Hi Mark,
Sorry I'm late to the party. It looks like everyone basically took care of you. Ray and Jack were "on call" for MX-700 this weekend; I had to officiate a swim meet. But I digress.
As Jack said, you can have 20 devices of ANY kind. I seriously considered loading devices from the bedroom into the Main-page-2, but then the remote would leave the living room, and no good can come from that. Have as many CD players as you want.
That Sony thing could be trouble. As Curtis observed, it may be the limitation of the equipment, not a limitation of the remote.
I have DirecTivo - the MX-700 swallowed it up in one gulp. No problems at all.
I had the Denon 1804 - the remote now gathers dust.
I'm unaware of timer functions specifically on the remote (I wish it had a clock), but if the other equipment DOES have a sleep timer, the MX-700 can learn it.
I got mine at Surf. No regrets.
I also just replaced my first set of batteries after about four months.
One good tip that Ray gave me was to "store" the remote face-down. I'd never thought of that before, but it does seem to help keep the buttons clean.
I programmed all my devices with press-and-hold macros that include turning off other things. So all you have to do is go to main and "hold" DVD (or whatever) and it not only turns on the DVD player and TV, switches the inputs, goes to the DVD page, but also turns off/stops the other devices. It works for me, and more importantly, for my wife.
Good luck!
