CrystalioII UK Pricing now confirmed!

[David PluggedIn]

and it is very good indeed

VPS3300 £2999.00 , VPS3800 Pro £3699.00 all including VAT,

 

[Welwynnick]

Only about half again as much as the VPS2300: I think that's much more competitive than people were expecting.

Nick

 

[zAndy1]

Drool.... can't afford one but boy does it look nice!

 

[JimmytheSaint]

That's great news David!

Better forget about Christmas for the family though!

 

[gIzzE]

I really hope they are here in time for xmas, I will definitely have a VPS3800 Pro under the tree! Unless it is no good of course, but can't see that happening.

 

[Mora]

Yea, i know what Santa's bringing me.

Just need that HD-SDI output from the $kY-HD box and were GTG

 

[Nic Rhodes]

Who will be the UK importer?

 

[rigman]

Can the 33 be upgrade to the 38 or partially upgraded if you just wanted the hard drive facility and not the HD DVI sockets. Can the hard drive be changed to a bigger capacity drive. 200 seems quite small in the high def world we are about to live in.

 

[Jonesthegas]

Who will be the UK importer?

Will it not be Crtprojectors.co.uk ? I thought they were distributors for Crystallio.

Martin

 

[gIzzE]

Yeah I presume crtprojectors will distribute them again, I think Henry was saying that to get them in at that price there was some serious commintment on quantity, the price is just exchange rate plus vat, rather than the usual $ for £, which is fantasic for us but a bit of a risk for him as he is gambling on exchange rates. I wouldn't want to do it, think of the outlay if you get 50 units of each shipped!

I don't think the smaller model can be upgraded, when they looked into that it would have been too small a gap between the two units, the hard drive is only what £100? It is all the other bits that are added that cost the extra.

Personally I would rather have HD-SDI and no media player, but originally it was thought the 3800 was going to be around £4500 and the 3300 £3500 so now it is £3800 for the 3800 I think it will be the full version for me, if it performs that is!

On the 3800 there are 2 usb2 ports for external storage so you could have 2x300gig external drives that you can whack stuff onto from your PC, 800gig should be fine for most people.

 

[rigman]

Will it act as a transcoder?

Would I be able to feed it High def through its components and get it to come out as RGBHV for my Barco 808's which needs a transcoder or a HDTV board if fed high def via component.

thanks
Darren

 

[gIzzE]

Yeah, you can feed it what you like in and everything out RGBhv.

 

[Godfather]

The last I heard was that CRT Projectors will not be distributing the Crystalio II. Instead they're going to be one of a very limited number of dealers.

 

[Nic Rhodes]

Hence my question, I would like to know who is dealing with what here first. I have had my fingers burned too many time in the past with kit, so I like to ask some basic Qs first.

 

[rigman]

Yeah, you can feed it what you like in and everything out RGBhv.

Bet you cannot feed it via HDMI and get a signal out of the RGBHV. If it did then it is defo the unit to replace my rock pro

 

[gIzzE]

Actually Henry you may be right there, I know Henry (the other one) was saying that being a distributer has some serious negatives, and I am sure you can all work out what they are.

I would not want to be a distributer, you take all the risks and get a small margin, where as if you are a dealer at least when you take a risk you get proper margins.

 

[NonPayingMember]

Henry @ CRT will be dealing with UK suppliers, but not in as much a distributary role as before. Many retailers will be dealing directly with PMS on Hong Kong now also. So make sure wherever you go the person you buy it from actually knows how to use the thing as you may not be able to rely on Henry's impeccable after-sales this time round....

 

[Nic Rhodes]

 

[Joe Fernand]

Hello all

PMS have quite a unique business proposition in the UK then - one product range (Plasma Enhancer) via CSE, another (Sweetspot) via PluggedinTV and a third (Crystalio) on a Direct from Manufacturer/Dealer affair!

I guess the 'True' price of Crystalio2 takes it into a different price bracket once a 'proper' distribution model is factored in to the costs!

Best regards

Joe

 

[Nic Rhodes]

and there goes support With 'the old model' we had Henry supply the Crystalio to dealers, if there were simple problems dealers helped, complicated problems then we had Henry to fall back on. Good system. Similarly Lumagen has the good fortune to use Gordon as distributor. As I see this new arrangement the 'internet' pricing will mean 'support' by email from HK for anything remotely taxing, especially for people like me, who lives relatively remotely. This is NOT good for me or long term support IMHO. I have been here with other processor suppliers and it isn't good business model for long term for me. Products this complicated I feel need a more 'personal' support, even people like me who think they can set up video processors pretty well will struggle with this 'on email support'. The loss of a single distributor I think is bad new for the UK but I can see why this has happened. Interestingly SVS subs are going the oposite direction!!

But if you feel you can set up a video processor without incident by all means go ahead, the product looks to have great 'specs' but you are a braver man than me. I am resorting back to plan B, two boxes, Snazzio and new Lumagen.

I suppose then these quoted prices are Davids only as each supplier brings them in direct or are they for all importers? Is that correct?

I am quite saddend by this. Henry was one of the biggest draws to this product IMHO.

 

[NonPayingMember]

The way I see it is you shouldn't be buying a processor from someone that has to extend after-sales support to their distributor!! Admiteddly Henry does love to talk (I lose many an hour in idle chit-chat with the man!!), but a video processor dealer should know a lot more than just how to get an image up and then pass the buck to someone else when things get hairy, if they don't they aren't worth their salt IMO. If anything, all this will do is highlight those dealers who are gaining business by price alone and relying on their suppliers for support, rather than budgeting for and offering experienced pre and post sales care for what is a very expensive and complicated product (for many, more expensive than the display they will plug it into!).

From the right places the support for Crystalio II will be every bit as good as it is for Crystalio I, not least of all because most of us will still be dealing with Henry for it!!!!!!

 

[Nic Rhodes]

I hope so Liam, but on my tours around the country, speaking to dealer and consumers it becomes fairly obvious that the majority of people claiming to supply scalers are woefully trained, Lumagen and Crystalio are better in this respect, particularly the 'usual' suspects but there are many buying and selling on price now that are not well informed and have little knowledge / practical experience. I was always impressed by a local dealer to me who asked me to come in and 'train' their staff on what was important on video deinterlacing / scaling to improve their knowledge. Showed to me and they openly admitted that they needed to know more.

I think it will highlight the selling on price vs selling with support division. Unfortunately video processors are one of the trickier to set up devices and the former will probably not realise they need the latter until it is all too late and it has all gone belly up. Then it is down to the 'helpful few' to sort out the issues. I can't see this as a positive move for PMS in general.

 

[Nic Rhodes]

and the bit including Henry is good news

 

[David PluggedIn]

Agree 100% with Liam on this. I think you are worrying unduly here Nic.

Here are my ramblings, for what they are worth

and there goes support With 'the old model' we had Henry supply the Crystalio to dealers, if there were simple problems dealers helped, complicated problems then we had Henry to fall back on. Good system.

I expect that most, if not all dealers will purchase from Henry, so in most cases this mechanism wont change.

Similarly Lumagen has the good fortune to use Gordon as distributor. As I see this new arrangement the 'internet' pricing will mean 'support' by email from HK for anything remotely taxing, especially for people like me, who lives relatively remotely.

I am not sure what you mean by internet pricing? The prices are the UK RRP, the same as the USD RRP with VAT added, great news for enthusiasts as it brings a huge level of performance at an excellent price point (just as the original Crystalio 1 did)

All dealers will I imagine be pricing at this level.

This is NOT good for me or long term support IMHO. I have been here with other processor suppliers and it isn't good business model for long term for me. Products this complicated I feel need a more 'personal' support, even people like me who think they can set up video processors pretty well will struggle with this 'on email support'.

I guess you are saying that the RRP should be higher then (so that a distributor can make enough margin to justify the investment in stock). Its certainly one approach, but in my view as the products become more high end and the RRP’s get higher , the impact to the end user in terms of pricing becomes more and more significant, and the investment that a distributor has to make means that the customer has to pay a much higher street cost

This is about choice , customers can purchase from the supplier that suits them. They can purchase on site installation services if they want, none of that has changed.

The loss of a single distributor I think is bad new for the UK but I can see why this has happened. Interestingly SVS subs are going the oposite direction!!

But if you feel you can set up a video processor without incident by all means go ahead, the product looks to have great 'specs' but you are a braver man than me. I am resorting back to plan B, two boxes, Snazzio and new Lumagen.

If anything the ease of use is increasing, with an LCD display on the case, and a full onscreen display, internal test patterns and preset display settings then each generation of video processor improves on the last. There is even talk of having test clips on the media player version, again this should all make setup easier. Certainly having an integrated media player means setup and support should be simpler than a standalone media player for obvious reasons.

As Liam pointed out, displays are dropping in price all the time, meaning that the market for 'dream spec' video processors that cost more than many displays isnt exactly a volume one, so shouldnt we all be happy that this thread isnt complaining about 'rip off Britain' instead?

 

[David PluggedIn]

I was always impressed by a local dealer to me who asked me to come in and 'train' their staff on what was important on video deinterlacing / scaling to improve their knowledge. Showed to me and they openly admitted that they needed to know more.

Wow..Now, if you can just convince your local xxxxxx (fill in the name of your "favourite" high street electrical retailer here) to take your training then the world would truly be a better place

I overheard a couple of weeks ago a customer being told that he just needed the gold plated scart leads and his TV would look as good as the DLP RPTV that he was drooling over (which was being driven by a PC running HD loops)

they must be *really* good scart cables