First.. to address RF.. No you don't need it if you have line of sight but.. I always do an RF base station because some people don't know that they cant waive the remote around during macros. Also.. lets say your cooking and watching TV.. you get up and walk to the kitchen with the remote in your hand and the commercial break ends.. or you get a phone call while your up you can hit pause or mute without walking back in to the room.
If you dont need RF have a look at the R50. It is a consumer version of the MX-450.
[Link: remotecentral.com]As for amazon not shipping to you.. i didn't pay attention to your user name :) but the amazon price should be close to what your local dealer will be charging. Your dealer may not have it listed but their distributor should carry it so i cant imagine they don't have access to it. A phone call or email will sort that out.
I like every URC remote for one reason or another but the MX-450 is the RF remote i will suggest to a consumer.
Yes it is a professional product but IMO its something you will be able to program if you have a general understanding of how your system is connected. Your gear should all have discrete codes or i would have suggested Harmony.
The user reviews you read are odd since the MX-450 does not have programming software and the archiver software and owners manual is available for free to everyone.
Not that it applies here but...the argument about "updates" is well... stupid. I hear it quite often and i cant understand why. I programmed URC remotes for 5 or 6 years and never once updated the software. Denon, sony, sharp etc have the same codesets from one model to the next so if you have a XYZ-550 and there is a code for XYZ-500.. chances are the commands are the same. And the discretes rarely change. If.. for some reason your device is not in the database you can teach it to the URC remote in about 3 minutes flat. Much faster then waiting for software to update.
And because the MX-450 programming is done on the remote.. you will never need access to any software or updates and thats the only reason i suggested it. That and the fact that theres a large community here of people who can help you sort out any issues you have while learning to configure it.
