Favourite remote control

lowlands

With a TV, DVD, TunerAmp, Skybox, VCR, 2nd Sat receiver I have a remote control chaos.
Some time ago I bought a OneForAll 6in1 remote, but it's not great, it does emulate a Sky remote, but rather poorly, and I can only get to the basic/intuitive functions of my DVD player, for anything more I need a post-it stuck to it to tell me to what button a function is mapped to. I have not even started to learn it all my AVReceiverAmp functions ...

What do other forum members use for remote control, and do those touch screen programmable things really solve the mess?

Krusty_Clown

I have a One4All Kameleon (4 devices)..
Does the job for me, and emulates the Sky Digibox remote pretty well.
You'd probably need the 6 Device version..

If you want to spend a bit extra, the Philips Pronto, and One4All Mosaic are both supposed to be pretty good - and can be manipulated by hooking them up to a PC..

Oh, and Remote Central does a pretty good job of reviewing the various remotes, and providing access to files, templates etc..

digitaldr

I have a one4all mosaic and it works very well but took a bit of programming to get it just right. I found that using the device codes for eg the SKY+ box resulted in having to switch screens a lot eg the fast/forward etc buttons were on a different screen from the other controls. I was able to group everything onto one screen by using the learning function. If you want any tips PM me.

The best price I could find was from Richer sounds Belfast at £50 - I think they're charging more now. iIve good a pioneer amp, SKY+, regular SKY box with FTA card, a cyberhome DVD player and a Philips TV and VCR and it controls them all very well.

rabbitinlights

I have the 6-1 Kameleon and im using the following items:

32" W/S 100Hz JVC TV
Sky Box
Panasonic S35 DVD player
Marantz SR5300

My main worries were the skybox and the amp, it handles sky with no problems, the amp on the other hand is not 100% but is better than i thought it would be, i can obviously change inputs and select what type of output i want Dolby/DTS etc but to bring up the on screen display (once in a blue moon) i would have to get out the Marantz remote. although because it can learn functions i got around this after a day or two of fiddling around with it.
The multiple functions are sweet though, one button to turn the amp to DVD audio, the TV to the DVD channel and the DVD on. and then of course another button to turn it back again.
Also when ever the screen is activated there is a low hum, its not bad but its there.
I can truly say its the best remote ive ever seen (without spending €300+)
And it just looks savage.

cdb

I recently bought a NAD "HTR-2" learning remote control for the same reason. It controls up to 8 devices, incl. TV, DVD, CD, Tuner, A/V Receiver, etc and is well worth a look.

Keys are well laid out, unit is backlit (it allows you to specify the time in seconds the keys light up after keypress) & buttons are colour coded. It has a handy punch-thru function (basically smart enough to turn up the A/V volume while DVD is selected etc) and overall the unit has a quality feel to it.

On the downside, athough the manual supplied is easy to follow, it still took a while to program the different keys. (Didn't find the pre-programmed codes supposedly available on Remote Central for my system) It is bigger than your standard remote. and it eats batteries when the timed-backlit function is up at five or more seconds so rechargeable batteries are a good buy.

Quoted 125 Euro from Irish supplier (based in Swords, can't remember the name), sourced it in UK for 49 Stg on www.hifi4less.co.uk. Could be available cheaper elsewhere.

http://www.nadelectronics.com/remotes/htr2_framset.htm

All-in-all, a good remote to consider!!

CDB.

lowlands

After a month of indecision, I managed to get my hands on a Sony remote AV-3000.
It is big, but has a good mix of hard buttons and touchpad and is very easy to use.

Most of my current equipment is Sony, so that worked right out of the box. It was easy to learn the Sky remote functions, and my other components worked perfect as well.

I managed to get one for 99 USD in the states, interesting price with todays conversion rates.

It is not a fully configurable touchscreen, like the Phillips pronto, but you can modify some text labels and it does the job perfectly for me. I also think it looks very classy, more like an entertainment control panel then a simple remote.

Anyway, thanks for the link to

www.remotecentral.com where you can find full details of the AV-3000

mickeyboymel

Anyone know about this Sunwave remote(Model SRC 9310) It looks really good but I have not found any reports about functionality,preformance etc.

I have managed to source it fromElectroplaza in Holland for €131 including P&P,VAT, & PC Data cable

Maplins do a more basic Sunwave model also.

I would appreciate any info from anyone before I go ahead and buy one

robbie1876

My fave remotes are anything based on the Pronto format (Philips/Marantz/Yamaha). I've tried tons of remotes over the years, but you really just can't the flexibility and customising potential of these remotes. In particular, the Marantz RC5200 with its matching RF receiver has been my best friend for the past couple of years now.

My problem has always been with the level of control you have over macros. A 'power on' macro for an average home cinema can have 6, 7 or more commands to transmit. What tends to happen is either a) Your dog/girlfriend walks in front of the romote during the 4th command in the macro or b) The user gets bored holding the remote at the equipment for 15-20 seconds and just puts it down, so the last of the commands don't get through.

For this reason, any remote with RF cababilites are a must when planning to use any sort of macros. What can often happen is that the devices that use 'toggle' power on/off codes can get out of sync with the rest of the system. You press the system on button, everything turns on except the amp. So you press the on button again, and everything turns off except the amp which turns on. This can cause headaches for the non-technical members of your family.

The solution I use for this problem in any mid-high end cinema is the Niles Intellicontrol which basically checks the status of your equipment before sending out a code. So if you tell it to turn on your amp, it checks to see is the amp on or not before it sends the IR code. And it works off Marantz's RC5200 RF frequency. Sweet...

For small systems that only need the most basic macros, it's hard to beat the 6-in-1 Kameleon, as was mentioned earlier in this thread.

Robbie

Walter Ego

I have a Kamelon 6 in 1 and it works great and looks cool but it eats batteries like there is no tomorrow depending on the screen brightness you select. Always have spare batteries on hand because its a hoor to have to reprogram 6 devices if you allow it to die completely.

digitaldr

I have an Ipaq 2210 running PDAWin Remote Controller http://www.pdawin.com/ . It emulates a Pronto TSU6000 and costs $15 (excluding the Ipaq!) According to the website it works with lots of Windows based PDAs but some don't have strong enough IR signals to control AV devices etc - luckily mine does. You can buy a device to get around this though. To actually design your remote interface you need to download ProntoEdit from the Phillips site. It's pretty easy to get the hang of and is very flexible.

I also tried Total Remote http://www.griffintechnology.com/griffinmobile/totalremote/ which also apparently supports Pronto (CCF) files but it wouldn't work with my Ipaq - in fairness it's not included in their compatibility list. Their remote extender looks a lot neater than PDAwin's one though. Finally I tried Vitoremote (supports CCF) http://vitotechnology.com/products/remote.html with no success.

The Ipaq 2210 actually ships with a remote program called Nevo - not great at all - is very inflexible compared to PDAWin.

In practice, PDAWin works well. Interestingly it couldn't learn some of the codes from my original SKY remote but had now problem learning them from my One4all Mosaic SKY screen (I use this for my sitting room set up and the Ipaq for the bedroom). It coped fine with my SKY+ box and Phillips DVD surround amp.

I've attached a few pictures some SKY channels screens I designed for PDAWin