That's great that you enjoy the URC but I've had macro based remotes before and no thanks, they might be great for you more tech-savvy guys but those things frustrate me to no end.
Hmrz.
P.S-- When you program you DVR you click, "always keep the DVR on" and you can switch between different sources without shutting it off.
Yeah, I suppose one can program all other macros to leave the DVR alone. Do you leave yours on 24/7?
They replaced, for free, the messed up docking stations on the 880's. I actually received an entire new remote even though I bought the first one second hand.
Ahh. That is good of them. Those were TERRIBLE.
The only backlight that is motion-based is the 880 and up model's AFAIK and that is easily defeat able in the initial setup. The rest are manual by way of a button.
My entry 520 was motion based. No way to defeat it AFAIK, nor when I click any button.
Different folks. Different strokes.
Agreed.
The Harmony does give you access to all of the functions of all of your devices, too. If I know my monitor is off and I want to turn it on, I press Device, Monitor, On. The only time I think I've ever had to manually set things up was when my girlfriend plugged her laptop into the receiver and wanted to listen to music. So after a few times of that I just programmed a "Laptop" function that turned the receiver on and put it on the right input.
Oh man I really did not enjoy using the Device function. At least when I used Harmony (I doubt they've changed this, tell me if they have), you cannot program device functions. They came defaulted with whatever codes they have. Often times we are talking about 10-20 "pages". I think for some of the on/off buttons, it could be on any given page. That's a lot of scrolling thru pages to find any particular function. *Bad memories...
I'd just put a "TV speakers" activity in there as well.
If I understand you correctly, if you wanted to use TV speakers only, you'd have to multiply the # of macros by 2, to have that function with any macro. So, in your case 14 macros, correct? That's an entire afternoon, maybe more, with Harmony. URC, I bet I could do 14 in less than an hour. If any certain button did not take, about 5 seconds or less to fix. Harmony... 5 minutes or more.
And my cable box remembers where you were in that program, so if you turn it off and come back to it, it's about 5 seconds from hitting the "watch TV" button to being back at the same point in the DVR playback
This is if you hit record, correct? My bro's DVR automatically stores up to an hour on any channel that is left on. You simply hit pause. If you turned off his STB, it won't save anything unless you did actually use the record function. Yes, he could use the record function, but the pause function is extremely convenient, particularly for the type of HT usage at his place.
Are the URC remotes cheaper? My 659 ran me about $60 on Amazon when I got it a couple years ago.
URC rf-20 and blaster $80 shipped....great deal IMO
Yeah, but that $80 includes the blaster and emitters. The actual remote by itself is only $50 shipped from the big river.
cheers. Obviously, I have a strong opinion, and its only with fellow consumers in mind. I'm sure those looking to buy their first will look at all of our opinions.
