I have tried a number of 'universal' remotes without luck. I have in my home theater:

Yamaha DSP-A1 amplifier
Sony VPL-VW10HT LCD projector
Sony SAT-HD100 high definition DirectTV receiver
Sony DVP-NS700P DVD player
Sony SAT-T60 TiVo DirectTV receiver

You would think that with all the Sony equipment it would be easy to buy a Sony universal remote to control it all. The main problem is that my Yamaha AV amplifier cannot be controlled by any of the univeral remotes I have bought. It has an IR remote but none of the universal remotes I've bought either have manufacturer codes that work or can they 'learn' the IR codes for the Yamaha.

I tried to use my Yamaha remote, which has macros and can learn other remotes to control everything, however the Yamaha remote cannot control the Sony projector for some reason.

Other complications: Since I have two DirecTV receivers, the HD and TiVo, I find that the Sony remotes for these will control the other Sony receiver. This is a big problem when the TiVo is used for one room and the HD for the other. I have 'solved' the problem by using RF (rather than IR) communication between my HD receiver and it's remote. RF is far superior anyway due to the fact that you don't have to 'point' the remote at the equipment. To prevent the HD remote from controling the TiVo DirecTV receiver I put electricians tape over the IR LED (low tech but effective).

Therefore, any universal remote solution must only use RF when controlling the HD receiver but IR when controlling the TiVo receiver.

Otherwise I am stuck with the plethora of remotes which my wife cannot use (and I don't really blame her).

Have you not tried a Pronto, or one of the derivatives?

I have not tried a Pronto yet. However, I wanted advice before buying one. I am more inclined towards a hard button remote like the MX-500, but only if it will do the job. My IR and RF needs may dictate a choice.

Oddly enough there seems to be a certain commonality here.

Having now bought a Sony SACD player I've got a full house (all Sony), though perhaps not quite in the same league as your equipment.

To operate it all I originally had an AV-2000 but one of our dogs ate it so I purchased a Pronto (and it works very well), though at one stage I did have a similar problem of cross operation (between the receiver and video I think). A few judicious discretes sorted that out though.

The upshot of this is that I can well recommend the Pronto, and having checked the files section I've found component CCF's for every piece of your equipment, which has got to be a major plus factor. Then, on the other hand...

I must confess that I've never been fully happy at the need to continually look at the LCD screen to operate the thing so, would you believe, I've now bought an MX-500... like you, it's the lure of the hard button. Please don't ask the obvious next question though, I'm afraid I've yet to find the time to program it, though when I do I'll let you know the outcome (though by that time I expect you'll have sorted yourself out).

David.

This message was edited by djy on 02/11/02 22:47.37.

I've purchased the MX-500. I was holding back because of the fact that I had to use RF remote mode for my SAT-HD100 to avoid conflicts with operating my SAT-T60. By calling Sony they gave me the super secret way to reprogram the SAT-T60 codes to be different from the SAT-HD100. So now I can run everything on IR.

So I'll see how the MX-500 works....