This is for my girlfriend's mother whom, I should add, has difficulty with things like signing on to America Online.

She has seven (count 'em) television sets in the house. She has five (count 'em again) VCRs. All of them are, of course, different makes and models. She wants a single remote control that can control them all. (No, not at once.) Of particular importance is the ability to program the VCRs - set the clock, program shows to record, etc.

Every universal remote I see will control a single VCR and a single television set. Are there no remote controls out there which will work in this situation? I really need a simple remote - TV controls and VCR controls - with the ability to handle multiple TVs and multiple VCRs.

Why does she want one remote to work them all, wouldn't it make more sense to get a seperate (but identical) universal remote for each TV which just works that TV and VCR?

there are several options, but I thgink the best bet is a Pronto. It is not cheap (new it would cost the same as buying one remote for each of those rooms as Rob is saying) and does take a long time and effort to set-up properly. On the other hand you can set it up any way you want and one of them (that I have seen often enough) is by room, so on the home screen you would see something like Kitchen, bedroom..... and clicking on it will bring up the controls for that room.

An other choice is a harmony remote, it is activity based, and I think you will end up with many activities (watch TV in bedroom, watch TV in living room...., watch VCR in .....)

I'm surprised that there's no "generic device"-type remote out there. Does EVERY remote support only one of a given type of device? That's just dumb. Even in a base example, how many people have two VCRs on their entertainment center? Gotta be a lot.

One remote for each setup would mean a MINIMUM of seven remotes (five TV+VCR setups and two solitaire TVs, assuming that five VCRs and TVs match up as sets). Seven universal remotes @ $15 apiece - assuming that these cheapy remotes will allow the VCR to be programmed which in my experience is not likely - would cost $105 + tax/shipping. Remember how I said that she had trouble signing on to America Online? There's NO WAY she would be able to keep track of that many remotes and we'd be buying replacements on a weekly basis. She's already lost almost all of the original ones, after all. Plus I can guarantee you that she would be mixing up the remotes all over the house. I don't care if you were to paint each remote with a different color and paint the matching TV and VCR the same color. She would undoubtedly wind up with mismatched remote controls, get frustrated over the confusion, and throw them all away.

A single remote control would be far less confusing for her. Yes, there's still a chance of loss but it's more likely she'd get confused with seven remote controls. So, it has to be a single remote.

Yes many remotes can be programmed for more than one of a certain type of device. What's hard finding cheap remote to control 12 devices. Most ofa/rs remote will control is 8 devices, 8 tv's or 8 vcr's or combination of the both.

Universal remotes support more than one of a single device type, but it would mean re-using another device button (ie, the CBL button might be used for your second VCR, etc). So, if you think you mother can remember that CBL is the TV in room 1, and DVD is the TV in room 2, and VCR is the TV in room 3, etc, you could do it.

You're not going to find a single remote with 7 TV buttons and 5 VCR buttons!

The *only* way you're going to be able to control so many identical devices with any sort of logically-labelled buttons is via an LCD-based remote. Either touchscreen like a Pronto or a LCD/hard button combo like the MX-500.

For example, the Home Theater Master MX-500 can control any mix of 10 devices with custom 5-character names and priced under $100 on the net. The similar MX-700 can do the same thing with *20* devices, but costs $350 or so, altough it's computer programmable if you need that. Next up would be the URC-300. Hard buttons with a touchscreen. Will do 15 devices and costs $200 or less.

I think his comment about the cheap remotes totalling up to $105 kind of gives us an idea of the price range he's looking at, and it doesn't extend up to remotes like the MX-500.

The best suggestion that I can come up with is to use a regular 8 device universal remote, and use a label maker to re-label the device buttons.

or change all the TVs and VCRS in all the rooms to the same make :-)

The price of mx-500's on-line is $71 at Surf & Bluedo.

that is www.surfremotecontrol.com
and
www.bluedo.com

in case anyone did not know what is Surf & Bluedo