What is the best universal remote out there at a reasonable price?

There are many universal remotes out there, but outside of turning on,
switching channels, playing & recording, most don't seem to control all
functions so you still have to keep the original remote to set
schedules for the VCR or the contrast, brightness, etc for TV's and so
on. Even if some of these are controllable by the remote, good luck in
finding where they are or remembering what button to push. If all the
buttons were on the remote, it would be the size of the family car.
Using the original remote to program the codes in the univeral remote
would be long and tedious to get all the functions from the old remote.

My idea of a perfect remote would be one that would allow you to select
each device by a single button and have a touch screen that would be
setup to emulate all the device's functions. It would probably have to
be set up using a code like most do today, but I would think that
downloading the functions from the internet or an included CD would be
more practical since loading and maintaining all the functions you
would need would be very hard in the remote itself. I would think
doing the setup and generating the macros would best be done on a
computer also.

Is there any remote out there that does this that does not cost as much
as a TV itself?

I have seen products by a company called Universal Remote Control that
are interesting. The MX-350 Osiris has some nice features and can
control things by RF. The price at around $130 (street) and its
associated MRF-250 RF receiver (about $60 street) are reasonable. My
son just got this unit with his home theater. I am going to check it
out, but I thought I would see what you-all thought.

I'm using the Kameleon from one for all.
http://tinyurl.com/8e669
It does the usual code stuff, custom learning of individual buttons, and can
be updated through a built in audio modem over phone or Internet. If your
device isn't supported, the company will try to find a code for the item in
question and you can download it over the phone. I haven't personally tried
it myself, so couldn't say how well it works. It uses different displays for
different devices, so you are not stuck trying to remember what the buttons
do. Looks cool all lit up in a dark room too<g> So far it has been able to
control everything I want.



John

On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 15:03:14 -0000, "John Bailey" <koihoh@ihoih.com>
wrote:

My idea of the perfect remote would have plenty of physical buttons
combined with programmable labels to each button, so they could change
according to the needs in each mode. Perhaps a sort of alpha-numeric
small LCD display above each button.

While dreaming ...
Is there any _learning_ remote on the market that can learn toggling
codes by recording both variants and toggle between them?

I have a learning remote that has a few buttons that can learn up to 5
different commands that it cycles through when pressed repeatedly.
Using 2 memories like that for each button would take care of units
which require use of the "toggle bit".
Is there such a product?
/Jan

On 1/22/2006, Jan B managed to type:
Look into the Philips Pronto Pro TSU-7000.

There is someting in the manual or in the programming software for it
that makes me think it can do this, but I am not sure whether I read it
correctly, and I can't try it at the moment.

It is very expensive.

HTH,
Gino

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Gene E. Bloch (Gino)
letters617blochg3251
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