Today, I received a review unit of the Philips Pronto remote control. I hope to have up detailed information soon! If you have any questions, please ask them here.

Hi there Daniel...looks like i am the only person interested so far!. As you may remember i currently have a marantz rc2kii on eval, and find that while it is ok for the 'expert user' (ie the person that setup the AV kit and the remote), other family members/visitors cannot operate the system. My question is how easy is it to program in 2 ways:
1) to replicate the most used buttons on all of the used equipment
2) to create 'task based' macros, which are named 'watch a DVD' or 'play a CD' and will set the correct source, tv settings and amp settings
3) how comfortable/responsive is using the touch screen compared to a traditional button remote.
4) when is it shipping
5) what are the limitations you have found if any? the most glaring i have found on the marantz are the macro system which IMHO is so flawed to be useless.

Regards
David

My only concern is that the buttons look too
small, and it seems like it will be awkward to
hit the right one and not the adjacent one.
Especially if one wanted to have a 4-way cursor
with the activate button in the middle, I would
think you'd be constantly hitting the activate
button instead of a direction button. I'd really
appreciate this kind of information.

Also, Do you have total control of the layout of
the buttons? (pixel by pixel) I assume you can
label buttons with text as well as a preset
library of symbols, correct?

I NEED MORE INFORMATION!!! There just isn't enough info on this remote yet... So, a few questions I have... Is it possible to create your own screen layouts (either via the remote, or better yet, via a PC and upload them via the RS-232 port)... And if so, can you create your own links as well (such as if you touch a virtual button on a screen that you created it is able to send a signal AND/OR jump to another menu screen)? I guess it would be better to wait for a full review so some questions will be answered already and other questions will be more concrete. Thanks for the web site to get info on all these remotes!

I hope to have a preliminary review up tonight or tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Great! I'm looking for info.. hope you have it up soon...

Hello Daniel,

looks like Philips has finally "put its finger"
on the right technology combination...
...eventhough Sony had a similar concept implemented back in 1991 but somehow it did not hit the market!

I'd like to find out (like most of us) how easy it
is to configure the layout and programming of the
LCD screen and what (software/hardware) do you need to do so?

Also:

1) Is it easy to assign a new IR code to a virtual button?
2) Can you program time-based macro events like:
- turn on the TV
- wait 1 sec
- switch to channel 4
- etc.
3) What is the range of IR frequencies that can be learned (more specifically, can it learn a B&O code?)

Thanks for your time/answer(s) + for a great & useful website!!

Sylvain

Hey, where's the prelim review??? Did the remote swallow you for breakfast? Or are you simply drooling over (and innundated with the features of) this remote? :)

Ok Daniel, got plenty of info from your last review - that was great!!!
The question now is: can you buy it somewhere on the web since I'm in Paris, France and I dont believe it is distributed here yet - right?

looking forward to hear back....

sylvain