[sals]

Do you have one? There are many available and depending on the complexity of your system, you can find one to suit just about any setup.

The advantages are that you can lose the pile of remotes, program macros to emit multiple commands and, ya know, show off.


Here's mine:

http://www.universalremote.com/produ...l.php?model=38



With this one, I am able to program 10 activities such as Watch tv with surround, Watch tv with tv sound only, Watch a dvd, Listen to a cd, etc.

Since I have 2 DVR's and they come with only one set of codes, any command I send to one is recieved by both. To get around this, the MX-850 also can broadcast commands in Radio Frequency (RF) to be received by this device:

http://www.universalremote.com/produ...l.php?model=42



This device recieves the RF from the remote, converts it to Infrared (IR) and sends the IR to the specific device thru an emitter that is placed over the DVR's IR window so only that DVR sees the command.

Aside from going deep in a setup menu for the tv or dvd player, I never need to use any of my original remotes.

The software is fairly easy....none of that stuff is easy for me and I figured it out. You can save several profiles for you remote so if you ever have to make changes or reload the programming, you just plug the remote into a serial or usb port and make your changes. Remote codes are available for almost every component out there and there are message boards where you can find codes for even the most obscure component.

Sals

[MaxPower]

My man.....whom I'm thinking might be you in disguise....given your proclivity towards home theater....
He spends many of his days programming these:


He's desperately trying to get me to agree to one for our system. At over $600....he'll fail. To him, because of what he sees daily, this is a cheap one.

*shrugs at the amount of $$ people are willing to spend on this stuff*

[scotpgot]

YES! I had one of those Pronto remotes after college. It pretty much rocked. It was in the days before DVRs so you could set it front of the VCR tv, set a macro to go off at a certain time, and record my programs while I was away or asleep.

I think it was around $250 at the time. I had ordered the remote and the rechargeable battery for it (extra $30 or something). They accidentally sent me the remote and another (cheaper - $100) remote instead of the battery. I gave the other remote to my brother for his birthday.

[Ltrain]

I was looking into getting a logitech harmony 1. Its a little pricey but it does look damn nice

[Kenji III]

I spent $10.99 on my universal remote and it works fine.