Saw this last weekend at HN Indro.

http://trog.qgl.org/up/1201/harvey_monster_1.jpg

The first thing I saw was the two screens and the Monster cable sign, so I immediately was interested to see the "Monster difference".

The second thing I saw was that the difference between the two images was simply staggering. The one on the left - with the Monster cable - was crystal clear and looked fantastic. The one on the right was blurry and terrible. You can't tell the difference in the photo (from my mobile phone) but it was immediately obvious, even from a distance.

However, the bad one on the right was way, way, way too bad to be anything other than non-digital. Anyone that has ever compared a monitor plugged in via DVI to one plugged in via VGA would know exactly what I mean - the difference is amazing - and completely unsurprising.

I could not believe that they would do a display like this with such a cheap "trick", but looking behind the screens, sure enough I saw a composite cable plugged in (or component? can't remember which is which because no sane person would ever use one on a modern TV).

The salesguys at HN Indro I have always found to be pretty good; I've been going there for years and know many of them by sight (although mostly in the PC section). So I was pretty disappointed when I grabbed a guy and asked what was going on with this, and he explained that this display was NOT set up to show that Monster HDMI is better than regular HDMI, it is simply to show that HDMI is better than composite/component/other forums of plugs. Hence the text on the signs, "Monster HDMI" vs "cable in the box" (apparently new TVs still don't come with HDMI cables, ffs!)

This is not a new thing for Monster but I was disappointed to see HN doing this, especially after I found out my g/f's father was upsold into buying a Monster cable for his new TV.

While it is fairly clearly not "false advertising", it is pretty irritating to see this sort of display, given that - as far as I can tell from reading things like the Gizmodo review - there is absolutely no advantage to buying Monster cables, unless you are suffering from a burden of so much extra money that it is making it hard for you to walk around because your pants keep falling down around your ankles due to wallet weight.

So if you know your technically noob friends and family are venturing out to buy a new TV in the near future, if there's any risk of them going to HNs or a place that might have a similar display, make sure you pre-educate them on the matter of HDMI cable quality so they don't end up spending many extra dollars where it doesn't matter.

well, to any lay person, I would say that it is preaching that monster is better

and they should make it more clear that they are different cable type, removing the branding from it (unless it is monster hdmi vs component)

also, when the in-laws to be brought their new TV it came with a HDMI cable in the box, so there are a few issues with this in my mind

What stood out to me more was the poor grammar on the sign.

YOUR!?
I guess if you're stupid enough to buy the cable, you'll also be stupid enough to not notice the difference though, and maybe vice-versa.

Surely this has to be false advertising though if they're deceptively misleading the consumer like this, comparing an unlike product?

While it is fairly clearly not "false advertising"

It may not be "false" but imo could be construed as misleading if they haven't advertised the set up you are seeing and use the visual aid to up sell.

I think Kogan did the right thing last year : http://www.kogan.com.au/blog/2011/mar/16/kogan-offers-free-hdmi-cables-cut-cable-con/

Yeah, I thought thats what they would be doing, cheeky pricks. A composite cable can only handle about 520 lines of display from memory, is that right?

Monster & HN need a kick in the balls for stunts like this. Clearly not apples for apples and your average punter wont know it.

That is quite dodgy that they don't point out it's not a comparison between two HDMI cables. Then your dad, or your older brother, or your uncle is gonna come round at easter and try to convince you that Monster HDMI is better than HDMI, and you'll be like "are you sure they were both HDMI" and he'll be all "Yeah of course I'm sure!" because it doesn't make sense that they wouldn't be.

Plus the sign says "SEE WHAT YOUR MISSING"
Clearly English classes is what they're missing...

I gotta say, it serves anyone right for shopping at hardly normal

I think that's bulls*** and is misleading.

Judging by your photo I would assume that both TV's are connected via HDMI and the one on the left is using Monster HDMI versus Yum-Char HDMI that came in the box...

They are delibrately not disclosing that the 'cable in the box' is non-HDMI and it's making out that you will only get these results (on the left tele) if you use Monster HDMI.

Should have done an Indiana Jones and swapped the signs around on the TV's.

Yeah pretty much dodgy practice. Not sure if it's illegal per se but sure as s*** pretty dishonest. Bad HN, very bad

Monster Cables are FAR too overpriced and are not much different than a lot of cheaper alternatives. I am talking a $30 HDMI cable vs a $220 Monster cable. I could see no difference at all. Just a heads up.

Same with Fibre Optic cables - don't buy expensive ones, it's light. There is no interference and need for stupid amounts of shielding etc. As long as the end connector is quality, you usually plug it in once and leave it there.

i wonder how much money HN makes off this s***

How much would it cost to get some store, such as harvey norman, to create such a display?
We could all chip in and have them set up another tv showing an ordinary HDMI cable, or convince some cheaper HDMI cable manufactuerers to go in on this.

Monster probably have a contract that specifies no other cable manufacturer gets to make demo displays in Harvey Norman stores.

Xaltd saves the day

HN is fine if you've got a mate that works there - I got my Razer Mamba for $125

That is an epic promotion Kogan did, that kinda thinking is what's made him such good coin

who would have thought that being open about your business was good for your business

I'm pretty sure that would fall under deceptive and misleading comparisons. I know in WA there are laws about having to compare with "like" products.

Im sure LG arent sending sales reps to do walking checks of every myer/shop they sell products to either tho so how would they know?

But I guess they are kind of at the mercy of big retailers and probably don't want to risk losing retailers support.

But what is that retail support worth when they are using your product as a sacrifice to make other brands look better?

Even Coles get sales Reps for heaps of brands (Like Coke, Pauls Milk, Cadbury) coming into the store every single week... it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for a LG rep to hit up the major stores fairly often.

This is just another d*** move in a long line of d*** moves from HN. Nothing unexpected.

Been reading up on Monster Cables and Harvey Norman

At the checkout, last minute, I said to the guy could I grab your cheapest HDMI cable for hooking up a PS3 and an Xbox.

He came back with two Monster brand 4.1 cables. I chucked them in with the TV on credit and didn't even check the prices. Got home and found out I've spent $140 on each cable.

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1695596

What a deadset c***job!!


Oh and the sales director of Monster cables is an ex Harvey Norman franchisee
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1544123


last edited by thermite at 15:54:57 16/Jan/12

When I bought my plasma, JB tried to sell me a $100 HDMI cable. I said no thanx and just went to CA's and got one for $30.

what crack me up about jb-hi and monster cables, is (at s'pine) go to the A/V section, and find all of about three different types, all for $80+

yet walk to the console section, and in the ps3 cables, there is a "PS3 hdmi - TV hdmi cable" for $30, same length, same "features"

yet ask any of the staff, and they'll grab the monster cables and go "these are the cheapest we have" and when asked about the ""ps3"" they retort, nar, they only work on the PS3, or xbox,

then again it isn't as bad as the sales rep at the good guys

customer:, I would like a digital radio, so i can listen to 612am on the radio, and I hear AM is better on digital

Sales rep: none of these (waves at the expensive digital radios) get am, there isn't a digital radio that I know of that picks up am, what you need is this (drags her to the far cheaper micro hi-fi all happy that he knows all about this radio caper)

customer: (looking rather befuddled) oh okay, I must be confused I'm sure they said on the radio I could get the abc on digital, (he starts pointing out the different features, and the customer starts looking more and more confused)

as the little sales rep toddles off to get the model he has just sold, i pull the lady up and give her the facts, (basically that he was kinda right that you can't get AM on a digital radio, however they all broadcast in digital, she them wonders off grabs a guy from the fridge section who was closer in age (about 60) and promptly buys a radio from him,

meanwhile the first sales rep clearly upset at the loss of a sale, and the goings on tries to show that he was right, (by showing the fridge sales guy and the lady that there is no AM just FM and DAB+), to which i just selected 612, turned it up, and walked off

copius I'm confused by your story a bit, probably because I don't know digital radios. Are you basically saying that even though it doesn't get an 'am signal' the so-called am stations still have a digital broadcast, it's just not called 'am' because that terminology doesn't apply to digital radio?

Im sure LG arent sending sales reps to do walking checks of every myer/shop they sell products to either tho so how would they know?

we have coke reps / milk reps / etc. go to our sites all the time, i don't think LG is going to have much problems finding some coin to send a rep out to verify their $100,000+ contract is being adhered too.



last edited by Captain Lateral at 16:38:19 16/Jan/12

if you read the thread, you'd understand

they are talking about ticman's example

RE: Ticman's post Teq

Edit: Shouldn't leave threads open too long before reading them...

it's not illegal; it's frowned upon.

In all seriousness, it's definitely flirting with the line. In my view, the advertising could easily (and more significantly, reasonably) be understood by the everyday job as Monster HDMI compared with everything else (including other HDMI cables).

Jaycar for example have a 1.5m HDMI lead for $9.95 , but shipping is $7.00

What's not advertised online is the baskets they have in-store with 4-packs for under $30.

copius I'm confused by your story a bit, probably because I don't know digital radios. Are you basically saying that even though it doesn't get an 'am signal' the so-called am stations still have a digital broadcast, it's just not called 'am' because that terminology doesn't apply to digital radio?

Yeah I think that what he means. In digital there is no AM or FM as such, just a digital number (like frequency) assigned to the station.

I know nothing about digital radio, so I'm just assuming. It also sounds like the Good Guys sales rep was not well informed/trained rather than delibrately trying to mislead someone.

why are we going on about LG when both TVs in his pictures are Samsung?

Because of this post:

I saw something similar at Myer the other weekend where they had their whizz bang highly priced Samsung LED TVs showing crystal clear Star Wars while all the other lesser brands like LG had god awful pictures. So I snuck a look behind and the same thing as trog mentioned, Samsung had the HDMI while all the other TVs were using composite connections!

Also, all you need is this:
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/micro-hdmi-v1-4-male-to-hdmi-male-connection-cable-1-5m-length-65401

In regards to cables in boxes, composite cables are cheaper to produce than HDMI so unfortunately all we're seeing is manufacturers saving a few bucks.

TBH I think we're at a point where the cable should be left out entirely, its such a waste including cables I will never use in every device I buy.

These arent deluxe models just cheap, huge screens but the Samsungs, Lgs are going to have to dramatically cut their prices to compete, if you are about to buy a tv wait a few weeks. Its about to become a Bloodbath.

Cool. My g/f got a 60" LG the other day and now my 40" Samsung makes me feel like less of a man, so I want to get something bigger. Although they are so fkn cheap now it's not even funny; I saw a 50" LG plasma advertised on the weekend for something crazy like $600

Faceman makes a comment about market direction without evidence : Thanks for the advice faceman.
Faceman makes a comment about authority with evidence. : You're crazy faceman!

there are huge amounts of Chinese TVs about to hit Australia.

i'd really like to see your evidence. I remember hearing about something similar, so i believe you, i'm just surprised anyone is willing to take anything you say at face value.

Can't you go to the ACCC with something like this? It's pretty dodge.

Q. When does HDMI look like you're using composite video?
A. When you're using my s***** monitor.

I kid you not, if I use HDMI the picture from my xbox, or my windows PC is blurred and all s***** looking. DVI looks 100000x better. HDMI looks fine on my TV though, it's the monitor.

TV prices are about to tank yet again, there are huge amounts of Chinese TVs about to hit Australia. These arent deluxe models just cheap, huge screens but the Samsungs, Lgs are going to have to dramatically cut their prices to compete, if you are about to buy a tv wait a few weeks. Its about to become a Bloodbath.

As if sony, samsung, LG, etc aren't all just made in china anyway. So instead of 10,000% profit they'll only make 8,000% boo hoo.

Friends and family always ask me questions about TV's, computers etc. These days I just sometimes think "why bother explaining it to them".. Half the time they don't understand because the question they are asking is not easily answered. Like, hey why is my computer slow to boot up? (once i begun to list all the different things that cause this, i just end up telling them to buy a MAC and leave me alone).

my two cents.

What stood out to me more was the poor grammar on the sign.

haha yeh, I was going to point that out as well

While we're being grammar Nazis, the thing that made me even more sad than the 'your' on the s***** 5 second Wordpad printout job HN did for the display was Monster Cable's apparent inability to grasp the concept of a superlative.
Cable quality goes Good, Better, Best... then Ultra. So which one's best?

I always assumed that they just turned one monitors saturation down..

I thought ACCC would have gone at them for comparing two different products.

I used to work at harveys indro in the PC section. This kind of thing has been done before and it's certainly dodgy and misleading to customers. My sister in-law bought a tv from Erina store (Gosford), and the dude said you'll need to buy some HDMI cables from $30.....but he included the $200 monster cable. Long story short she paid for it all but looked at invoice and saw how expensive cable was and took it back and bought far cheaper normal HDMI elsewhere.

There is mega markup on these cables, and the staff get a 'spiv' (bonus-vouchers/cash etc..) each time they sell them from monster or/and the proprietor.

Kotaku and Gizmodo spreading the word on the dodgyness:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/01/is-harvey-norman-misleading-customer-about-hdmi-monster-cables/
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/01/is-harvey-norman-misleading-customers-about-monster-cable/

Now we just need the official statement from Harvey Norman Indro!

Haha, kotaku links to AG, but gizmodo links to qgl.

Trog's getting mass props around the interblag.

Trog you've become e-famous! ohwait

I like how it is trog from ausgamers, however links to the qgl website,

also, looks like ausgamers wont be getting any HN ads then?