Made in the USA

[dmiller68]

From Home Theater Mag Newsletter
By Maureen Jenson

It had the air of small-town Americana, with speeches, a ribbon cutting, and lots of local hand-shaking dignitaries—and, oh, yes, drums and a good-luck Chinese lion. I'm referring to the day I spent this month with the folks from Syntax-Brillian Corporation—makers of the Olevia brand of LCD TVs—as they celebrated the opening of the company's LCD and LCOS TV-production facility in Ontario, California.

Touted as the opening of the first HDTV manufacturing facility in the United States, I really wanted to go and check it out. What I found was an impressive assembly and testing facility that has taken many joint partners to execute. The 50,000-square-foot facility seems poised to have an exceptional future to not only meet the North American demand for LCD and LCOS displays, but it is also bound to help the local Ontario economy, as well. In fact, there were so many local politicians in attendance, I thought I was at a congressional fundraiser.

The facility is capable of producing 200,000 LCDs and LCOS TVs annually, representing the full line of Olevia brand TVs in screen sizes ranging from 32-inch to 65-inch sets. Vendor partner LG/Philips has a warehouse virtually around the corner where the panels are stored. That way, depending on demand for a particular size, they will have a full supply at their immediate disposal.

Featuring a state-of-the-art semi-automated production line and a class 10,000 clean room for LCOS component assembly, the facility began initial operations with a pilot line last month. The facility currently employs 120 workers on one shift with plans to increase production and employment to two shifts by early 2007.

Olevia LCOS HDTVs are actually designed by Tempe, Arizona–based Syntax-Brillian and produced at the Ontario facility. These will carry the "Made in USA" label, while the Olevia LCDs will carry the "Designed and Assembled in USA" label.

It was a great day for all concerned, and it was gratifying to experience HDTV sets being assembled right here in the good 'ole U.S. of A.

-- I thought this was very cool... Could this be the start of other manufactures building plants in the USA like auto companies have done ove rthe last few years. I wish them good luck!!

[ZoomZoom71]

I haven't read any reviews of their gear. I wonder how they're standing up against the AZN competitors...

[Jon Liu]

I hear some pretty decent things for them! I am just skeptical about them because they are somewhat newbies to the whole schpiel... But, like I said, I hear some pretty decent things in favor for them!

[Peench]

Jon - how far away are you from Ontario? Maybe you should hit them up for a tour and write it up for us here.

[CamDawg]

When the old 20" TV in my wife's study crapped out a coupl eof months ago, I purchased a 23" Olevia LCD HDTV for her. For a TV that was around $400, I've been pretty impressed.

[Jon Liu]

Ontario is only like 30-40 minutes away from here, I think...

[Peench]

Originally Posted by Jon Liu

Ontario is only like 30-40 minutes away from here, I think...

Make it happen Mang!

[WormholeXtreme]

200,000 annually sounds like a very small amount.

[CoryB23]

Originally Posted by WormholeXtreme

200,000 annually sounds like a very small amount.

I guess it's not if you consider how small the percentage of homes with HDTV's is. I'd love to hear more about these from a fellow PGL'er.

[JohnW]

Got a Syntax Olevia 32" lcd hd panel in my home office. While it's not reference quality (not the deepest blacks, not fantastic color saturation=lcd)-- and a few of you know how picky I am-- I didn't expect it to be for what I paid. It's got a nice little picture, it's cheap, it's bulletproof, and it's a great second widescreen monitor.

[CamDawg]

John, I couldn't agree with your comments more. For the price, it was beter than I expected.

The only thing that our 23" Olevia is missing that that I really would have preferred is discrete input buttons (i.e. press Input 1, Input 2, Input 3, ... etc instead of multiple pushes of the Source button). I set her up with a Harmony remote, and since it has to send the source command multiple times instead of just sending an input command, if she moves the remote, it sometimes ends up on the wrong source. Not a big deal for me, but that kind of thing sends my wife into a tizzy.

[WormholeXtreme]

My 26" Olevia looked pretty good also. But now it just sits in my closet.(I bought a 32" HP to replace it) I need to figure out what I'm going to do with it.