Hmm, yes...I can see how it would be extremely convenient for friends and family that just want to watch TV and they can't do it unless the stereo is turned on, the DSS is turned on, the TV is turned on and all the right sources are selected, etc.. They need a single button or menu option. Same thing for turning the whole system off.
Where I think I will wish I had some more hard buttons is when I am watching and I switch to the HDTV station and I need to switch my DTC-100 to HD ON...(only for that channel). I will have to navigate down to some menu for this. Or... When I want to change the aspect ration of my RPTV...I'll have to navigate to some menu.. There are a few other little things that I regular need to do while switching around from channel to channel.
I can see where having the menu on the harmony I could have my list of favorite channels, and I could have a list of high level activies (ie, watch TV, watch DVD, watch VCR, listen to music, etc..). That all makes great sense and sounds like it would work fine. Where I think it would drive me crazy would be having to navigate through the menu system to do any kinds of adjustments to a particular component (such as the two things I listed above). Most of the time, you don't have to mess with specific components other than the common stuff...shuttle controls, channel up/down, volume, etc.. However, there are a few other misc features which do have to be adjusted several times during a typical viewing session...and I'm not sure I would want to wade through several levels of menu items to get there... Make sense?
If this remote had even a single row of 4 programmable hard buttons, I would be tremendously happy...
On 12/11/01 08:28.08, Mike Riley said...
dewdman: The Harmony doesn't use Macros in the
way we are used to thinking of them. It takes
the information about your Devices, and creates
Activities for you, based on that input. It
knows, for example, that if you have a DVD player,
you will want to watch it and probably have your
amp on at the same time. So it creates an item
called "Watch DVD", which appears as a Menu selection
on the LCD screen. You don't have to tell it what
inputs to switch to; it already knows that based
on your initial setup.
You do NOT have to know XML; that is the underlying
language of the device, which makes it eminently
programmable and tweakable... but that's just
the beauty of XML as a standardized language.
You won't see that unless you want to get into
it; everything is done via the Wizards on the
EasyZapper website.
The big advantage of the Screen and the Menuing
system is that everything is available with a
push or two, and everything is labelled correctly.
You might have a hard-button labelled DVD on your
other remote, but it can only do one or two things;
on the Harmony, everything has its own label.
This makes it a no-brainer when looking for an
option, and certainly makes it easier for others
in your family who haven't spent hours creating
their ultimate remote setup. ... Mike
