From August 2009 this blog continues at

http://www.eurodisplay.com/blog/articles/

See you there! Fabio

Dedicated Proprietary Control System. Wow, it actually sounds very professional. But this fancy denomination hides some serious drawbacks that nobody ever tells you, until it's too late.

• The first problem is about transparency: even if the LED Screen has 2 years warranty (or more), the Control System has a 12 months warranty, as written in the sales contract (please, always read it carefully!).
• The second problem is about costs: what happen if control system brakes down after 13-14 months from the date of shipment? You are forced to buy a new one from the supplier… and you do not have any control on the price, which will be very high, as you can already imagine – usually around 7.000,00 EUR.
• The third problem is about freedom: by using such control system you are inevitably tied to the supplier for the entire lifetime of the screen. In fact, you do not have any other option: either you pay again or the screen will not work.

To avoid all this issues, EuroDisplay adopt an Open Plug-and-Play System based on the Apple Mac Mini. Basically EuroDisplay’s LED screens are like huge DVI monitors that visualize anything you can show on the PC.

The Open Plug-and-Play System allows you to replace the Apple Mac Mini at any time with any other computer with a DVI output, like those you can easily find in stores.

I have heard countless stories of entrepreneurs like you that purchased from companies providing a "Dedicated Control System" and then were held hostages of their suppliers!

They were forced to pay huge amount of money to avoid having their screens shut-down for weeks... it goes without saying that their investment was not so successful in the end. Now you know, so please don't make the same mistake.

Some “manufacturers” promise you they are using 100% Nichia LEDs... but be careful because some of them could not be totally honest with you.

Nichia is one of the leading companies in the LED industry and surely the most awarded... that's why some suppliers try to take advantage of this brand. Here’s the whole story:

The main reason why you should be suspicious is because on the LED screens, there are 3 colors – Red, Green and Blue, the primary colors.

So the first question you should ask the potential supplier is: are ALL the 3 colors provided by Nichia, or only one of them?

Indeed, when they tell you they use Nichia LEDs, usually what they actually mean is that they use Nichia for the Green, Cree for the Red and Opto Tech for the Blue.

In order to protect yourself from this fraud I suggest you to take the following steps:

• The first thing to do is to ask the supplier to provide you a proof of purchase of the LEDs from the LED manufacturer. Such document should include the number of order, date of issue and quantity.
  
  In case the potential supplier find any excuse not to provide you with this document, please start to evaluate the situation very carefully.
• The second thing to do is to have Nichia’s experts to perform a test to prove whether you received what you paid for or not. The test has an indicative costs of a few hundreds Euros and you can expect results within a couple of weeks.
  
  You can reach Nichia Corporation’s laboratories at the following contacts:
  
  Nichia Chemical Pte Ltd
  78 Shenton Way, #05-04,
  Singapore 079120
  Tel : +65-63248218
  Fax : +65-63245756

This is the first article of the series titled "LED Screens: Top 10 Tips for First Time Buyers". So if you are considering the purchase of a LED screen for advertising, sport or events, stay tuned.

The next article is about the "Dedicated Proprietary Control System": it actually sounds very professional, but this fancy denomination hides some serious drawbacks that nobody ever tells you, until it's too late...

IF you are considering the purchase of your first LED screen, then keep reading.

When you face the LED Screen industry for the first time, you are most probably overloaded with technical information, promises and ideas that are passed to you as hard facts.

The series of articles described below will explain how to avoid the most common, painful and expensive mistakes people make when buying a LED screen.

Here’s the summary of what we'll discuss in the next articles:

1. Nichia LEDs… or Not?
   Some “manufacturers” promise you they are using 100% Nichia LEDs... but they are promising the impossible. Here’s why they are lying and how to recognize them..
2. Dedicated Proprietary Control System
   It actually sounds very professional, but this fancy denomination hides some serious drawbacks that nobody ever tells you, until it's too late.
3. LED Screen in Franchising
   Very interesting proposal. If you are a novice in the industry, the low initial investment can be very tempting… but not all that shines is gold! Here’s the nightmares stories of entrepreneurs that already tried it before you.
4. Resellers: Watch Out for their Conflict of Interest
   On the market there are several options if you want to buy a LED screen, but not all are manufacturers... Here’s what you risk when buy from a reseller that has a conflict of interest in providing you the best equipment and how to recognize them..
5. Air Conditioning: How to Solve a Problem at Your Expenses
   Sometimes you might be told that you need to install the air conditioning on the screen, at any cost. While this makes sense in tropical areas, it is un-necessary for moderate climates… so why insisting? Here's how they are trying to solve their problems at your expenses.
6. Prices Drops Dramatically before Closing the Order
   Of course it is normal a little discount to seal the deal, but sometimes you‘ll see prices drop dramatically (over 30%) when you are pressured to close the order. Here's why they are surely cheating you.
7. Best Quality at Lowest Prices, Thanks to Big Volumes?
   Someone claims to use the best components on the market, and still be able to provide the lowest price on the market. Of course this sounds so tempting, and you wish it was true. But when you think about it rationally, this does not make sense. Here’s why it's not possible.
8. The Photo-Book
   This is a classic “hard-sell” technique, used in many Industries. When visiting a supplier, they will show you a photo-book where there are several nice pictures of what they claim to be their product and some ugly pictures of what they claim to be their competitor’s product.
   
   Since this strategy can be counterproductive, it is used only with Customers that are considered less competent, since they won’t notice some incongruences… that we'll explain into details.
9. “I Am the Real Supplier”
   Some companies might claim to be the “supplier” of the company you are dealing with or – as a variant – they might claim (1) to have the same control system, (2) the same software, (3) to have “Italian Heart Inside”, or (4) even to have shares in the competitor company. Here's how to recognize them.
10. Are You Getting the Same Product You Were Shown?
    This is not a selling technique but a real scam, and you could take legal action against it... but prevent is better than cure. Here's how it works: you could be shown (and then purchase) a LED Screen with a smaller resolution than declared. For example, you could be shown a pitch 6/12mm and told that it is a pitch 8/16mm... Here's how you can make sure to get what you saw.
11. BONUS Tip – If YOU Are the Reseller
    In case the reseller is you, be careful and never disclose the name of your final customer until you signed a Non Disclosure Agreement that protects you. Otherwise you risk that the supplier contacts directly the final Customer and you loose the business… This can happen especially in two circumstances: here they are.

Here’s the 10 tips to avoid costly pitfalls that you could regret for a long time. Please stay tuned as the followig articles will go deeper in each of them. If you can not wait, please come and see us or call at +39/011-954-1015 for further info.

Dear all, finally I manage to write again! I apologize for being so quiet but in the past 3 months I’ve been incredibly busy on an important project, that just went live!

Actually, I was suppose to wait until next Monday to make the public announcement, but I couldn't resist... :)

In fact, due to the increasing number of requests we receive from all over the world, we decided to better address these enquiries.

And to do that we decided that the first step should be to make all the technical and commercial information available to as many people as possible, especially those who do not speak English (or Italian).

Therefore, it is with pride that I inform you that our website is now available in 12 languages!

You can access each language-specific website from the homepage of our main website http://www.eurodisplay.com/

On each of these websites it's also available a translated version of the industry-classic “How to Make Money with Your LED Screen in 7 Easy Steps”.

So here are the links to the 12 language-specific websites:

Engish
http://www.eurodisplay.com/

Italian / Italiano
http://it.eurodisplay.com/

Spanish / Español
http://es.eurodisplay.com/

French / Français
http://fr.eurodisplay.com/

Portuguese / Português
http://pt.eurodisplay.com/

German / Deutsch
http://de.eurodisplay.com/

Polish / Polski
http://pl.eurodisplay.com/

Romanian / Română
http://ro.eurodisplay.com/

Russian / Русский
http://ru.eurodisplay.com/

Greek / Ελληνικά
http://gr.eurodisplay.com/

Turkish / Türk
http://tr.eurodisplay.com/

Arab / العربية
http://ar.eurodisplay.com/

I’m sure that you will find these new versions useful especially if you don’t feel completely comfortable reading in English.

I would like to publicly thank my team, who devoted time and efforts in the selection, translation and organization of the content published on these websites: it looked impossible when we started, but your commitment and passion moved the mountains. Thank you all.

Since the new websites just went live, there might be some bugs… so if you see any misspelling, broken-link or anything else that bugs you, just Click Here to let us know, or drop me an email to: fabio [DOT] aversa [AT] eurodisplay [DOT] com

If there is something we can improve, we'd love to know. Nothing is too small or too big to be fixed!

I look forward to your feedback!