I've been using an MX-1000 for just under a month, and I've decided it's not worth the trouble. If it was sold simply as was a stand-alone remote and for considerably less money - I may have decided to keep it. But considering the price tag, the poor contrast display, and the lame software - it doesn't cut it for me.

I am impressed with those who have seen it thru to invent their own button bitmaps to help overcome the display deficiencies - and struggle with the buggy software. I, personally, am not willing to invest that magnitude of time for this. I am amazed that a company can put out software that is NOT obvious in its operation and not even have the courtesy to include any help or readme file to provide some hints! Couldn't they find one person to spend an afternoon writing up a readme file? Come on, Guys!

I have never been able to get the remote to upload successfully to the PC. (Many others have complained of this problem on this site.) I have tried two PCs and neither work. The same comm ports work fine for other devices. Both PCs are Pentium II class - so you can't blame them as being too wimpy for this kind of application. I had no conflicting applications running, such as PDA synch applets. It has been able to download - but not very helpful when I can't hook it up with the buttons I've already learned. I've emailed the support folks to ask what the comm port settings should be - since it behaves like a baud rate or flow control problem - and never got a reply.

In the process of checking out this site to try to solve my problems, I found the note about the Radio Shack 15-1994 remote. Got one of these, and am much happier with it. I can live without an LCD display if I can get all the control I need on learnable hard buttons for $29.95!

Check it out!

Remember, the 15-1994 can only learn 15-25 codes, period. If you want true learning you need to go to the SONY RM-VL900.

As with ANY product, there is no one perfect product for every need. This seems to be the perfect remote for ME. After searching far and wide for a remote flexible enough to replace ALL my remotes (i.e. with a dot-matrix LCD screen) and with enough hardware buttons to NOT need the screen 90% of the time (my biggest complaint with the remote for the Sony STR-DA50ES is you ALWAYS have to wake it up to do anything).

So far it just looks good on paper... I'll have to wait for mine to arrive before I can tell you whether I'm gonna have problems with the PC interface. But I'll tell you ONE thing... I'm one that will tweak the HECK outta that LCD screen!

Daniel, how responsive has Home Theater Master been about updating their firmware, and specifically in adopting your suggestions on improving their SW?

David

I'm basically ready to return mine too, I'm sorry to say.

Bottom line: No returned calls or email from HomeTheater Master for support. Despite my computer & programming background, the software is very tempermental & full of bugs; not to mention, no documentation.

No wonder they had ads in various home theater magazines in late 1999 but kept delaying release until late 2000. I think they should have waited a bit longer.

Dear MX1000 Customers:

I would like to introduce myself and secondly, provide some additional information on some steps we are taking to respond to some concerns raised on RemoteCentral about the Home Theater Master products.

I am one of the managers at Universal Remote Control with primary responsibility for the home theater product line.

Judging by your comments on RemoteCentral, I know several of you have been experiencing problems with the MX1000 in two distinct areas: the software and support on using both the unit and the software.

We are presently working on improving both of these items and view the improvements in these areas as critical to the long-term success of the MX1000 and future products.

We value your comments, suggestions, reviews(good and bad)and will make very attempt to include them in future revisions of the product software and manual. We are very open to comments to make the manual more user-friendly and anything that would make the programming easier.

If you call or e-mail our offices and do not receive a satisfactory response, please free to contact me at [email protected].

Sincerely,

John Davis

Thanks for jumping in John. I really enjoy my MX-1000 and have worked around most of the problems mentioned. You're right in focusing on getting the software to work properly. Even with the latest release, when I upload from the remote to my computer, the MAIN1 page is gone. If I could confidently transfer back and forth from remote to computer, customization would be a snap. Hope to talk to you at CES.