On Wed, 7 May 2008 21:48:57 -0400, "Soundhaspriority"
<nowhere@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>You've gotten me to take a good look at their product line, and I've
>identified a candidate: the TX-1000. I understand your dislike of
>touchscreens, but my audio components are older, relying more on
dedicated
>buttons than menus, so I think I'd have trouble with a hard button
solution.
The "hard" buttons are intended for universally used functions,
mostly... and the device-specific stuff is put into the
on-screen buttons. This is difficult to describe in a Newsgroup
but easy to imagine if you were to be designing the machine
yourself. You'd have common functions on fixed "hard"
buttons and device-specific functions on varying, associated-
with-the-screen buttons.
Ferzample, volume controls, mute, channnel up/down are major
fixed, dedicated hard buttons. Of course the volume controls
work the same with all sources, but the channel up/down
will operate different devices when watching cable/sat
or when listening to the radio.
But when you're watching a DVD the associated-with-the-screen
buttons have specific DVD-only functions like subtitles, audio
track choice, etc.
Or, when watching cable/sat the screen has specific cable/sat-
only buttons like on-demand, live, record, music channels,
or whatever.
There's a (small) art to designing a good remote control,
so I've emphasized the particular device's access to
programming code as particularly im****tant to you. At these
price levels, you want either to be able to hire a known-good
programmer who'll burnish the result to taste, or (and what I'd
recommend for you, as opposed to my local non-technical customers)
complete access to both the programming code and the factory updates.
Haven't tried, but for half a KiloBuck, I'd insist fairly
purposefully, ....and it might happen, on being provided the code.
Of course, I'd be glad to help, via the Internet, to contribute
whatever I could to the programming process. I have complete
"devices" for most common hardware, and these are just plugged into
the framework. I'd also be very interested in your philosophy
of design in case ours would differ significantly - I don't
get any interesting feedback locally.
>The one concern I have is mentioned in this review:
>http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/remote-controls/universal-remote-control-tx-1000-medius/setup-using-the-remote-and-conclusion
,
>which makes a comment about interference:
>
>"Placing the base station is a very im****tant task. You'll find that RF
>interference will quickly become the bane of your existence."
>
>similar to yours, and which remind me of a problem with the X-10
Pyramids.
>Fifty yards from my window, in a neighbor's back yard, is an outdoor pond
>with a fishtank heater. The heater sets off the X-10. The X-10 receiver
is
>obviously the cheapest handful of components that can function at 418
mHz.
>The review of the TX-1000 mentions similar sensitivity. It's hard to
believe
>that they chose an unselective design, but that's the implication. Do you
>happen to be familiar with the characteristics of the Pronto RF system?
My (small-ish) experience of the Pronto's is that their issues with
RF intereference are much the same as everybody else's. When they
were designed, the world was clean and pure, but that world ended
with the Brave New version. These small companies take a few years
to get better armored, and the survivors are mostly up-to-snuff
today. And, everybody's on 418 MHz, including Crestron, and nobody's
protected, so it's a "hardware issue".
My take is that the earlier RF "bases" (receivers) were essentially
un****elded, plastic cases and open circuit boards, and that the
interference issues were mostly baseband rather than RF. Fortunately
easily solvable, and (with current hardware) pretty much solved.
The world's a nasty, noisy place, but that's a hard lesson to learn.
Much thanks, as always, and sorry to get so verbose,
Chris Hornbeck
"It's for compatibility with 8-Track."
-scott
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