I am hoping to find suggestions for the following equipment for under $150. My objective is to get a single remote that can replace all 4 of these and do macros so that a single button can turn on devices, change home theater audio source, and change TV video source as necessary. Here is the gear I have...

Home Theater Pioneer VSX-816
BluRay DVD Panasonic DMP-BD605
TV Phillips BX-23U
Satellite DirecTV HD DVR (Unsure of any kind of model number on this)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. It would be great if I can find this at a local store rather than having to order it online. I am a Mac user, so something computer programmable should support a Mac.

Sounds like a Logitech Harmony remote would be your best bet.

Pros:
Easy to program with software.
Does all the power and device management for you once it is setup.
Widely available
Newer models have most of the hard buttons used by directv

Cons:
Not very durable
Not very flexible from a programming perspective

An alternative would be the URC R50.

$150 + computer programmable + Mac compatible = Harmony. There really is no other choice, no matter how expensive your budget, as everything else uses Windows software.

If you don't mind not being computer programmable, the URC R50 is a very good alternative.



Incidentally, am I the only one out there that feels that if URC tweaked some of the R50's design, stuck the USB port back back on and spent time developing some basic programming software while keeping it at a $100 street price, they could put a real dent in the lower-end market? Because the R50's current price is already more than competitive, and about the only drawback is it doesn't have computer programmability. We already know that the underlying hardware is USB compatible, thanks to the MX-450, so all it would take is some new software (obviously consumer oriented versus the overly flexible MX-450).

I totally agree, there is no real quality alternative to harmony. Just putting a pc programmable remote with decent build quality for the consumer market would be a huge win.

Best Buy seems to have 2 options in my price range on the Logitech Harmony... The first is the Harmony 510 priced at $99, and the other option is the Harmony 700 at $149. I currently only have 4 devices to control, so the 510 would still have room for me to add one more device in the future. Is there any serious advantage to going with the 700 if I don't need the extra device? Thanks again.

Is Best Buy the only place you are looking for a remote? Do you not care about quality? Or, do you only want a remote you can program with your Mac? Do you have a Windowes emulator on your computer?

I'm willing to go places other than Best Buy, and yes I care about quality. I am however hoping to keep the new remote at $150 or less, and I really like the idea of being able to program it on my computer. Yes, I can boot my Mac directly into Windows if needed. I'm pretty much sold on the Logitech Harmony 700 unless someone has a really compelling reason to go with something else.

There are any *serious* advantages. But there are some advantages.

1. The 700 has a nicer display
2. The 700 has a different button layout. I would argue that it is a much better layout but that of course is just my preference.
3. The 700 has a rechargeable battery.
4. As you already stated the 700 supports an additional device.