On January 6, 2008 at 04:45, RonL said...
Note you can put color buttons on the touch LCD.
This is what I have already done on my HK-TC30, but I still would rather have dedicated hard color keys.
I think if you put any more buttons on that remote, you
are forced to significantly reduce the size and spacing
of the other buttons. Small buttons and inadequate spacing
are the most common complaints about the Harmony remotes.
In the design documentation on their site, Harmony says
they wanted to address those complaints with this remote,
so it was important to keep the number of buttons to a
minimum.
But international customers have seen the same Harmony remotes with four dedicated color buttons, with no changes to button size or remote size. I can't wait to see what the international Harmony One will look like ... but I'm positive it will have color buttons.
DVD recorders, TiVos, Dish Network STBs, Verizon FiOS
STBs, U-Verse STBs, older DirecTV STBs, and some newer
cable STBs do not use colored buttons.
On some cable company boxes, the color buttons are used
to access advanced options, search or filter programming,
and/or edit the settings for an existing recording. They
generally aren't used when watching live TV, navigating
the guide, picking new programs to record, or when viewing
recorded programming.
I'm not as willing as you to generalize this and say how MSOs are using or are not using color buttons.
For the vast majority of U.S. customers, I think the colored
buttons are just fine on the touch LCD, and a far better
choice than reducing the size or spacing of the other
buttons. UK customers may use those buttons on a more
regular basis, I don't know.
Again, I'm not willing to generalize what US customers want. I know MANY customers of DIRECTV and Cablevision who want dedicated color buttons on their Harmony remotes. (European customers use the color keys quite a lot - they are teletext keys used for many services.)
All I'm asking for is that Logitech ALSO sell in the United States the version with the dedicated color keys. If they want to sell it for more, fine - just make it an option for US customers who WANT dedicated color keys.
