is available at many retail CE stores. They also have a line of innovative devices for hanging flat screen displays on walls. These are devices that installers need for mounting all kinds of video displays, whether it be a television set in a bed room to a plasma display in a commercial application
Information
http://www.vanptc.com
Good Tools are important to the professional installer. Ever tried to cut a piece of coax with a cheap pair of "dikes"? You may wind up doing more crushing of the coax then cutting. You will get a fast even cut with a pair of Klein cutters. Klein publishes a monthly newsletter giving all kinds of tip to the tradesman. Check http://www.kleintradesmanclub.com
Specialty tools are important to installers. Wires must be run in the most challenging of places. Need to fish a wire? Check with the folks of B.E.C. at http://www.fiberfish.com or the rack folks at http://www.RACK-A-TIERS.com , and Labor Saving Devices at http://www.lsdinc.com. Installers can find lots of really helpful specialty tools and ideas on these sites.
Controlling home theaters can be a major challange to designers. With monitors and equipment all over the facility, control can be a undertaking. We say everything from large wall panels with touch controls to computer control. Whole house monitoring and control is becoming a major undertaking. It is even possible to control many of the functions of a house via the Internet. Not to be left behind, even remote control manufacturers have new and innovative devices. Universal Remote Control labels their devices as "Entertainment Made Simple" Below is the "Home Theater Master" from Universal Remote.
Information;
http://www.universalremote.com
Tech Tip, to check an i.r. remote control point it at a digital camera or picture phone! Look for the white flash from a working remote!
It will 'Rock your walls'
by Rita Conlin
My first attendance at the Custom Electronic Design & Installation
Association (CEDIA) Expo 2004 in Indianapolis definitely did not disappoint.
The number and layout of the exhibitors both in the convention center as well as
the RCA dome were enough to take a least two whole days to visit and even then,
you would need an extra day to go back and visit those that warranted a second
look. Perhaps that is why the Expo ran for four days?
Many of the big exhibitors were present with the usual large flashy booths (the
word 'booth' conjures up visions of a cubicle type area. I've always
thought Expo organizers should come up with a better description; perhaps
'display' or 'mobile showroom'?) such as LG, TERK and SONY just to mention a
few.
There were many new innovative products and components that amplify, distribute
and display media to your home theatre system. None more eye catching and
intriguing to me than one.
SolidDrive from Induction Dynamics www.inductiondynamics.com
had a small booth in the RCA dome that packed a large punch. As you
strolled past their booth your eye was first drawn to a Jennifer Lopez video
that seemed to be projected on a clear glass wall, as you stepped up to the
glass wall to touch it and figure out how they did that an even more astounding
effect was revealed - the glass walls were gently vibrating and you realized
that the sound from the video was coming right out of them!
Luckily my jaw dropping caught the eye of the Induction Dynamics representative
that took me to one side and explained how the technology worked before I caused
myself any brain damage trying to figure this out.
The SolidDrive system consists of two small round steel discs, about the
diameter of an aerosol can (the room freshener type) and about 3 to 4 inches
high (this is going strictly by memory, exact specifications can be obtained
directly from Induction Dynamics). These two small discs attach to a wall
of glass, drywall, granite, wood, laminate and composites where they expand and
contract magnetically up to 20,000 times per second which converts an audio
signal into a vibration that is transferred evenly onto that entire surface, in
effect rocking your walls with sound without a sign of a speaker in sight.
Real cool stuff. And by the way, the Jennifer Lopez video on the
glass wall was done by projecting the image on a thin sheet of semi-transparent
film taped to the glass.
Kudos to Bang and Olufsen (www.bang-olufsen.com)
for coming up with yet another crop of consumer electronics that are not only at
the high end of the performance scale but also the ultimate in eye candy.
Their BeoLab 5 sound system boasts 2500 watts delivered through a trilevel
'tower' of speakers. The BeoVision 4 is their 42" plasma monitor and
my favorite was the BeoCom 2 cordless phone, it's a two line cordless phone that
supports up to eight handsets. It's constructed out of hydro formed
aluminum and available in four colors; the best way to describe it would be a
banana. My description cannot begin to do it justice, you just have to see
it for yourself BeoCom 2.
Home theatre and lifestyle technology is advancing at such a rate that a visit
to CEDIA is a requirement just to come up to speed. Oh, and next year I'll
have to allot more than a mere 2 days.
Speaker
Food a problem? As our staff writer noted, the food sold by the folks that run the RCA Dome is a bit bland so we had to stop at Jungle Jims and get some hot sauce. Yes, that is a full size fire truck with racks of hot sauce on all sides Jungle Jims is a incredible food store located just north of Cincinnati, on Rt. 4 in Fairfield, Ohio. It has been featured on the food channel. The food sold there is amazing, it is from all over the world and and much of it is fresh. Everything from soda pop from Brazil, to special vegetables from the far east can be found here. Dave Conlin of the Electronic Retailer dotcom staff can be seen below choosing some sort of Thermonuclear tongue burner
http://www.junglejims.com
(Picture taken with Sprint Sanyo picture phone)
On The Road with Internet by Tom Taylor KE4SMG with Tom Camery KC8AHF June 2004
While visiting the Dayton Hamvention in Dayton, Ohio, we came across Richard DesRoisers W1KGZ and his wife Linda N1TRV two avid amateur radio operators. Typical of amateur radio operators "hams" they devised a way to have Internet all the time at reasonable cost. A few years ago Dick and Linda gave up their home in New Hampshire and became full time residents of a crew cab pickup truck with a slide in camper. They spend summers in New Hampshire and winters in south Texas. Since they spend a lot of times in National Parks and rural areas without wifi or even cell phones, they chose to keep in touch with the world via Internet. To do this they purchased a DirecWay two way satellite system. Dick, shown below beside his system, mounted the dish on a surveyors heavy duty tripod. He uses a laptop computer to access the Internet with a meter device in line to aim the dish. The meter is a special tool available from DirecWay. Dick says the system works very well, and since most of his stops are for at least several days, the effort of setting up the device is well worth while.
As for the art work, it is an artists rendition of the Northern Lights in Alaska. An artist in Progresso, Mexico did the art work using nothing but spray cans of paint, a torch, and plastic bags Snowbirds flock to Progresso and other border towns for everything from art work to excellent dental work and of course prescription drugs at very reasonable prices. Word word of reliable businesses in Mexico travels fast around the campgrounds along the border.
Selected Stories from past editions of ElectronicRetailer.com