Figured I'd ask the experts.

I'm doing a job tomorrow that has a TV/Surround sound, a 2nd TV on a back wall (using TV speakers), and 1 zone of audio. The customer wants to have only 1 remote. Not a problem, I can make it work, but I'm not sure the best way to lay out the remote so that it makes sense for him to work.

Equipment going in...
Sony LCD
Onkyo rcvr (w/ 2nd zone audio)
Panasonic plasma
2 FIOS boxes (1 dedicated for each TV)
Blu-ray (HDMI split to both TVs)
Sirius tuner
T2-C
RP-6/RM-433

My first thought is to set it up normally (for the surround sound system) but to put a button on the home page that takes you to the 2nd TV & audio zone controls.

I suppose I just need a push in the right direction. I'm not even sure what to call the 2nd TV yet! It's on the back wall of the basement rec room where the surround stuff is, but is on an articulating arm and could be for the bar or could be turned the other way towards the playroom.

I appreciate any and all comments. Thanks!!

Jim

I would set it up with three home pages, using the right and left arrows to change between main tv, 2nd tv, and 2nd zone audio if you are using that. That way they just go to the home page of whatever they are trying to control and pick what they want to do. All three pages should have independent power offs.

There are many ways to do this though and you will probably get several strategies.

You could also put buttons on main page for 2nd tv and zone 2 audio. You are going to want to make sure and have emitters to both tv's so it is completely rf.

Room Picker
-----|-------|-------
First Zone--2nd Zone
-----|-------|-------
-Z1 Devices-Z2 Devices

Treat each as a separate remote... home from a device takes them to the HOmne page for that room. Home again takes them to room selection.

Expanding on the above post from Springs. Try laying out the high level menus on paper either using an application such as Visio or any other flow chart program (even excel will work).

This will allow you to see, at a high level, the flow of your setup and you can make corrections to the logical paths before the actual programming. You may find out that it can speed up the programming of the remote because you're thought it out before hand. It will also serve as a useful template for future programming.

I would set page one up for "room selection" followed by "source selection" for the corresponding room. Standard.

However, on each source control page I would have a link in the bottom corner to the opposite "room source" selection.

Example:

-Main TV Sat control page with a link to the back TV source control page.


If they are sharing sources you could also add a "add back TV" button to join it on the same source.

Great. Thanks guys. These are all good ideas for me.

One of my concerns is getting from 'inside' - meaning like you're watching a DVD on the surround sound - to switching whats playing on the ceiling speakers in the playroom, and getting back to the DVD page for the surround sound without getting 'lost'. Maybe I'm over complicating it...

flags can help remember what state each zone is in if you jump back and forth....

I usually set-up the main page as the source page for the main zone, the one they will be using the most, like a living room with outdoor, kitchen, and office zones. And I'll put the secondary zone pages on the arrows. So they just need to arrow over to get to them. That way they don't have to be bothered with choosing a zone every time but only when they want to. And instead of using flags you could use a button to go back to main zones control. You would just have to not save the pages for the secondary zones in history, much easier then flags.

I would typically create a home page for each area / room with the specific sources / activities listed for each one. The hard button for home is different for each area as they all have separate home pages.

I would then have a shortcut on every page for every area, perhaps a bar at the top that takes you to a "room select" page. You can separate them visually by giving each room a different color background and also use those matching colors for each area select button. Even at a quick glance, they will know what area it is currently controlling by the colors.

Each "room select" would take you directly to the correct home page with specific acivities and options for each area. You could also use a cropped section or zoom-in of the house plan as your room / area select if they are very close to one another to add a custom element. It would be a tight fit on the T2-C in any case and the T3 / T4 is better suited for this type of graphic element.

Everyone posted good ideas for this type of setup, it may take a little tweaking and client feedback to get it just right for him/her.

I agree. All great ideas. Thanks all

Just did a house with 3 Zones (Family Room, House Audio and Master Bdrm) using the T2C and RP6.

I can e-mail the emulation file to you if your interested. Most of the graphics were stock except part of the Zone 2 Audio Selection and xBox pages.

Yeah that would be great.

jstolzenbach at questron-inc dot com

Thanks!

You have mail.

Those codes worked perfectly. Saved me a ton of 'testing' time. Thanks!

I ended up doing a "room picker" home page, followed by source selection pages for each room. I used flags to track what room you were in and made the home button take you back to the room source selection page (which had a little "Rooms" button at the top to take you back to the "room picker" page).

I got the ultimate compliment from the customer when he said "That seems easy enough"

Thanks all