Folks,

I can't tell you how high my hopes were for this remote. I paid a lot for it, it's a Sony, it's a new design and I just assumed that it would be able to do what it was presumably designed to do. Alas, I find that, for me, it appears to be nearly 100% useless.

Based upon what I'd read when researching this product, I thought that it had hundreds of products and codes in its memory and I (wishfully) assumed that the software would be versatile enough to allow downloading of new code sets when they become available from a Sony site.

Silly me. First, I am shocked to discover that when attempting to program this thing via the PC software provided, I needed to instruct it not by brand and model, which would make sense, but by that same, old, awkward remote-to-remote method I've learned to loath over the decades since I programmed my first universal remote in the early '80s. Then, when I tried to get it to recognize the codes for my TV, an old Mitsubishi, it couldn't seem to get the codes. I don't have the original remote as it failed long ago. But I do have its codes stored in an old Philips universal remote, and some of the codes in my TiVo remote, DVD/VCR remote and cable box remote.

First, it failed to read the power on signal from my Philips remote, this despite the fact that it can turn the TV on and off. Then, it failed reading the same code from my TiVo remote (also quite capable of turning the TV on and off), saying that it had received two codes. Then, when I gave-up on the wizard, I was presented with a button-to-button mode (which also didn't work) and which had a mismatched function set for my TV.

Then, after giving-up on the TV, I figured I'd try to see if the silly thing could control my TiVo. I told it I have a DVR and it asked me to record the DVR remote's power button. The trouble is that the TiVo remote doesn't have a power on/off function as the DVR is powered-off via a dialog. As the TiVo is the most common DVR on the market (hell, they defined the market), you would think that Sony would have a clue that the DVR you're programming might just be a TiVo.

I have the feeling that most functions can, indeed, be programmed via the main program, but all I could access was the wizard and, until you finish preliminary programming, you can't get out of the wizard and use the main program.

Oh, and when I went to the Sony web site to research these problems, I read a "by the way" that this piece of lovliness will not work with components made before 1989. My TV is older than that. My LD player is older than that (most are, in fact). Oh, and my DVD/VCR combo is a six-month-old Sony but, by the way, the AX4000 will not operate combo devices, even by Sony.

Can anyone come up with any reasons that I shouldn't return this product?