The excellent gossip mag of the local CE industry "Channel News" has revealed that the ACCC is getting on the ball and investigating the use of overbranding on flat panels sold in Australia.

Overbranding involves picking up the Australian naming rights to a locally defunct but otherwise respectable brand and then using it to purvey arbitrary and very inexpensive to manufacture product in Australia ... think of it a a form of rustling for Consumer Electronics.

Thus brands such as Telefunken, Nakamichi, Hitachi, Akai which have no flat panel product manufactured for Australia have effectively been hijacked for local consumption by unscrupulous distributors. Buyer beware!

Channel News 24th August 2011.

I had thoughts about a brand we sell known as Schaub Lorenz with respect to that position ... There are some major differences between Schaub and a non legitamate overbrand;

Schaub Lorenz has always been associated with the same distributor in Australia being Interdyne the Encels wholesale group which is actually one of the most well respected of all Aus CE distributors. It is a brand that they have created in Australia and not a stolen name with a previous respectable history that is being unscrupulously exploited.

The after sales support of Schaub Lorenz has been completely superior to that offered by the asian tier one companies in Australia. I speak from personal experience being the one who invariably carries the can for the support failure of a Japanese major. The sales and service support for Schaub Lorenz puts all ... and I really mean all of them ... the SE Asian brands to utter shame.

The 55 inch Schaub appears to me to be the same as the Runco et al US rebrands which are sold at a much higher price. I really like this TV for the money asked here ($2999 aus rrp, it has a magnificent FTA picture quality and HD performance allied to excellent build quality with a metal chassis and a non reflective panel ideal for high brightness environments.

Schaub is apparently assembled in Turkey ... which is almost German ... given that Turkish people probably assemble most of the product in German factories. (joke)