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Topic:
Total Remote 2
This thread has 215 replies. Displaying posts 91 through 105.
Post 91 made on Friday May 14, 2004 at 13:59
dshmel
Founding Member
Joined:
Posts:
October 2001
102
For $29 I am hangin in there in the hopes that Griffin will deliver. My attempts to use TR (with audio dongle) and a color .ccf resulted in a tantalizing glimpse of what a powerful remote a PDA could be. The speed of screen transitions is better than the Pronto emulator. If they can get the IR to work - then there is no reason to by a $1000 Pronto. It is only a matter of time b4 someone nails it. Let's hope it is Don since it appears he is closest to the mark and has considerable sweat equity.
Post 92 made on Friday May 14, 2004 at 16:46
blueness
Lurking Member
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May 2004
9
heck yeah!
Post 93 made on Friday May 14, 2004 at 16:49
blueness
Lurking Member
Joined:
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May 2004
9
On 05/12/04 13:54, Don Stratton said...
Since our marketing guy won't let me run polling
software on our web site, I will ask my question
here:

If Griffin were to hold a contest for Total Remote
skin creation, and we offered several hundred
bucks worth of Griffin products as prizes, would
the user community be interested?

--Don

Oops forgot to quote....

Reply: Heck yeah!
Post 94 made on Monday May 17, 2004 at 10:09
nielsje
Long Time Member
Joined:
Posts:
May 2004
15
On 05/12/04 13:54, Don Stratton said...
Since our marketing guy won't let me run polling
software on our web site, I will ask my question
here:

If Griffin were to hold a contest for Total Remote
skin creation, and we offered several hundred
bucks worth of Griffin products as prizes, would
the user community be interested?

--Don
Post 95 made on Monday May 17, 2004 at 10:10
nielsje
Long Time Member
Joined:
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May 2004
15
On 05/17/04 10:09, nielsje said...
hell yeah!!
Post 96 made on Tuesday May 18, 2004 at 13:20
Don Stratton
Long Time Member
Joined:
Posts:
December 2002
190
This is EXACTLY why I ask these things! This feedback is great!

On 05/13/04 19:24, dshmel said...
To be honest, I think most of the users purchasing
your program are crosovers from the Pronto community
who have already spent time (LOTS OF TIME) creating
.ccf's or .pcf's or whatever for their Prontos.

Good point. After all, Total Remote didn't "take off" until I caved in and added CCF support. It would seem clear that users may not have any interest in Total Remote's "native" mode.

I don't know why the developers for PDA remote
software even bother to come up with their own
"skins" and OS'.

My age-old arguement was that the Pronto CCF format is the intellectual property of Philips, and I hated the idea of tying my product's fate to another company. That is somewhat moot, considering the size of the user community. Philips could stop making and supporting Prontos tomorrow and it wouldn't affect virtually any existing users, or any users of third-party software like Total Remote.

Focus on supporting the pronto files and well established community
that already exists and "they will beat a path"
to your product. Trust me on this.

Could be. Makes a hell of an arguement to just eliminate "native" mode.

On 05/14/04 07:01, Wilhelm said...
Hi Don,

I see your didication to push and develop this
product. This is a good sign, but - and there
is allways a but - I really doubt this software
will ever evolve significantly , when you are
planning only a week for coding. As I see it,
there is much, much more to do than can be accomplished
in such a short time.

Wilhelm

Uh... I think you misunderstood. We do not intend to spend one week of coding and then never do anything ever again! I am saying that the next wave of bugfixes is budgeted to take about a week of programmer's time. Total Remote will continue to get updated, likely for the life of the product line. You can NEVER stop working on software.

On 05/14/04 07:35, Robert_F said...
Don did say "at LEAST a week" lets hope that he
can achieve something worthwhile in this time.
I guess it also depends on how many folks are
working on the project for this week. How many
people are in your development team Don or is
this your baby?

There are typically two programmers, one graphic artist, one copywriter, and myself in hardware. Everyone has several other projects to work on, so there is no "full-time" Total Remote employee. Total Remote is very much "my baby" in that Paul Griffin and I created the audio signaling technology, and I was the one who got us going down the path of a Pocket PC product (the original demo was on an MP3 player). No one else here really uses, understands or appreciates Pocket PCs in specific or PDAs in general so it always makes things tough. Also, I am the project engineer on the single most popular product we have ever had, and that takes a lot of my time. Total Remote is, sadly, a drop in Griffin's bucket. However, it is a niche product and we always understood that; we do not expect to sell hundreds of thousands of copies a year. We have yet to reach our sales goal, but it has gotten better over the last 4-5 months as the software has improved, and especially after adding CCF support.

On 05/14/04 16:49, blueness said...
Oops forgot to quote....

Reply: Heck yeah!

On 05/17/04 10:10, nielsje said...
hell yeah!!

O.K., blueness and nielsje, you seem enthusiastic about the contest. Are you guys working in native mode or with CCFs?


--Don
Post 97 made on Tuesday May 18, 2004 at 15:02
dshmel
Founding Member
Joined:
Posts:
October 2001
102
On 05/18/04 13:20, Don Stratton said...
|
My age-old arguement was that the Pronto CCF format
is the intellectual property of Philips, and I
hated the idea of tying my product's fate to another
company. That is somewhat moot, considering the
size of the user community. Philips could stop
making and supporting Prontos tomorrow and it
wouldn't affect virtually any existing users,
or any users of third-party software like Total
Remote.

But isn't this what companies that make software for the Windows OS do everyday? And Mac? Hardware and software makers are part of a symbiontic relationship based on cooperation and support of mutual standards and goals. You are also interdependent on the makers of the PDA's themselves and your work load is in part dictated by how often they change their OS or how cooperative they are in disclosing code, etc.

You must trust that all members of the remote community will act in their own self interest of self preservation. Philips will not stop making Pronto's and will not stop supporting the software unless it becomes unprofitable for them. Your support of the Pronto CCF platform will encourage future use of their software but NOT the purchase of their hardware. In other words, a market of users will develop from the PDA side of the equation - people who own PDA's but NOT Pronto's will buy your program to use in conjunction with the FREE ProntoEdit. It is possible that Pronto will start charging for or licensing their editing software in the future. In this case, it would be wise of you to stay the course in developing your own skin program so you can support new customers. However, I would design your skin program to be able to import and edit a .ccf file, and I would do everything possible to mimic the look and feel of ProntoEdit.

I am by no means an expert in the field of intellectual property rights and software licensing, so I don't know how your future development is affected by legal constraints. I do think you are insightful in realizing you have a market bubble to tap by making your software .ccf friendly. Get your customers to the dance.
Post 98 made on Wednesday May 19, 2004 at 01:51
Robert_F
Long Time Member
Joined:
Posts:
May 2002
58
Hi Don,Thanks for the responses to several questions. I think that if you only have a limited amount of programming time to devote to TR then perhaps it would be a good idea to drop it's native code and concentrate on perfecting ccf compatibility. I'm sure there would be a lot more users interested in ccf mode than native which I have found too limiting with my system to be truly useful. Glad to hear sales have picked up after ccf mode was introduced. I think this is a pointer to the direction you should be heading and as you stated, even if Philips dropped the Pronto (which is highly unlikely given the development it has had recently) the community base here would continue the format using Tonto if not ProntoEdit. Any date to look forward to for the next release?
Post 99 made on Wednesday May 19, 2004 at 08:05
Anthony
Ultimate Member
Joined:
Posts:
May 2001
28,867
If? The CCF format has been dropped, for the new PCF format. The PCF format came out over a year ago when the new Pronto TSU-3000 came out, and the newer ProntoPro TSU-7000 uses it also
...
Post 100 made on Wednesday May 19, 2004 at 16:56
blueness
Lurking Member
Joined:
Posts:
May 2004
9
Good point. After all, Total Remote didn't "take
off" until I caved in and added CCF support.
It would seem clear that users may not have any
interest in Total Remote's "native" mode.

I don't really have a problem with native mode, but I can see if people have already been tinkering with the .ccf format they would not enjoy duplicating their efforts.

For me it's all from the graphic/interface design point of view so I hope to simply create versatile "common denominators" that can be readily adapted to either native TR or .ccf.

Considering your native mode is likely to have less lag that the adaptive .ccf support, I'd prefer to start with native and well... "adapt" it to .ccf. The less translation (transilatory?) steps the better the response for the user. Convenience is good, but optimization is worth the effort, IMHO (ack! That's the first time I've used that convention (coming from someone who started chatting on Conference XYZ in 1978 on the Dartmouth College VAX system)).

My age-old arguement was that the Pronto CCF format
is the intellectual property of Philips, and I
hated the idea of tying my product's fate to another
company. That is somewhat moot, considering the
size of the user community.

As a 3D illustrator occaisionally burnt by clients, I support the age old arguement for appropriate respect of intellectual property, though, it might be in Philips' best interest to "let go" and allow adaptive (word of the day) cloning of their file format to help establish it as a standard similar to that of a .pdf or .swf.

There are typically two programmers, one graphic
artist, one copywriter, and myself in hardware.

Does the artist need a compadre? (so shameless ;-) )

Total Remote is very much "my baby" in that Paul
Griffin and I created the audio signaling technology,

and such a versatile, practical and cool technology it is...

We have yet to reach our sales
goal, but it has gotten better over the last 4-5
months as the software has improved, and especially
after adding CCF support.

I had to order my "Total Remote" online. Is there an effort to approach the Best Buys and Staples of the world and put it in the PocketPC isle or even the remote control isle? I imagine that's where you'll get the browsers who might mistakenly purchase a lacluster dedicated "clicker" that simply frustrates them (both functionally and aesthetically) as they do me.

O.K., blueness and nielsje, you seem enthusiastic
about the contest. Are you guys working in native
mode or with CCFs?

I'm starting in native because I'm new to this and haven't had a chance to tinker with the .ccf format. Heck, with spring kicking in up here in the "great white north," it's hard to set down to having some fun with TR, in general. I also just swapped my Sony for a Panasonic CT27HL14 (an excellent HD ready (480p/1080i) plain old CRT for only $100 more than the non-HD Sony 27FS100).

Now that the system is happy and settled, I can start customizing its usage.

As for my first "skin", I was hoping to take a cue from your Kubrick skin and create something slightly starker (but still cool) called "Odyssey". It's amazing how that aesthetic (the other word of the day) still holds its own... in fact much of today's graphic design vernacular seemed exemplified in that movie.

After "odyssey", I'd hope to put some subtle 3D skills to use on something more classic 80s videogame style. Have you seen the PS2 game "Rez"? That "Tron" aesthetic is also compelling, but might not be the most ergonomic in some lighting conditions.

Cheers!
Blueness (I have a blue Subaru WRX and the Blue Meanies were hilarious)
Post 101 made on Friday May 21, 2004 at 05:22
nsafreak
Long Time Member
Joined:
Posts:
May 2004
13
Interesting read in this thread. Read through it hoping somebody had came across a problem similar to mine and Don had fixed it since my other post is getting lots of views but no suggesstions. Oh well, I'll keep looking I guess.
Post 102 made on Friday May 21, 2004 at 09:11
Morak
Lurking Member
Joined:
Posts:
May 2004
2
Hi all,
I have an iPAQ 4150 and, although it doesnt have CIR, does anyone know whether the audio IR transmitter that comes with the Total Remote software works with this unit? I have tried with the internal IrDA using the demo, and it works but only from a few feet away (as expected). I am hoping the audio transmitter will allow it to work from further away. Any assistance would be much appreciated.
Post 103 made on Friday May 21, 2004 at 17:50
nielsje
Long Time Member
Joined:
Posts:
May 2004
15
On 05/18/04 13:20, Don Stratton said...
This is EXACTLY why I ask these things! This
feedback is great!

O.K., blueness and nielsje, you seem enthusiastic
about the contest. Are you guys working in native
mode or with CCFs?

I used to use pdawin and designed a lot of ccf files by using tonto,but I'm always searching for something newer and easier.
The way the templates work (button mssk) is both easier and smarter using the color codes.Another nice thing about your program: if you ,for example, setup a Macro to point out a device as the endpoint,you can see the result rightaway (the same with adressing the hardbuttons)
The thing I missed in the skins was a kind of menu,but that was very simple to make (the manual says it all!)
So from now on I'm controlling my equipment with total remote instead of pdawin,in native skin.
Keep up the good works!!

Post 104 made on Saturday May 22, 2004 at 10:21
Marcinko24
Lurking Member
Joined:
Posts:
February 2004
7
I too have been following this thread for a while. I have a IPaq 3950. I love the TR program and I used to be able to learn commands in CCF mode, but I cannot now. Actually it says [C] TR Learned if I look at a button in ProntoEdit but it doesn't work. I can learn buttons in Native mode and it works. My range is very good in Native and CCF mode. If I use a CCF device file, it works, but I am getting the double tap problem (press button once and it sends multiple commands.) I am using the latest version 2.1.333. I've done the open in Tonto save in Tonto open in Pronto ... etc. What am I doing wrong when I learn commands in CCF mode?
Post 105 made on Sunday May 23, 2004 at 02:43
MagnusB
Long Time Member
Joined:
Posts:
March 2004
13
On 05/21/04 09:11, Morak said...
Hi all,
I have an iPAQ 4150 and, although it doesnt have
CIR, does anyone know whether the audio IR transmitter
that comes with the Total Remote software works
with this unit?

I can confirm that it works with a 4150.

Regards, Magnus
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