I had a quick question about the proposal I have on some RTI equipment. I've been reading here for some time now, and just joined so I could post. I appreciate all of the combined knowledge and helpful spirt found here.

I'm putting the finishing touches on our home theater that we have been building over the past 2 years. It's a dedicated home theater, 110" AT screen, stage, riser, etc. Everthing is in working order and we a just knocking off a few of the puch-list items. Carpeting is the last major hurdle, and we will be done.

I currently control just about all of the equipment via RS-232. Since I am an Industrial engineer, I used more industrial type of automation eqipment (PLC's, etc.) to accomplish the task. Probably a bit overkill...but I had the equipment to make use of. It all works, and works well. I have a touchscreen in the lobby that can control everything with 100% reliablity. The problem that I have is finding good remote(s) to use from the seated locations. I need a programmable remote that can be programmed to send IR to my controller to execute the macros (changing sources, system on, system off, etc) as well as control the equipment via IR (change volume, channel, etc). The RTI T3 fits the bill perfectly.

I talked to my local dealer, and tried to explain to him what I wanted. He was completely lost. To be honest, I think I knew more about the line than he did. When he came over, he was nice enough to fire up the programming software and we tinkered for a bit. I showed him that all I really wanted to do was to drag a few oddball IR codes to some buttons and have my controller learn them. I think I lost him on this. I basically set up his demo remote with theatertouch for one macro and showed in my theater that it worked. I think some are probably doing something similar with a Crestron hardware.

Anyway, Here is where he left it with me. He would sell me a T3 and possibly RP6(may eventually switch over to RF later..and the serial might be nice) at around list price (slightly higher) and setup my remote for IR for the equipment I have. He would let me use the programming software to make minimal changes, etc. to customize it for my system. If I needed to make a major change, change a component, or mucked something up, he would work on it for his normal programming change fees.

I know that RTI is protective of thier software, so I though I would ask other's opinoin of this. Is that an OK thing to do? Much thanks in advance.