Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Extended Warranty

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Digital Cinema Forum » Extended Warranty - General Question (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Author

Topic: Extended Warranty - General Question

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-19-2014 07:29 PM

quote: Brad Miller
The Cinedigm customers end up taking more money home once you factor in the fees and gotchas

Definately not true and Cinedigm is WAY WAY more expensive by the time the end rolls around. I have customers on both. There are no fees on GDC other than the off the top flat percentage which is the same amount that Cinedigm takes with each booking. With GDC there is no expensive LMS, No NOC monitoring required and No large recurring software fees. Cinedigms initial startup fees were 2K per screen when my customers signed up, you HAVE TO have NOC monitoring, and the racks ARE uber expesive. GDC had no initial start up fee per screen except a 400.00 per screen software fee. But you can't blame Cinedigm for the large recurring software fees since they are technically just a software company anyway. I have some customers that will have been paid back fully by GDC before the end of this year rolls around. Not so of Cinedigm even though those LMS systems went in about a year before the first GDC VPF deal was ever signed.

A theater owners real goal with these programs is not about equipment brands but to get his money back as quickly as possible, or pay off his bank loans fast. GDC is at the head of the pack as far as that goes.

Mark

| IP: Logged

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 01-19-2014 09:49 PM

Absolutely not true Mark, but it doesn't matter at this point since it is all in the past.

| IP: Logged

Justin Hamaker
Film God

Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted 01-20-2014 02:42 AM

If I can add my 2¢, I would say you would be better off to bank the money. You're taking a risk in the first year or two you're out of the factory warranty, but as long as you're diligent about banking the full amount, you'll likely be better off in the long run - especially if you don't have any expensive repairs until the equipment gets to be 6-7+ years old.

Doing it this way, you're the one earning interest on the money, and you reap the rewards if the necessary repairs don't eat the full fund by the time you need to replace a projector. But it's a gamble.

| IP: Logged

Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 01-20-2014 06:03 AM

Well that is just it...if you bank the money for 10-years and don't use it...then you can buy yourself the next technology and keep going and let the cycle repeat. That is something people have to remember...this stuff isn't going to last beyond 15 years...even being rosy about it. The technology alone isn't going to be sustainable. There is a lot of sole-sourcing going on here.

| IP: Logged

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-20-2014 03:54 PM

Justin - Steve,

I have one customer that is doing just that. But what he is going to do is bank all his ad money. He never ran ads before, nor does he need that money to help sustain his operation... But from saving over the next ten years there will be a large sum of omney available to leap onto the next technology.

Mark

| IP: Logged

Kirk Futrell
Film Handler

Posts: 95
From: Nashville, TN / U.S.A.
Registered: Nov 2008

posted 01-24-2014 11:48 AM

I'm on the fence about the extended warranty myself. While you all make very good arguments for banking the money, I have to mention that I got a stuck pixel on a 4K within 2 months of owning the projector. I think the odds of something happening to the light engine on a 4K are much greater due to the much greater number of pixels. I have 17,694,720 pixels in our 2 projectors to get stuck. Also a 4K light engine is going to cost quite a bit more as well.
Steve's point is very valid about 'what can you live with presentation-wise'. The users of this forum have been great proponents for perfect presentation, but when cash is tight and its one small 4K pixel glowing red, only during dark scenes, you can start justifying not paying $$,$$$ to fix it, pretty easily.

| IP: Logged

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-24-2014 12:55 PM

If you were one of the very early ones that bought 4k the stuck pixel thing doesn't surprise me at all. A lot of the first batches of 4K DMD's had varying issues. I have replaced three 4K light engines, all fomr the first few onths of 4K sales. I had engines with as many as 60 stuck pixels after just a few months of operation. The replacement light engines have never given any issue at all since. Those light engines are around 33K USD each. If I had a lot of customers runnng 4K and especially on a marginal operation then the extended warranty would be serously worth considering.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.