You might just have to put a page into a Power On page sequence where they turn on the TV, and then never come back to that page, or send a TV POWER command, until you're turning off the sytem and going back to that Power On page.

As for explanations to the client, the thing I've found helpful is to try to exclude lots of details from your explanations. Tell the customer that you just can't believe that the TV manufacturers think your client is such a small part of the market that they don't make their TVs able to be controlled by these neat systems, but dammit, that's the situation! Don't be formal. Don't be technical. Don't act like it's okay with you that things are this way. If your client thinks this is dumb and you tell them that this is dumb but that's how it is, they're more likely to get it.

"A macro is a way of making the remote act like it's picking up the TV remote, then the amplifier remote, then the cable box remote, and pushing all of the buttons to get you set to watch cable."

Customers often think that when I've programmed a remote, their original remotes won't work any more. I tell them to imagine taking several magazine articles and creating a report out of them. They xerox several pages, then cut the copies apart to create the report. When they are done, they have the report, which is the collection of commands you've put into the remote system, but they also have the original magazines, which are the factory remotes.

Just because the ideas are simple, doesn't mean the explanations are any shorter.

Here's another one: your Zone 2 setup is like a watering system. The amp is the city water pump. Your room volume controls are faucets. Be sure, when you want more water in some one area of the garden, that you turn its faucet on full before you call the city and ask for more water pressure. That is, always be sure the local volume control is all the way up before you even THINK of touching the Zone 2 master volume!