Posted by Nicholas Andrade on 01/21/06 22:19

eganders@yahoo.com wrote:

> 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.
>

If you already have a PDA (ideally one with commercial grade IR), then
there's some really good options. I personally have used
http://www.pdawin.com/tvremote.html; it's easy to program and can mimic
any function your current remote(s) can do.

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