Okay I have a large number of "universal remotes" and a large number of different viewing areas in this house. All have their pros and cons I understand but now that my cable company is forcing us to get cable boxes for all TVs that want any kind of signal I need to find a GOOD brand rather than this hit and miss.
There are actually 5 different places that will have at LEAST two devices and 3 will have 4-5 (TV, Required Cable box descrambler, WD TV Live, Audio, and Blu-ray players)
I will type them out with What I have(or had)/What I don't like.
1) Harmony One/Do not like the configuration software, Do not like the desync due to the "activites" would much rather just like to have a device setting and single button to a macro, Do not like how it messes up the inputs due to the number of selections rather than just jumping to the right input. 2) Harmony 700/Do not like the configuration software, do not like the activities. 3) URC Digital R50/Do not like that the configuration can't be downloaded and sent to multiple URC devices. 4) URC MX-700(had)/Did not like the software was locked down from residential buyers who bought not from a reseller, Worked great until it was dropped repeatedly and LCD and backlight broke making the remote hard to use.
Ultimately I need to get about 5 remotes so would like to keep this on the cheaper side. They need to support 2-5 devices of any type. I would LOVE it if it had a MX-700 type software where you connect the remote to the PC download the configuration file and then reupload to another remote. The reason for this is many rooms have at least 1-2 of the same devices in it and it would make reprogramming so much easier. The harmony ones I have two 700's and I have to have separate profiles for the two of them and they can't cross send information which disappointed me immensely. I am not a big fan of "activities" and would much rather just have a few more buttons to support the few power/input macros I use.
So in summation - 5 Remotes. Best to copy programming from one to another. Support up to 5 devices. Uses Macro buttons and not "activities". As cheap as possible because I have to buy so many remotes.
Any help you guys can provide on some remotes that support as many of these pain points as possible will be appreciated.
