Runco Buys NView Trademark
By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 9/15/2006
Denver – Sam Runco, chairman of high-performance video display enterprise Runco International, announced at CEDIA Expo that he recently bought the rights to the dormant NView brand and certain assets out of bankruptcy last week, with plans to use the trademark to market a new “retail” video display line.
Runco announced at a press conference Thursday that he had long wanted to market a line of video display products for “do it yourselfers,” like himself, and needed a new brand to execute the plan.
Although Runco purchased the rights to the Projectavision trademark when he purchased Vidikron’s assets, he said the name didn’t work well with flat-panel displays, which the NView line would most likely carry, along with projectors.
Runco International currently markets Runco and Vidikron branded display products through custom installers and high-end A/V specialty dealers. Runco said the new company’s products would not cross over into the distribution channels of those two successful lines.
Runco said the new brand would be used to market products for specialty dealers that aren’t currently served by Runco or Vidikron. He said he has not yet had time to develop product plans or price ranges.
Manufacturing, he said, would most likely be handled with in-house designs and engineering at the current Runco International headquarters, and manufacturing would be sent “off shore,” most likely. He said Runco has used similar arrangements for some of its previous products.
“It all depends on how well you set up your contracts [with off-shore manufacturers],” he said, adding that high-quality products can be produced by third-party manufacturing operations if the level of quality control is clearly indicated.
NView had been a manufacturer of commercial video display products, and was noteworthy for purchasing the first hundred DLP engines from Texas Instruments, Runco said.
“This all happened so fast that our methods of marketing still aren’t clear,” Runco said. “But it is not going to be a Runco-lite or Vidikron-lite company.”
In other news, select models under the Runco and Vidikron lines became the first products to receive THX video certification, under an expansion of that organization’s home theater standards and certification program.
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