THE TV thats a rebadge of the JVC could be anything that a Chinese or Korean manufacturer mass-produces and "prostitutes" itself with any willing & able taker who's got a name-brand pedigree - say Sharp, Sanyo, or JVC. These manufacturers, most of whom are China-based, is called in the industry as "OEM" or original equipment manufacturer. They mass-produced a consumer electronic commodity like an LCD TV and looked out or advertised themselves for a rebadger. In the case of Blu Ray players and high-endish DVD players by Denon and Marantz, reports say a China-based company called Funai is the actual maker of these players, meaning they qualifiably supplied the parts and assembled the final unit - which comes out in the world as the Denon BD3800 or Marantz BD8002. Not every OEM is a roguish, technological-soldier-of-fortune kind of operation, someone who grinds out hundreds of thousands of cheap, poorly-tested/calibrated machines from hundreds of factory assembly lines making their homes in Fujian. There're a few who distinguishes themselves as competent, specialized and meant to be talking to the big Japanese boys.
But I don't believe the latter kind is the LCD TV expeditor of JVC. It could've picked out just about any willing and affordable OEM in China. But its too late in the game for JVC, I hope JVC fails and the local distributor deservedly skimmed off of its price-gouging arrogance one of these days. I remember Trade Mark-JVC Phils. was selling their LCOS projectors for P399,000 and P299,000 for the RS10 and the RS1, respectively - thru Sights & Sound. To this day I'm tickled with the idea of wanting to know if S & S has ever sold any unit of these over-priced beaming beasts. Trade Mark is also the same name who put Electro Price Club out of business. Electro was a TV/DVD/stereo supermarket, in my lifetime its the only one of its kind I could remember to have come out in the land. It started business during the middle 90s and was a DIRECT and massive-scale IMPORTER of the most delectable TV and home theater goods that no A/V specialty shops or appliance chains, could ever measure up in variety and pedigree. Whereas Abenson sells you a laughably-sized 21-inch Sony Wega assembled in Malaysia with no Component or even an S-Video connections - Electro Price Club would present you a 36-inch Sony Wega XBR model thats made at home - where else, Japan.
Trade Mark pushed Electro out of business through legal bullying and TROs, not because Electro is eating up its sales. The ugly truth is that Electro's pioneering and democratizing effort also exposes JVC's exploitative profits imposed on its TVs and other goods. Inadvertently, Solid Corporation who controls - and monopolizes - Sony, is bared of its ruthless pricing scheme especially of its highly-desired Trinitrons. Electro sells a 27-inch FD-model Wega for something like P37,000. At Abensons and others of its ilk, the equivalent model is being pushed for P44,999. Electro wasn't a smuggler, it pays its tariffs and other burdensome duties, but it brushed the well-entrenched bullies, scathingly. Hence, please skip the JVC LCD, pinapayaman ninyo lang si Trade Mark.....gayung ang yaman na niyan 'cause it controls the Duty Free Philippines electronic sector for 20 years.
