WOW, There's Even White Van Projector Scams!!

[Batman]

Man O Man! I just got done meeting with a potential client (referral) who asked what we'd charge to retrofit a HT into an existing space in his recently purchased town home...Long story short, he said he got a "great deal" on a $6500 projector from VisionMax for only $700. After a quick search for the brand online and coming up with virtually no review info, I stumbled across their webpage and suspected a scam and sure enough, with enough digging the scam reports from different forums began popping up. Their site has a cart but you cant add anything to it LOL. He was so excited he offered to run it down to me to check it out, and I honestly couldn't wait to see just what a POS this thing was and it didn't disappoint in that facet. I felt bad being so brutally honest that he just got completely hosed, but I adamantly stated that there is no way we're installing that product...

http://www.visionmaxprojectors.com/about us.html

 

[Yesfan70]

Ok, not that I plan on buying one...I still love mine, but what gives it away for you? In other words, where is the red flag that you see that an average joe wouldn't

 

[Batman]

My initial suspicion was the story he told about how he came across the piece AND the fact that that I had never heard of the brand. After finding their site, the fact that they appear as if they are produced by Mattel didn't help... :happy-smileygiantred:
And if you look at each projectors specs they really don't give any info attributed to performance....No reviews on Projector Central, no mounts from chief (brand isn't even in their drop down list of MFRs) etc, etc, when should I stop? :laughing-rolling:

 

[Yesfan70]

My initial suspicion was the story he told about how he came across the piece AND the fact that that I had never heard of the brand. After finding their site, the fact that they appear as if they are produced by Mattel didn't help... :happy-smileygiantred:
And if you look at each projectors specs they really don't give any info attributed to performance....No reviews on Projector Central, no mounts from chief (brand isn't even in their drop down list of MFRs) etc, etc, when should I stop? :laughing-rolling:

LOL!, I think you had me at Mattel.


I wonder if they have a Hot Wheels or Barbie edition projector. :text-lol:

 

[Batman]

Don't even get me started on the actual "real world" performance that I just witnessed earlier....Limited manual focus, NO zoom at all. Major screen door effect (THE WORST I'VE EVER SEEN), no keystone correction....Surprisingly, it had HDMI :think:

 

[Yesfan70]

Don't even get me started on the actual "real world" performance that I just witnessed earlier....Limited manual focus, NO zoom at all. Major screen door effect (THE WORST I'VE EVER SEEN), no keystone correction....Surprisingly, it had HDMI :think:

LOL!


I remember reading an article in HTM (many, many, many years ago) where Brent Butterworth and the gang bought a set of white van speakers to demo. The speakers didn't even have a crossover in them, so each driver was getting a full range signal.

 

[Barney]

Don't even get me started on the actual "real world" performance that I just witnessed earlier....Limited manual focus, NO zoom at all. Major screen door effect (THE WORST I'VE EVER SEEN), no keystone correction....Surprisingly, it had HDMI :think:

LOL!


I remember reading an article in HTM (many, many, many years ago) where Brent Butterworth and the gang bought a set of white van speakers to demo. The speakers didn't even have a crossover in them, so each driver was getting a full range signal.

I remember that.......Brent wound-up at DD Labs but not sure where he is now.
Batman, folks need to wake-up when they hear/see such great deals & to be on the Internet...........danger mt friends.

 

[yromj]

Ok, not that I plan on buying one...I still love mine, but what gives it away for you? In other words, where is the red flag that you see that an average joe wouldn't

Here's their "spec list" from their "details" page:

HD-2K

HD Ready HDMI Projector - HD Ready. Really? What's the resolution? HDMI Projector is just throwing out a hot term. Every projector today is assumed to have HDMI.

Supports 1920 x 1080 (1080P) Resolution - "Supports" is very suscipicious wording here. It probably means that it will accept it but it's actual resolution is probably something like 800x600.

5” Inch TFT LCD Panel - 5" you say? That's interesting because 0.7" panels are the norm.

Keystone Correction Up To 15° - If you need keystone, you aren't a projector installer. No manufacturer should brag about this.

Automatic Image Zoom - It's either got an extremely sophisticated laser measuring system that determines the size of the screen and the projector's distance from it, OR it's a fixed zoom and the picture size is "automatically" set to a given size at a given distnace.

Widescreen and Standard Image Format - Which is native? Again we don't know any resolution so we don't know.

Up to 150'Image Size - 150' image size? Undoubtedly they mean 150" (typo) but you don't see this on other projo spec sheets because it depends on too many things. Just FWIW according to the projection calculator at projectorcentral, the JVC RS-35U can do a 188" image on a 1.2 gain screen from 18'-8". So the 150" is nothing to really brag about.

Full Sized IR Remote Control - :dance:

Inputs: HDMI, VGA, S-Video, Composite Video,
Component Video, Audio - Audio? WTF?

MSRP $6,999

That spec sheet reaks of fish odors. Go to JVC, Panasonic, or Sony's sites and look at their spec sheets and you'll see what real spec sheets look like. This ain't it.

John

 

[MatthewB]

But wait I thought at Bats house all that great sound was coming from that fancy scmancy JVC projector. You mean those Dyns were'nt there just for looks. :happy-smileygiantred:

 

[Batman]

^ John, I've been forced to use keystone on projectors w/o a vertical lens shift feature due to either obstructions (structural) inside the throw window or pre-determined ceiling heights that were simply too low to accommodate without having the bottom edge of the screen a foot off the floor, and of course The customer insists on a 100+" screen. Without lens shift there is sometimes no way around it...IMO people who know why keystone detracts from the image, will make sure that I don't have to use it (by ponying up for a better projector for example)....otherwise they're none the wiser :?

 

[yromj]

Yeah, I can understand that sometimes you're forced to. I just think it's a shame when installers use it because they didn't do any calculations beforehand and therefore didn't know that the projector needed to be lowered 6" to hit the screen they had just arbitrarily mounted on the wall (which was really too high to begin with).

John

 

[Batman]

I concur that using keystone as an installation short cut is a huge NO NO, unfortunately I've had a couple customers with extreme scenarios and limited budgets...

 

[yromj]

There are always those...