Harvey Norman rip off

[steve_t]

Well that's dropped then!

I purchased a TV there and told the dude to not even bother trying to sell me their $500 HDMI cable. What did he do? Tried to sell me one of course, showing me a comparison between the $500 HDMI cable vs RCA.

I asked if he could show me a comparison between the $500 HDMI and $20 HDMI, but apparently couldn't, because they don't sell those.

They also tried to sell me a Monster Cable HDMI cable for $380 when I bought my home theatre receiver. I said no, so he dropped the price. I said no again and again knowing I could get a cheap cable until he got down to something ridiculous like $50 at which point I said OK thinking a Monster Cable cable for $50 might be a pretty alright deal. But I walked away thinking "WTF? What's the markup on these?"

If your running that far then there is something wrong anyway.

Even 15m doesn't go that far if you have a receiver at the front of the room and a projector at the back

[JMemonic]

Don't be too quick to blame the sales staff, ok some of them are just plain thick but they tend not to last long but the rest might actually understand the situation but they have targets to meet and any sale helps with that.

Having in a past life work in this kind of field we had targets in the range of 50-60k in what was considered to be a quiet month and maybe 500k over Christmas, and that's per person. If you didn't make you target you didn't make bonus which is honestly two shakes of nothing but better than the minimum wage you were paid, and the targets were set in such a way that it was near on imposable to meet unless you got some huge order, there were other ways but that was downright cheating anyhow I digress, one other way to supplement your income was to sell items that there was a bonus attached to ie extended warranties, certain leads, certain brands of products if they were having a competition and the staff were involved not just the company stealing off you again, oops I digress again.

Now I don't know the exact details at Hardly Normal's and I have been (thankfully) out of the industry for a number of years but I would doubt much has changed given the conversation I have had with some guys I used to work with, that sales person who is trying to sell you that lead or tape or what ever is not actually trying to rip you off but just do their job to the best of their abilities, their job is to sell the customer stuff, not to be helpful (a lesson I learnt fast but ignored, maybe why I didn't make any money).

Key points, Know what you want before you go to buy it. Try and find out what you need to interface it all together before you buy it and the most cost effective means of doing so. If you are unsure find an eight year old, (ok maybe not eight but someone) that knows their stuff, you must know a geek and for the right encouragement they can be most helpful. And the final a most important point to remember that salesperson is there to sell you shit, often more than you wanted to buy.

[imdying]

Lol, the point is that HDMI was never intended to be a long run cable. Normally all the kit is pretty much in one area of the room.

Can't hang your stereo from the roof next to your projector though



The thread is fucked though; it's not a rip off, they tender a price and you tell them yes or no.

[aprilia_RS250]

It's all based on average cost margin. Cables and all the other useless gimmicks have margins of 300% where TV's have on average 30% margin. Sales staff usually get told they get x amount commission if they achieve 20%+ profit margin over total cost sold. Here is an example.

TV Sale Price $4000, HN Cost price $3080 from supplier, i.e. they make $920 off you when you buy the TV from them.
Cable Price 400, cost is 100.

You buy TV and cable at full price for 4400, HN's total cost is 3180, this means it's 38% margin. Really good for HN salesman!

Let's say you're not dumb and you tell him you want a discount on the TV. He comes back to you and says sorry, but can chuck in the 400 cable in for free. You think about it, and tell yourself shit that's nearly 10% I just managed to knock off, sweet it's a deal (this does happen more often than not!).

So he sells you the TV and cable for 4000, total cost to HN is 3180. Margin made is 26%. And you think you got 400 off. Salesman gets you for a 4k sale simply by knocking off 4% of margin where you think you got 10% off.

The commission formula also works on total dollar amount you collected. So you rather get a big sale at lower margin that's over the threshold than a little one with a big margin.

[Ronin]

Can't hang your stereo from the roof next to your projector though





The thread is fucked though; it's not a rip off, they tender a price and you tell them yes or no.

I sit on my sofa in front of the TV corrected.

Pft, import them I and then get a local to help you set it up when it goes wrong I reckon. Much Cheaper.

[Headbanger]

Can't hang your stereo from the roof next to your projector though



The thread is fucked though; it's not a rip off, they tender a price and you tell them yes or no.

I did.

That is to say I put my amp and PC on a shelf near my projector. Speaker wire being so much cheaper then connections between the audio visual devices.

[BoristheBiter]

RANT

Hey Mully

This is all in my experience stuff.. but I have seen loads of problems with handshaking (that is two hdmi devices talking together ) eg my ps3 with my panasonic lcd.. there is two to three seconds of blue screen every time you change to hdmi.
There are screens dont work with certain receivers because the hdmi doesn't hand shake properly. The standards are constantly changing so your receiver can be "out of date" with current hdmi standards very quickly.
I personally don't believe HDMI gives any better pic than component. Although once you get to 100 inch projector displays you may notice a difference.

Apparently now cable makers are not able to put what version HDMI the cable is just what speed it is able to transfer data at. I don't know how they are supposed to convey how much data is lost over a long run. It is a little naive when people say that it is only ones and zeros so nothing can be lost. That is not quite true. Data can be lost, signal strength can weaken over long runs hence drop outs of sound or picture or just a reduction in final resolution. And again the idea is copy protection not a better product for the consumer.

Infact I am sorely tempted to bin my 10k ht set up and go back to 2 channel music and just run movies through left and right channel audio and forget all the surround bollocks.

HDMI has given me more headaches and sucked out more enjoyment than it is worth. Again... personal preferences here.

But there may be very little choice in the end. Copy protection and the movie industry may just force the change anyway.
Even bluray's next format is on the way that makes way for more info on the bluray disc but wont be compatible with current bluray player. And don't get me started on bluray and the connection to the internet.....

Fark who needs it.

I just want to watch a movie and enjoy myself for a couple of hours. It is all becoming too hard. /RANT

I am sure there are other views.
I am sure there are many HDMI converts out there.
I am sure many think I am wrong.
However
I am sure these are my OPINIONS
Take them with a grain of salt and do what you want to.

You do seem to have had a big hassle.
I have all new sony tv/ps3/dvd/stero and have had no hassle with any of it and it even runs our old VCR and dvd player with just as good quailty (upscale in AUX ports) with no delays and all from one remote.

I personly would not touch anything panasonic as like you i have had no end of problems with them.

A lot of missinformation is around in regards to HDMI cables. if you tv is not set for 1080p then don't bother getting them as you will see no extra benefit also the players (dvd/blue ray/vhs) have a major bearing on what the picture/sound will be like.

Mully, if you are looking at upgrading, first look at what you want out of your system then take it from there.
There will be alot of salesmen that will tell you you need the top of the line gear but if all you want is to watch a dvd the the middle of the road stuff will be fine.
also check the online reveiws as these can be quite useful.

[Headbanger]

A lot of missinformation is around in regards to HDMI cables. if you tv is not set for 1080p then don't bother getting them as you will see no extra benefit also the players (dvd/blue ray/vhs) have a major bearing on what the picture/sound will be like.

Then you need to get your eyes and ears checked.

I do not have a full HD TV and not only is the Xbox vastly improved by the use of an HDMI cable but so is DVD's when upscaled, and watching a blu-ray was like night and day.The clarity and detail was quite amazing.

As for VHS, The source is so low quality that they belong in the bin.

[SMOKEU]

Then you need to get your eyes and ears checked.

I do not have a full HD TV and not only is the Xbox vastly improved by the use of an HDMI cable but so is DVD's when upscaled, and watching a blu-ray was like night and day.The clarity and detail was quite amazing.

As for VHS, The source is so low quality that they belong in the bin.

What?! You mean you actually pay for movies?! Check out www.torrents.to

[BoristheBiter]

Then you need to get your eyes and ears checked.

I do not have a full HD TV and not only is the Xbox vastly improved by the use of an HDMI cable but so is DVD's when upscaled, and watching a blu-ray was like night and day.The clarity and detail was quite amazing.

As for VHS, The source is so low quality that they belong in the bin.

if you don't have a hd tv and can tell the difference, then the cables you have been using are really shit.
But yes you are correct what i was meaning was that you are only getting what your tv is cabable of and in your case the tv must have a high resolution, but seroiusly making a xbox better.

[Blackshear]

It's a digital signal.
Say it again, it's a digital signal.
It's a digital-fuck-signal.
It either sends in its entirety, or it doesn't at all.
This is no coaxial. This is digital.
You can go and buy a $1000 wireworld, carbon fibre hoopity fuck cable if you want, but that's almost $960 of placebo.
Even panasonics $150 "Full colour" HDMI is ridiculous.


The HDMI cables are where they make their profit. People buying flashy new T.V's aren't going to watch sub-par quality t.v on a standard warehouse HDMI, oh no, they need MONSTER cables!

Toptip: Not even a double blinded test between 5 renown audiophiles could distinguish between monster cables speaker wire, and the unknown control wires.
Spoiler: It was a coathanger.

[Kornholio]

I went into Harvey Norman and the salesman there was trying to sell my mate a 1m long HDMI cable for $279 as he had just bought a new sound system from them. Why the fuck do they charge such an obscene amount of cash for a short cable?

I think you got a bargain ow..... Really expensive wire :/ Lol, check out the last one.

[Headbanger]

if you don't have a hd tv and can tell the difference, then the cables you have been using are really shit.
But yes you are correct what i was meaning was that you are only getting what your tv is cabable of and in your case the tv must have a high resolution, but seroiusly making a xbox better.

TV is a 50" plasma, I believe the maximum display resolution is 1360x1024, I have the devices feeding it in at 1080i and the TV downscales it for display.

Switching from AVI cables (monster cables no less, No idea where they came from, No way in hell I bought them) to HDMI has a drastic effect on Xbox 360 video quality. Even the blind would see the difference. The Xbox only puts out a low resolution image through AVI cables. This also enabled the upscaling of DVD's, and when comparing the exact same movie being played on the TV through a DVD player using AVI again the difference is huge.

I then went further and hooked up a Blu-ray player through HDMI, My PC through HDMI, Having all the devices playing the same movie and inputting at their highest maximum setting I could watch the same scene over and over and compare quality.switching between them near instantly.

This gave me a far greater demonstration of the quality of each,. Something the store could not do for me. And when switching from AVI to HDMI feed even the difference in audio quality was obvious.

The results were I gave away my DVD player and settled for leaving my PC hooked up to the television full time, It easily gave the best quality playback of the devices I already owned.



I then returned the Blu-ray player to its owner, who runs it through a $8000 pioneer 1080p screen, after viewing that I'm glad I only spent $1500 on my TV, as the $6500 price difference wasn't apparent in visual quality.




Nothing beats real world results.

[scracha]

I went into Harvey Norman and the salesman there was trying to sell my mate a 1m long HDMI cable for $279 as he had just bought a new sound system from them. Why the fuck do they charge such an obscene amount of cash for a short cable?

Oh...the "gold" ones. Cos of course, the low resistance of gold really helps digital signals. Bwhahaha. 3m HDMI v1.3b cable is $15. I'll pocket the change. I've found any cheap shit HDMI cables can be used up to about 10m without major hassles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

[BoristheBiter]

TV is a 50" plasma, I believe the maximum display resolution is 1360x1024, I have the devices feeding it in at 1080i and the TV downscales it for display.


.

Hang on, you said you didn't have a hd tv. Now you say you have a 1080i, thats sound like HD to me so of course its going to make a difference.