‘A picture tells a thousand words’ they say - and usually that’s true.
But what if that picture is borrowed from somewhere?
Stolen Goods
This seems to be an increasing problem - lots of companies are entering the Home Technology market, and Home Cinema is a big part of that. However, it’s hard to get started without a portfolio - and several less scrupulous providers decide to ‘borrow’ (steal) one instead.
‘This happens to us every week’ explains Mel Malcolm of Bespoke Home Cinemas. ‘We’ve got a fabulous portfolio of installed cinemas - but it doesn’t happen overnight. Gifford has perfected his craft for over twenty years as a designer and installer of high-performance cinemas, he’s even mastered the SLR so we take all our own photos in-house. It’s a real kick in the teeth when other businesses display our work as if it’s theirs. How dare they? But every single week I have to ask someone new, please remove our images.’
‘The first time this happened to me, I was flattered’ said Owen Maddock of Cinemaworks, ‘But fundamentally a competing business hasn’t built that cinema, hasn’t taken any pictures, and they’re displaying my work on their website or social media and passing it off as if it’s theirs. That’s not funny and it’s not victimless either - my potential new clients might actually think I’m using a stock image, because they’ve seen it before, when actually I’ve put loads of hard work in to perfect the design, the installation and even the photoshoot. So these other businesses stealing our pictures could certainly cost us in new work.’
Stock images
Legally, passing off another company’s work as your own is an open-and-shut case -the borrower has no copyright over the work and they almost always remove it when notified, and although some try to argue the toss they quickly back down after taking advice.
In addition, there’s a thriving market in stock imagery- companies like Shutterstock, Adobe and Getty Images provide generic pictures of families, rooms, and nature. This can help small businesses with access to useful marketing images they couldn’t otherwise afford, but there’s a darker side.
‘Usually, this is pretty innocent’, says Stuart Burgess of Immersive Cinema Rooms ‘Say a plumbing firm has a contact centre and you see an attractive face wearing a headset ready to take your call, there’s nothing wrong with that’. But recently we’ve seen quite a few photo-realistic 3D graphics of ‘cinema rooms’, which gets tricky.
‘For the consumers out there, this causes two problems. First, there’s the lack of experience problem - the company are showing you a beautiful cinema room, you naturally assume it’s theirs, so you believe they can do the job and you accept the quote. Halfway along the project you realise, yours is the first one they’ve ever done and you’re not going to get a great result.‘
‘Secondly, some of these rooms are literally impossible. This is a popular ‘cinema room’ created entirely in the digital domain by a talented 3D artist - but they’ve chosen to make the side walls out of dark tinted glass.
‘This one is dreadful’ adds Owen. ‘If you really could build that room as a cinema, it would sound awful and look worse - you’d get loads of sound and light reflections, it would completely put you off what you’re watching. Then, you can’t even get surround speakers into a sheet of glass. Now imagine the poor end user sees that, then asks us to create it - that’s just going to cause problems, and everyone ends up disappointed.’
The Real Dealers
Do your homework! Can you see ‘before’ and ‘during’ images from real installations? Will the company provide references? Do they carry any formal credentials or industry awards? Ask about the build process and how long it will take - a qualified and seasoned installer should be able to answer any detailed questions you may have. In addition you can certainly visit our dealer section. The Premier members of the Home Cinema Alliance have been vetted for their installation abilities and can build you a real cinema - and not show you someone else’s