I have been looking at a new Sony receiver that includes a 2-way LCD remote. Does anyone have one of these things? Do they have sufficient functionality to use as your primary remote (for TV, VCR, DVD and amp)? Or, is it yet another remote that I'm going to put in the drawer while I go buy a decent learning remote?

The answer is,it depends.If you have all Sony equiptment it does a good job but if you have equiptment from different suppliers the stored codes my not be good enough.Mine does my Panasonic tv but not my Dish Network box or DVD player.Chances are you will want to get a good learning URC but make sure you get one that will do the sound fields,they can be a real challange on some remotes.

Junk, Junk, Junk, Junk!!!!!!!

The two-way feature is nice but not worth the hassle of using one of Sony's crummy OEM remotes.

You will, I bet the house, be looking for a universal remote within a month of buying the Sony receiver. My 50ES receiver is great but the 501 remote that came with it is filed away in a drawer and, hopefully, NEVER to be used again! FYI I'm using a Sony 900 learning remote and it's fantastic!

Good luck, Dan

I'll follow up by agreeing with both Walt and Dan on this, and offer a little more: The Sony VL900 and RM-AV2100 both do the surround modes on Sony equipment. Almost no other reasonably-priced URC can do that properly, although the CrispSolutions UCommand 515 does learn the commands; they just get implemented in a different way, and can be confusing.

The Sony 2-way offers really only one or two things of import over one-way jobbies: you can download your FM and AM stations settings to the remote, and they will display on the screen, so you can scroll through the list to select one. However, you can also scroll through the list as viewed on the front of the receiver, so unless your distance vision is no good, I don't see the point. The better reason for 2-way is that it can download all the CD titles from your CD jukebox for display, but since I don't have a changer I can't tell you if that's a good enough reason.

The rest of the remote handles all the Sony stuff well, but because of the flip-over cover, a goodly number of controls are difficult to get at. One thing that really annoys me is when I want to turn down or crank up the subwoofer, depending on who's watching the movie with me: I have to flip down the cover, enter menu mode, press a dinky arrow button to get to the correct EQ mode, then press another dinky arrow to get to the sub command, then press two dinky arrows left and right (or is it up and down) to make the adjustment. Pretty useless when you're in a hurry because the explosions are shaking the pictures off the walls... ... Mike

Amen to all the above thoughts!!!! Download CD titles and tuner stations? Big deal!!!! You have to wait "how long?" to get to those lists and then have only a few digits of the name? Junk, junk, junk is right. But, it is cool looking don't you think?

Get the VL900, unless you absolutely "have to have" a touch screen!

Greg :-)

I have the Sony CDP-CX450, a 400CD changer with two-way remote.

The remote will only control CD changers (up to three of them) so you need another remote for the volume at very least.

Once you have loaded the data (which takes a fair while but will only need to be repeated when you add another CD or change the groups/artists arround) it will show you a scrollable list of discs. Nice.

Also, you can get a scrollable list of tracks, and if the disc has CD Text, you get to see all the track titles too.

The only problems are:
* Due to screen width, you only get about 11 character long names
* You cannot send the data back to the remote (should the deck get unplugged and lose its memory. Grr)
* It only controls CD players.

I don't have a second player, so I don't know who well it handles that - it would be nice to see a list of all your CDs.

Peter

Typo:

* You cannot send the data back to the remote (should the deck get unplugged and lose its memory. Grr)

Should have said:

* You cannot send the data back to the deck (should the deck get unplugged and lose its memory. Grr)

And another bad point,

* You cannot edit the artist names with the remote
* You cannot edit the disc names on the remote - you have to use the remote in conjunction with the player. A minor complaint really.

I have two Sony mega changers - a 200 and a 400 and while the two way remote is better than a one way (barely), I never use it.

If you have a Sony mega changer, I suggest that you look at the Slink-e from www.nirvis.com - also avialble from Smarthome and perhaps others.

I think a Sony changer without a Sink-e is only half a product.

Cheers, Jim.