i have a Sony KE-37xs910 plasma and a Philips 26PF8946. i am having a tough time understanding why the RC9800i support for widescreen TV seems to be very limited.

my Sony remote is RM-Y1001 which has several frequently used buttons: picture (vivid, normal, professional), wide (controls aspect ratios), pic off (turn off plasma screen while the tv is still on if you want to listen to music through the tv's speaker). when i went through the set up steps, the discreet code was found very quickly; however, these buttons are missing and have to be taught to one of the 8 immutable user defined functions. i tried using a few other manual IR code sets, but it seems that the buttons are fixed for a particular type/make of a device and are turn on and off depending on the code set.

for a relatively recently released remote, this is an extremely strange decision not to have buttons for commonly used HDTV functions. am i missing something?

the more traumatic experience is with my Philips 26PF8946. the set up again was quick to recognized the code set; however, this TV requires to be switched to HD mode to watch HD channels. you guessed it, there's no HD input selection. i misplaced the orginal remote so now i can't even teach that function to one of the user defined function buttons. what's going on Philips?

please comment or give suggestions if you had better luck with HDTV controls. thanks. - alan

I'm feeling your pain with regard to missing buttons. The set up process requests much of the data to in-put during remote ID, but I have yet to see any of the buttons reflecting my remote capabilities available on screen. So far I'm unimpressed with this remote. A lot of money, limited cabability. Or am I missing something. User error is possible here, but I'm not too shabby.

you might try adding a seperate activity -- seperate TV -- just for HD. So.. you would have two TV icons under watch and you will just have to know which one is for HDTV and which is for non-HDTV.

Can you provide me more information on this matter?

[email protected]

[email protected]

Just sent you an e-mail asking how I can help...

i AGREE 100%....this remote is very disappointing. I have been waiting for the right remote to replace my old RC2000 for years, and I am embarrassed that I jumped so quickly at this unit. I am going to sell it on Ebay and go back to dreaming about the TSI6400...i should have spent the extra $600 for it.

finally, i sold this piece of crap on ebay and got a Harman Kardon TC 30. whoawhoaweewha! i like! no other remote i tried/owned came even close to this baby! ALL my HD gripes are gone, and this thing controls EVERYTHING correctly with little customization efforts. you can see all the possitive reviews here: [Link: remotecentral.com].

For a mainly button type remote, it's one of the best out there. But if you want ultimate flexability, one of the Pronto programmable touchscreen remotes can't be beat for the price.