Hi everyone,

So far I've been using a Logitech Harmony to control everything in my home theather, but my set-up slowly grew in size and complexity and I've the feeling it's now a good time to invest into a proper remote.

There's a few things that my harmony can't do (that I know of) and that I would like my new remote to handle, first I have a screen with a masking system that for the time being is controlled by a separate RF remote, then I have an anamorphic lens that I control using the 12v trigger on the projector, obviously the idea would be to control it all and to create some scenario, so if 2.35 material one click would bring mask up, put the anamorphic lens in place and also do the vertical stretch on the video processor, this I believe is fairly easy.

Then I would like to control my htpc and I believe this will be tricky, I know some remote have wifi capabilities, what I don't know if those can be used to trigger macro on the computer, the idea would be to have a macro that launches the media portal I use on my HTPC (XBMC), from their XBMC is easy to use just up/down/right/left and enter to launch the movie, maybe specific keys could be map on the remote, like on a regular keyboard, right now I use a Logitech Di Novo mini.

The last part is really something I've no clue about and it's lightening control, I was wondering what kind of installation you need to control lights, typicaly what kind of light you need to purchase so they can be remote controlled and how do you remote control existing lights?

The reason I'm asking this is because I'm renting and I can't start having the installer drilling holes around the house and making too much changes to the electrical installation.

My budget for the whole thing can go up to 4-5k USD.

any help on what brand, solution to choose would be very appreciated.

Thx

Lutron for the Lighting control, you won't need to do anything except change the switches for wireless dimmers.

And I can control them with *any* remote, like say a pronto?

yes you can.