Ola everyone, could really use some help here. Customer has Aragon equip. (7 channel amp, processor, dvd) and hd sat receiver, 5 disc Denon CD player, Denon HT Receiver and Mits VCR. Oh yeah, Samsung DLP TV. All of this is in living room, and he would like a touch screen remote that mounts on the wall that is hard wired into a IR system. He doesn't trust remotes totally and would like a back up plan if possible. Any and all suggestions would help.

Thanks in advance,

Michael

PS,,, just in case you were wondering, the Denon runs the bedroom TV and 1 pair of speakers. We are going to run a video cable into the bedroom for a wall mount tv. I am coming in on the end of this project as the company he hired originally has screwed him royally. The wife wont let us put any equipment in the bedroom except the TV and the speakers in the roof, had any customers with wifes like that before, hahaha.

Elan, Crestron, AMX, Niles, Sonance, Audio Access all make wall mountable touch panels that can control source equipment via IR.

However as you will have equipment, especially the Samsung DLP, that requires a lot more logic to make work ( initial turn on takes 30 seconds before you can send it input or aspect ratio commands. After turn of it takes 90 seconds to turn back on ) you may want to contact a AMX or Crestron integration company. You may not wish to control this equipment with simple macros but employ logic that bases the macro on the state of the equipment. If off then wait before sending input and apspect commands but if already on send them immediately. It has been a long time since I messed with Aragon equipment so I have no idea how it controls. The Denon HT receiver can be communicated with via serial and the other gear via IR utilizing discrete codes.

Obviously the Niles and Sonance gear will be easies to obtain while the AMX and Crestron will be the best able to accomplish the task but also the most expensive solution--and a solution you will not have control over as you will need to depend on a third party programmer.

Alan

That's kinda what I was worried about, I think this guy is just a gadget freak, and was originally sold the wrong equipment without really qualifying the customer for what his needs were. The thing I don't really get is he has a HT Master MX700 remote now that he hates because it was programmed wrong (which i am going to fix), and he wants to purchase a Pronto TSU3000 from me. But he still wants a hard wired unit that is going to be in the same room. Any logic????

Take the example of the DLP. A wired touch panel can provide much that a one way IR remote cannot, even if all equipment is one way IR and provides no feedback. You can use logic to indicate what channel you are on, what surround mode, what source is playing, and perhaps the channel or preset currently playing. You could also pop up a page telling the end user to wait while system is turning on or off. It also will not walk away as so many remotes do. I designed a sysetm for a gym with a Crestron ST-1700 but installed 2 CT-1000 wall mount touch panels as back up, largely to deal with the lighting. Low and behold 3 years later the RF touch panel is erraticlly communicating with the gateway but I had a wired panel as backup so the client was able to use the system and watch the football game as he worked out. Too many of our clients want what they want when they want it. As is the client who wants to ring to kill me because I have been swamped these past 2 weeks and cannot fit his reinstallation of a hard drive into my schedule until the end of this week. Sometimes overkill can save us in the end. If I had placed my hard drive into the system they might be more tollerant of my schedule. Sometimes overkill is actually what was necessary.

Alan

You can use Xantech's SPLCD Touch panesl also.

The Xantech SPLCD will also do RS232 and has a minimacronizer in hte lcd panel.

Mike