Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Its like christmas all over again

Very good, Brandon; I'm sure that your friends will indeed be impressed, and you might be as well when you hear the M22s working with a good sub.

My four year old can turn everything on via MX900. He uses the soft buttons to find things in the 8300HD DVR, rewinds, etc. The buttons are *WAY* more child friendly than the 880. The buttons on the 880 are horrid. Programming is way to dumbed down as well. It's an OK remote, but IMO, it's not even in the same ball park as the MX900.

Finally, every remote should have the ability to punch through on a button by button (function by function) basis.

Reading this thread with a grin on my face. Do a search at some point on "MX-700" and "MX-850". 18-24 months ago, Jack and I enlisted a large number of Axiomites in the MX remote army and all were pretty pleased about it.

The battle continues to rage with Harmony vs URC remotes. Both are good product lines with lotsa plusses and a few minuses. I prefer the URC line.

I went from a MX-500 to a 700. Then I added an 850. I just ordered a Denon 3808 and when it arrives, my daughter/son-in-law witll get the Denon 1905 or 3803 being replaced and the MX-700.

To replace the 700, I went back and forth between a new 850 or 900 (the 980 is just too much money for even me to justify). I ended up getting the 900 about three weeks ago and it is an excellent choice.

I will take exception to the perception that the MX series are not family friendly remotes. The programming capabilities are incredibly powerful and flexible (one the advantages they have over the Harmony). Pushing one button to turn on everything required to watch/listen for cable/satellite, DVD, CD, Wii, PS3, XBox 360 lights, etc. and one button to switch between where you are and where you want to go is exceptionally family friendly and easily doable.

Just my $0.02.

Ray has a good point. Hey, it happens.

I was one of his MX-700 converts. I have programmed the bejeezus out of that thing. The macro capabilities have allowed me to easily provide the same sort of "activity" functions the Harmony touts. It is perhaps the best money I've ever spent on anything. Seriously.

I recently had a look at the Logitech Harmony 1000. Any words of wisdom about it?

I like the Harmony that I have (670? something like). The Harmony buttons tend to be poorly laid out, especially on the early 600 series and the 800 series. They've got the shape right, but they're pretty dumb about the important buttons. The TiVo remotes are still the most intelligently designed remotes I've ever seen, but they're not really multifunction.

There's a few things I would like to do with the Harmony that I haven't been able to, but that's mostly because Yamaha won't give me their IR codes.

I don't see much sense in the big touchscreen remotes like the 1000 or the Pronto--if you can't feel it in the dark (or feel where the important buttons are at all), it's just hard to use.

Thanks. Do you have any experience with RF/IR converters to help with the "point-and-click" or with non-visible devices?

I'm afraid not. I some some experience with remote IR, but that was over ethernet, and pretty much a kludge I put together with scotch tape and foam. Literally.

getting the MRF unit with the universal remotes or whatever its called with the other remotes is a really nice thing to have. You dont have to point the remote at the stuff, you can be nearly anywhere within reason and it will work and you can have your stuff hidden away.

The only downside, is you have to put them IR eyes on everything. And they are ugly.

I've had the Harmony 880 for awhile and my reaction is sorta mixed. It's nice that it controls everything, but like someone else said the buttons aren't laid out very well. In Tivo mode, for example, I think "Live TV" is on page 2. It's also a bit of a pain that you can't change the layout on the fly, but always have to go back to the PC.

Also I've noticed the burn in on the little screen happened rather fast, I can see the home functions burned into the display from other pages.

The other thing, which is probably an issue with any remote, is that people who don't understand how it works can get easily confused. Like if someone turns on the TV on its own, which forgets to "tell the remote" they get confused when it goes back off on them when switching functions. I also wasn't able to get it to work right with my pelican switcher (for the game consoles), so I tend to have to use another remote anyway to get everything setup.

Thinking about looking into some new options, possibly RF, but it's ok for now.