Christie Rental Mode

[Martin McCaffery]

As another IMB is getting ready to bite the dust and I start planning how to finally move on from my Solaria One, I was perusing the Christie site and see they are shilling something called rental mode as a way for dealers to make money. Was wondering if this is a decent way for exhibitors to try out various Christie models for a month or two, or is it really more of just a replacement for the money no longer available from VPF's.
Any body from the dealer side looked into this? Any exhibitors?.

[Steve Guttag]

For some time, I've been seeing projectors being offered as "as a service." Where you essentially pay for the amount of time it is used...sort of like a taxi. None of our customers have done that but several, if not all of the projectors (including Sony) can be set up to do that.

Note, if it is just the IMB that is failing, you can change to a Dolby or GDC IMB/IMS still. I don't think there are any more "deals" but you don't have to pitch the projector so it is cheaper to just change the server.

[Andrew Thomas]

I've looked into Barco's CaaS program and it is interesting. In a 5 year period, it is likely cheaper than purchasing. It's somewhere in the 6th or 7th year that the purchase becomes the better investment assuming you never have any major issues along the way. If you're nearing the point in time of upgrading your units, it is easily the cheapest upfront that I've seen, assuming a pretty standard 20% downpayment on a conventional business loan if you were to finance and outright purchase.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Since these are essentially leased projectors... who takes care of and pays for any needed maintenance?

And Martin, for sure look into just changing the IMB out with one of the mention brands. I had a customer do that with a Solaria One a couple years ago and he has had zero trouble since doing so. As far as GDC goes.... I would not recommend the SX-3000 at this late date because it's now fairly old and was introduced in 2013. Its reliable though as long as cert batteries are changed every three years. But the new GDC SR-1000 also fits the Solaria 1... In that case Christie makes the adapter kit for it. So, also contact both companies and get pricing on going that way. I never had many issues with the actual projector part of the Solaria 1.

[Leo Enticknap]

Andrew's post says that assuming no major issues, break even is at about the seven-year mark. In a typical outright purchase scenario, the first two or three years are covered by the original purchase parts warranty, but you are responsible for labor costs for maintenance from day 1, as well as the cost either of buying parts off the shelf as needed, or of extending the warranty, after those two years are up.

So the question becomes, does the CAAS model do the same thing (end user is responsible for maintenance, apart from failed parts during the first two years), or is complete parts and labor for maintenance and repair factored into the rental payments?

[Marcel Birgelen]

Wasn't there a trade-in program for the Christie IMBs provided by Christie themselves?

Furthermore, if I lease a car, the standard model which I do accept as sound is the mileage based model, where I agree upon a lease term and a set mileage at the end of the contract. The contract also specifies the costs for any additional mileage and a compensation for any unused mileage. Usually, the contract also states what the remaining value of the leased asset, the car in this example, is.

I also factor in costs for normal maintenance, like changing liquids, tires and the works. In some cases, there are lease options that include standard maintenance, but you should really compare them to the expected maintenance costs.

I do make sure that the warranty extends during the entire lease period. You don't want to be liable for e.g. a new engine, when the warranty expires in the last year of your lease, for example. For all the remaining operational risks, there is insurance.

If I'd lease a projector, I'd do the same: A lease based on agreed-upon usage and residual value at the end of the lease. I'd also make sure there is some form of extended warranty, covering the entire lease period and factor in the standard maintenance costs.

Depending on your cash-flow position, leasing equipment can make sense, but it's almost never cheaper than owning it outright. I usually lease stuff, when it doesn't affect my core business or when it's impossible to finance it other ways.

[Elia Orselli]

trade-in program for the Christie IMBs provided by Christie themselves?

That program finished last year. Now Dolby offers a discount on a new IMS3000 if you give an old SN of another server (at least till the end of March), and I think that GDC does a similar thing.
If you consider a GDC SR1000, you should check if the NAS is compliant to SR1000 specs: an important integrator here in Italy offered many times a TS412 Qnap nas with Christie IMB, that does not work properly with SR1000...

[Martin McCaffery]

Thanks for the info. Somehow I missed the trade in offer. Right now my dealer is trying to deal with Christie about replacing the IMB (which, apparently, is not covered by the extended warranty) and is not getting satisfactory info. We'll see how that goes.
Not planning to chuck the Solaria yet, but it is 7 years old and we've replace almost everything inside of it, somethings more than once (I think I'm on IMB number 3 right now). Can't get the light I used to get out of it even with a new bulb at full power. Won't have the money to upgrade for awhile, but need to, thus the checking out what's new.

[Steve Guttag]

It's always worth the phone call to see if there are any trade-in/up programs. I'd suspect that the various manufacturers would be eager to get their product in to replace a failing IMB S2.

Leo, NEC has always included the labor on their original warranty (not on any extension). Christie is now up to 3-years Parts and Labor on their projectors and I believe parts only on an extension but it is all ground freight for warranty claims. Barco/Cinionic remains at 2-years parts only on their projector BUT they do include standard overnight freight for any covered part...including light engines in flight cases (the client has to pay return freight) with the same terms on extended warranties.

I don't think the SX-3000 is offered anymore. The last GDC server I had tank, GDC offered SR-1000 or the SX-4000. I would agree with Mark that the SR-1000 would be the logical replacement from GDC into a Solaria 1/1+. The SX-4000 doesn't bring anything to the table aside from DTS-X up to 16-channels and, perhaps, the traditional GDC UI...which is forestalling the inevitable. Everything is going web-ui and just about everything is there already.

The IMS3000 and the SR-1000 fit most every current projector now so if you are sticking with Christie, even if you get a unit for the Solaria 1, you should be able to get a faceplate to put it into a newer projector or even a different brand. I'm 90% certain you can swap faceplates on the IMS3000 (they are listed as separate parts) and reasonably certain you could on the SR-1000 since all that is different is the faceplate between the versions.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Another interesting thing about a lease in the US is that the payments are fully deductible expense. With a loan for purchase, only the interest on the loan is deductible, though the depreciation of the equipment is deductible. As I recall, the major chains formed a leasing company Digital Cinema Implementation Partners) that was, I think, financed through the securities market. Equipment was sold to DCIP and leased to theaters. I think the lease was 10 years. We had to put design files, software source, etc. in escrow to ensure the equipment could be serviced over the life of the lease. That 10 year period is up about now.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001...85941244173662
https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ent...al-cinema.html


Harold

[Elia Orselli]

my dealer is trying to deal with Christie about replacing the IMB (which, apparently, is not covered by the extended warranty)

Christie removed IMB from extended warranty last year (in parallel with the exchange program), even if it was stated that it would have been possible to extend warranty for solaria one (= projector + imb) till the 10th year (in my case 2023).

[Leo Enticknap]

Leo, NEC has always included the labor on their original warranty (not on any extension). Christie is now up to 3-years Parts and Labor on their projectors and I believe parts only on an extension but it is all ground freight for warranty claims. Barco/Cinionic remains at 2-years parts only on their projector BUT they do include standard overnight freight for any covered part...including light engines in flight cases (the client has to pay return freight) with the same terms on extended warranties.

Interesting - I've done repairs on in-warranty (as in, less than two years old) NECs where the customer was billed for labor.

Barco/Cinionic no longer ship light engines in flight cases: they now come in thick, reinforced cardboard boxes. The light engine is still mounted on the same powdercoated steel frame/chassis that it was when they were shipped in flight cases, though. I'm swapping one out tomorrow, and will take a picture. My guess is that a lot of flight cases were being marooned in the field, because the broken light engine was too old to qualify for a part-exchange, and the end user didn't want to pay the significant cost of shipping the empty flight case back to Kortrijk. There is one 11-plex I service where two such flight cases remain in the booth from light engine swapouts years ago. They make good rollable tables for laptop and tools, though!

I don't think the SX-3000 is offered anymore.

They will still replace ones in warranty that fail in the field, but I don't think they sell new ones, either. The last time I did a warranty replacement, the "new" one arrived in a crumpled old antistatic bag, with scuffs and scratches on the faceplate. So it was probably one that had done a lot of mileage, had been returned to Burbank when it broke, was recertificated, then put on a shelf until needed to ship for another warranty swapout.

I'm 90% certain you can swap faceplates on the IMS3000 (they are listed as separate parts)...

You can. I've taken an NEC one off and replaced it with a Barco one, due to an ordering error during the initial sale. It's a little more fiddly than transplanting a cat745 faceplate, but totally do-able.

Another interesting thing about a lease in the US is that the payments are fully deductible expense.

Very interesting. So when making the lease or buy decision, you have to factor in the tax situation as well. I guess you would do the math based on a projector lifespan of about 10 years for depreciation purposes. Given that Barco pulled the plug on Series 1 support around a decade after the last units were sold, I guess you could use the timing of that decision as evidence for the IRS if they were to question that in an audit.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Interesting - I've done repairs on in-warranty (as in, less than two years old) NECs where the customer was billed for labor.

Barco/Cinionic no longer ship light engines in flight cases: they now come in thick, reinforced cardboard boxes. The light engine is still mounted on the same powdercoated steel frame/chassis that it was when they were shipped in flight cases, though. I'm swapping one out tomorrow, and will take a picture. My guess is that a lot of flight cases were being marooned in the field, because the broken light engine was too old to qualify for a part-exchange, and the end user didn't want to pay the significant cost of shipping the empty flight case back to Kortrijk. There is one 11-plex I service where two such flight cases remain in the booth from light engine swapouts years ago. They make good rollable tables for laptop and tools, though!

I only had NEC's bought from Ballantyne fail under warranty. It happened in St George, UT where one new NC-2000 projector had mis-matched serial numbers, and another NC-2000 lost a xenon rectifier after just a month of use.. In the latter, the sidewalk outside at that end of the theater was struck by lightening a day before it went out. In both cases Ballantyne sent one of their techs out to do the repairs. In other cases where they did not have a near by tech, they paid us to go repair the issues.

As for light engines, I have only ever had them arrive in heavy doubled cardboard boxes. I replaced all the initial 4K light engines because they had stuck pixels, Those light engines were valued at 38K for return insurance. Christie also ships light engines in cardboard boxes. Both NEC and Christie had the light engine attached to a steel frame inside the inner box. We bought a basically new light engine out of a damaged NC-2000 from MIT a few years ago. This was for where a customer had done some high shock demolition work that caused about 60 pixels to become stuck. Excessive shock is really bad for the DMD's! They just shipped the light engine double boxed in it's projector mounting frame and it arrived in perfect condition. If I could get DMD chips the old engine would be an easy fix.

[Steve Guttag]

Leo, if NEC isn't covering labor for initial warranty, then that is a change. They have service tiers where the type of repair determines the tier. As such, the company gets a flat rate (book rate, in car repair terms) for the job one is doing (there are three levels, as I recall). They also cover travel up only up until a point (milage and dollar amount) so if you have distant customers, they are not covering your cross-country trip. Honestly, the only time it really was a thing was for the NC900 where ballast replacements due to lamp failures was a thing.

I don't have a current rate sheet on it (NEC does have probably the best service record...I don't service them often). However, I just checked their web site on the current models...for warranty, they do state "Parts & Labor" so it is probably advisable to check and see if you are supposed to be collecting in-warranty repairs from NEC. Again, the labor part was just on the initial warranty, not on extended warranties, which are parts only.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Another interesting thing about a lease in the US is that the payments are fully deductible expense. With a loan for purchase, only the interest on the loan is deductible, though the depreciation of the equipment is deductible.

That's probably true almost anywhere. If you lease, you don't own the equipment, so it won't appear on your balance sheet as asset and as such, there is nothing to write-off. In the end, the amount you can write-off will be close to what you pay for your lease every year. On the other hand, it's not bad to have some assets of value on your balance sheet. It's good for your solvency, which is about the only thing a bank looks at if you apply for a loan...