I have a problem; my sister wants me to do the wiring on her mega-huge big screen TV (heh heh and I don't even own one), seperate DVD/VCR/STEREO/EQ/AMP/SURROUND-you name it, she's got it in piles of boxes and I think her husband has some connection overseas and keeps bringing her back more gear.

At any rate, the wiring is the only thing I do NOT have to worry about.

She wants some special Universal Remote that she says bypasses the language settings in the VCRs so it works with Japanese or English or German or French or something like that. She said the Universal Remote model she wanted is
no longer made, but is still popular and can't remember the name.

Any advice on which universal remote is the ultimate remote and will do this job for her and a million others she wants done (one that can fire up a Mr. Coffee too would be appreciated by myself) and of course, where to get it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. By the way, apparently right now she is using a Palm Pilot thingy with an infrared and some little program to do the job...anyone ever hear of that hat trick?

nah... not gonna say it

q... your turn

Play nice now... Its his first day.

Before someone comes in with guns ablaze, I'll let you know that this forum is for people already within the industry. We earn our money doing this sort of thing everyday. Therefore some people in this forum would prefer you to come in and see them face to face and get the job done properly, rather than have a "half arsed" go at it yourself.

Alright everyone - enough said, now I'll put my two cents in.

Your question is pretty vague but essentially, the ultimate remote is generally know as Crestron, AMX, Elan etc etc. This requires very smart people (us!!) to be trained by the manufacturers and then we spend hours programming each individual system to spec.

To continue BCM-OZ's thought,

the process we use very often totally bypasses whatever language the user may speak, or the manual may be written in, because as we program, we leave the realm of language and think in symbols, processes, flows and priorities...which are dastardly difficult to put into language.

For instance, "dastardly" is an adjective, despite its -ly, and that particular usage above REALLY should have been dastardly-ly, as one creates an adverb from an adjective by adding -ly; I, writing yet concomitantly being in non-language mode, recognized this fact but wrote "dastardly" anyway, as that is what the language demands. THAT is an analog of the kind of thing you run into when programming, which is why we recommend people trained to do it. Yes, us.

There is another approach -- I suddenly remember a thread from a few years back touting the completely universal remote. It was a piece of wood to which you would attach all of your remotes, and voila! no looking for a remote when you need it!

The RCA Universal 4 has language translation

The ultimate universal remote....Girlfriend, Maid, significant other.

With proper care, batteries and training the control can be made voice activated.

Wives usually lose the voice activated part and only the discrete power off command works.


BTW, do you know what kill your sex life faster than anything? wedding cake!

Very nice grammatical exposition, EBG..I do appreciate the proper use of, or the extrapolation thereof, correct English.

AHL ..go ahead and say it...I'm in an amused, but suspenseful state eagerly awaiting your comments.

The Ultimate Remote

(With apologies. Sorry, I just couldn't resist).

The program she's using on her Palm Pilot is probably Novis (think I spelled that right) remote/lite. It's a palm OS application that allow a Palm PDA to to function much like the Phillips Pronto remote. I played with it years ago, liked it well enough but found that...a: the IR emitter in most PDA's is just not powerfull enough to make them really reliable and, b: I prefer a hard button type remote instead of touch screen.

On the language conversion question....not sure I know exactky what you mean but it seems to me that mose language conversion, for AV equipment, is set up in the devices main menu. Once set to, say Swahili, everything from then on would be outputted in that language. As far as device commands, from a remote control are concerned, I would really think that there is one command set (power on is power on no matter what language you want to speak) so, once the device was set,via it's main menu, for English, that should be all you'ld have to do and this would have no effect on the underlying IR remote commands.

Truth is, this question probably would get you better/more appropriate responses if you posted in several of the remote forums (try Home Theater Master (great universal remotes...primarily hard button but several touch screen as well, and also try the Pronto forum (Pronto, as far as I know, is purely touch screen).

Good luck.