hi all,

i am in need of a little guidance. i just bought a Ngx-Rm505 for around $40 which i thought was a good place to start as this was my first universal remote. I managed to set it up by learning buttons off my other remotes and am pretty pleased (would be nice to have a few more characters when renaming buttons and had to improvise for the 4 colored buttons since there were none on the 505 to learn to, and my wife wasnt blown away by the looks of it)

trying to setup a macro is where i am having trouble. i thought it would be nice to have a 'watch movie' activity based button and turn on tv and dvd player and have all components set to correct input,etc. i think the missing link is the ability to LEARN discrete codes, i have read where you can get a $1 radio shack remote that can be programmed with the discrete codes and then learned by the 505, but this is seeming to be over my head. I tried using a comcast remote which i thought could do jp1 stuff but i couldn't get any kind of success (not sure if it is the remote or me, i was going to try a radio shack one but thought i'd ask here before driving myself nuts).

i dont want anything complicated, but i the harmony remotes seem to me to be a little too limited. i want the ability to have short macros, and ability to learn keys. and i really would like to be $100 or less.

is there a more current remote that would be a better bet (ie 4 colored buttons, easily able to add discrete codes, a more attractive design,etc) or should i stick with this?

thanks,
brian