Exactly what I was thinking when I read nutec's post....

I agree that the actual operation needs to be very simple. Everyone needs to be able to use and enjoy it. But making it cool as well as simple is the trick. Systems are becoming more complex every day. My 980 controls a DVD/CD player (seperate commands), TV, Cable Box, iPod, VCR (believe it or not), HD & Regular Radio, AV Server, Rhapsody, Internet Radio, Sirius & XM, 2nd Zone duplicating all the controls of the first, and a Air Conditioner. All RF with presets, favorites, etc. Simple operation requires complicated programing as you all know. Doing it myself gives me the, 'Hey I did that' satisfaction that can't be bought. I'm not trying to cheat someone out of a paycheck, nor am I cheep. Landscapers don't throw rocks at me from their trucks when I cut my own lawn. Why should anyone care what I choose to do or not do. Just because the programing software harder to figure out at first for a non pro doesn't mean it's impossible. URC could certainly make it easier, but they choose not to. Don't let end users have any updates. It's silly. These are not nuclear secrets, or roadside bomb instructions. This is a top secret device that controls your TV or Stereo. But I'm kind of hooked on this stuff just for fun. AV hobby for about 8 years now, and getting expensive. Why else would I even bother commenting. In my case it is a destraction from the everyday, and is worth the effort. So CI's don't dump on end users by calling us 'The people who!' Who what? Pay you.

That's funny because the landscapers put their flier in a ziplock bag with a rock in it and they throw it on my driveway every couple of weeks.


Mercedes could make their vehicles capable of flight but they choose not to.

Point being you cant blame a car maker for designing a poor airplane just like you cant blame a remote manufacturer for not making their professional products consumer friendly. Now that's silly!

Funny post of the week.

Actually, compared to knowing URC, RTI, Pronto, Marantz, Control 4, etc and having them all ready to rip on your laptop, brain surgery is a snap.

I told a client of mine who's a cardiac surgeon that his job was a ton easier than mine. I have to know 30 different brands and hundreds of different models. He only has one model to deal with and some parts are interchangeable.

Ah... they did make it easier...and constantly do. What you're not understanding is the SW is not designed for the end user. At first I thought you understood that... What happened...?


You told you that...? I'm an end user and have access to LiveUpdate. Sounds to me that you received partial SW access by your dealer. Maybe you should have done a little research before your purchase. Not educating yourself before spending that kind of $$$ on a product is silly IMO.

And I figured you as a pro...

lol.... should I be apologizing?

To accommodate custom integrators who prefer a protected line that they can sell at full markup without being embarrassed when their customer insists they just quote him for the configuration of the remote because he'd rather buy it for 1/2 the price through the web.

Was that what you were looking for?

But hey, as soon as some retail outfit offers URC enough money, they'll slap a new name on the MX-980 and let them sell the unit for whatever they want as long as they take the support calls.

And I thought customer support was a good thing. The key word is customer. You expect support for the products you sell and own, right. I would avoid using the words full markup with customers in this economic climate. I own a service business and things are not the same as they were 2 years ago or even 1 year. Low bids from desperate contractors who want to survive the month,and will soon be out of business are the norm. Service and support are what will seperate the hero's from the zero's.

While some poor business men are undercutting each other we continue to charge MSRP for everything and full boat for labor. The reason we do this is so we will be here in a year or 10 to service the products and projects we are providing today.

Anyone interested in saving a few bucks can go somewhere else. They will most likely be back here in a few months complaining about not being able to get anyone on the phone. My customers on the other hand can get right thru whenever they need to.

We will allow clients to provide CE products like TV's and source components but with the complete understanding that they are 100% responsible for them. Meaning that $95 an hour is billed anytime we touch them.

Yeah, with Fujitsu no longer selling Plasmas it must be hard to find a TV manufacturer who will provide a protected line to custom installers...

Heck, the Pioneer KRP line which was meant to be targeted to CI's was released to retailers earlier in the year, and I hear a lot of restrictions have been dropped from the Elite line as well.

Palnews26 made a solid point. The economic climate changes the whole game, but if as a CI your reputation and work stands on its own, then it shouldn't matter one bit to you.

Besides, wouldn't you rather be able to recommend the best equipment to your customers and not just the stuff that you can arrange to re sell?

I dont really care that Fujitsu is no longer a protected line. If they were for sale at the gas station i would still champion them. What concerns me is that i can no longer spec a plasma TV with 100% confidence that it will preform well. Fujitsu was an outstanding product. The display quality has only recently been beaten by current Kuro's and sadly those will also be gone very soon. Fujitsu's discreet IR commands and RS-232 protocol worked perfectly and remained the same for as long as i can remember. This means i only had to eat the labor involved on learning the product once. Every other time i spec'd it i was able to just know it would do what it was supposed to do. This is much more important to me than markup. Money lost on labor puts us further in the hole than any CE product we have ever sold.


I work for a successful CI firm. We adapt and change with the reality of the market. We get paid for every minute of our time spent with clients. We bill for system design, GUI creation, installation and programming. we do not bid projects. You hire us or you don't. This has been policy for a decade so the profit lost on a TV does not affect our bottom line. To be quite honest we typically lose money on CE products even when they had high markup because we eat the labor involved with defective products and reinventing the wheel each year with the new model change. If a client wants to assume the risk that was forced on us to save $ i wont stop them.

Every product we recommend to our clients is the best equipment available. Our knowledge and expertise allows us to take an ordinary product and give our clients a richer experience with it than they would have gotten with someone else. Sometimes we choose products that are dealer protected and sometimes we don't. We don't concern ourselves with anything other than providing the best product.

You don't sound like the sort of CI who shivers in fear every time a DIY figures out how to use a remote control or helps set up an AV system for a friend.

Something I never understood is why more CI's don't look at things like you do, but I guess there are a lot of bottom feeders who feel threatened.

Any CI complaining about someone wanting to program a remote themselves has a whole lot of time on their hands and not much going on upstairs. The idea that someone who was not and never will be their customer... is taking money out of their pocket.. is ridiculous. I would bet those same CI's have come here for discrete commands that were provided by the same DIY'er they are afraid of. Whats even funnier is that this entire message forum was built by DIY'ers and a good portion of the CI's have come here to learn.

I love finding a 7 or 8 year old thread where one of the 'experts' is asking a seemingly silly question. Same 'expert' is the first one to someone a hard time now for asking the same silly question.

Thank you.