I may of discovered a conspiracy...

El Director

El Director

Veteran
We've been producing a documentary series at work and now we're ready to self distrubute. Two weeks ago, my coworker called up Discmakers (whom we've all heard of) and gets a quote that also involved a discount.

Today, I called up Oasis Disc (we've done business with them in the past) and asked for a quote. They quoted me the exact same price down to the penny, with exactly the same discount. Turns out both quotes came from the same person too, at a third party company that I can't find anywhere online. Their email just ends with @avidigital.com and had the same contact number.

So my questions is, is there only one disc manufacturing house that all these other companies just outsource to? My mind is blown
 
seems about right. I windsurf and one factory makes all the production boards. Philips use to make the drive in every cd player. Then it just comes down to marketing to different groups..... I'm more amazed that people are still making DVD's! :)
 
These 2 companies are run out of the same building, according to Google Maps - they appear to be the same entity. They list their addresses on their retrospective websites differently, even specifying different town names and streets although the same zip code, but looking at Maps reveals that it is the same building.

The seem to be trying to hide their association, but not trying too hard. I suspect one company swallowed the other when the disc market tanked, but wanted to keep their customer bases separate.
 
I was just kidding about the conspiracy part, but now I'm curious what other companies are part of this too. We're still making DVDs and Blu Rays because a large part of our clientel still doesn't know about streaming (although I'll be making a blu ray for myself too because I prefer physical media).

@nothing - good find!
 
What conspiracy? AVL Digital group is a company that owns many related services including Discmakers, Oasis, and Disc Production Services. It's not unusual for a company to buy up competitors and keep the company intact. They are not hiding their association. It is plainly revealed on AVL's website.

nothing said:
.... I suspect one company swallowed the other when the disc market tanked, but wanted to keep their customer bases separate.
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Exactly. Why upset the customer base. Leave it intact.
 
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Did you know all of the top laptops are made by Compal (including Apple, Dell, Lenovo, HP etc.)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compal_Electronics

On the low end, you'll see on Amazon all sorts of (especially electronics) products which are exactly the same, with the only difference being (the sometimes odd) brand name.

When I upgrade to a 4K/8K HDR (10/12 bit) TV, hopefully streaming from a local machines will be easy (DLNA/Plex etc. (own content); after a brief search is appears a bit messy at the moment). Blu-ray is still better visual/sound wise (especially sound with 24-bit uncompressed 5.1 etc.) vs. streaming (Apple, Amazon).
 
Gary T said:
I'm a bit of an Apple nerd and their MacBooks and MacBook Pros are mostly manufactured by Quanta and Foxconn. Apple appears to have been careful about not becoming too dependent on any one manufacturer, although Foxconn seems to be getting a lot of their money.

I think Compal manufactures the Apple Watch and several iPad models.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...ers-expecting-mixed-fortunes-from-2019-lineup
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Yeah Quanta is #1- hadn’t look this up in a while and used 1st link from google (which also references Quanta). Same point- all top brands made by small number of suppliers. Everything is branding and marketing now. Though maybe things are changing and manufacturing will once again be part of the same company.
 
The biggest monopoly I have learned about recently is in eyeglasses.

An Italian conglomerate called Luxottica owns it all. It owns these stores: EyeMed Vision Care, LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, Sunglass Hut, and Target Optical. And it owns these eyeglass brands: Armani, Brooks Brothers, Burberry, Chanel, Coach, DKNY, Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors, Oakley, Oliver Peoples, Persol, Polo Ralph Lauren, Ray-Ban, Tiffany, Valentino, Vogue and Versace.

Therefore it may come as no surprise that there mark-up can be 1,000%. I've heard of online companies like Zenni and Warby Parker, where you can get glasses of the same style and quality for around $50, but have yet to try them.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/business/la...e-eyeglasses-so-expensive-20190122-story.html

P.S. This is the company that Jim Jannard sold Oakley to in 2007, for $2.1 billion. So I guess you can partly thank Luxottica for Red, and maybe even the cameras from other companies, because Red cranked up the competition.
 
combatentropy said:
The biggest monopoly I have learned about recently is in eyeglasses.

An Italian conglomerate called Luxottica owns it all. It owns these stores: EyeMed Vision Care, LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, Sunglass Hut, and Target Optical. And it owns these eyeglass brands: Armani, Brooks Brothers, Burberry, Chanel, Coach, DKNY, Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors, Oakley, Oliver Peoples, Persol, Polo Ralph Lauren, Ray-Ban, Tiffany, Valentino, Vogue and Versace.

Therefore it may come as no surprise that there mark-up can be 1,000%. I've heard of online companies like Zenni and Warby Parker, where you can get glasses of the same style and quality for around $50, but have yet to try them.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/business/la...e-eyeglasses-so-expensive-20190122-story.html

P.S. This is the company that Jim Jannard sold Oakley to in 2007, for $2.1 billion. So I guess you can partly thank Luxottica for Red, and maybe even the cameras from other companies, because Red cranked up the competition.
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I agree and have heard this for years. Even worse are sunglasses, they are so incredibly cheap to make, drives me crazy when my wife pays $200.00 for a flimsy pair of "Maui Jims" that are crap and break if you breathe on them. Hot tip, I find a style of
Chinese made cheap sunglasses on Amazon. I found some last Summer that I had dozens of people ask me, "What brand are those? Where can I get those?" I considered buying a case of them at $8.00 ea., I easily could have sold them to people for $30.00 ea.
Sure, they're going to break too but at $8.00 per pair, I buy four or five pairs and when they break, I have another pair exactly the same on standby and I've been able to stretch some pairs of these inexpensive
glasses that from more than 2' away are indistinguishable from name brand sunglasses for up to two to three years. I think name brand sunglasses are for suckers, they are such a ripoff. All you need is to make sure they have UV coating and you are good to go.
 
Yeah, the Luxottica thing has been known for well over a decade...

Sunglasses are big business. $200 or more for something that cost them a few dollars to make(but millions to market). That being said, I’m wearing $200 polarized Oakley’s. The same pair for easily eight years, now. My regular glasses frames are even Oakley and they’re pushing 10 years old, at least.

I have friends that SWEAR up and down by Costa’s (especially the glass lenses). I’ve tried them, but just can’t seem to find a pair that looks right on me. I’ve even thought about going back to Ray-Ban Wayferer’s(rocked those in HS), but never did. Guess I'll ride these Oakley’s until they die.
 
puredrifting said:
I agree and have heard this for years. Even worse are sunglasses, they are so incredibly cheap to make, drives me crazy when my wife pays $200.00 for a flimsy pair of "Maui Jims" that are crap and break if you breathe on them. Hot tip, I find a style of
Chinese made cheap sunglasses on Amazon. I found some last Summer that I had dozens of people ask me, "What brand are those? Where can I get those?" I considered buying a case of them at $8.00 ea., I easily could have sold them to people for $30.00 ea.
Sure, they're going to break too but at $8.00 per pair, I buy four or five pairs and when they break, I have another pair exactly the same on standby and I've been able to stretch some pairs of these inexpensive
glasses that from more than 2' away are indistinguishable from name brand sunglasses for up to two to three years. I think name brand sunglasses are for suckers, they are such a ripoff. All you need is to make sure they have UV coating and you are good to go.
Click to expand...

Years ago I worked for a venture capital + tech startup and they wanted me to update my 'flair' (see Office Space lol), and one of the items recommended was $500+ Tom Ford sunglasses. I found some online and figured they were fakes for a hundred something and bought them. When they arrived I was shocked that everything looked legit. I took them to the store where they sold them in Santa Monica and they said they were real haha. Yeah, sunglasses, another interesting market.

My titanium eyeglasses are always over $1000 (even with the 20% "insurance" discount (insurance is another scam haha)). With high index plastic and fancy coating, they are super light and last a long time. I also figured out that by increasing strength with each Dr. visit, your eyes continue to get worse. So I've made them under prescribe the last few years and have been doing eye exercises and my eyes have gotten better! (Drs. don't like that- what ever happened to the Hippocratic oath?!). Anything involved with medicine, self-help, psychology, spirituality should not be based on profit, ever. The idea of profit and materialism is another deep discussion.

Within the confines of current society, I'm OK with spending more to get higher quality, and like pretty much everyone, want to get a good deal, or to put another way, to have a fair exchange of energy (this concept will make more sense if/when society gets away from currency for energy tracking and exchange (where middlemen extract 'free energy' from the system (that's true over unity free energy folks! haha)). I think the current cryptocurrency systems are a dead end (need a different model- intuitively feels like something that uses quantum entanglement is the answer)).
 
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