I received a Sony RM-AV3100 remote for Christmas. We just moved into a new house in December, and my wife and I have been going nuts with all the remotes to control all of our new toys. The house is not all that fancy, but we have a good collection of equipment:

The main entertainment room has two dish network receivers with DVR's on each, 1 DVD, 1 VCR, an AM/FM receiver stereo surround-sound thing and a TV. Pretty simple stuff - 5 or 6 remote controls, I think. The house has the video, phones, computer, god-knows-what-else networked everywhere and I'm told there is an I/R repeating system built in,so we can control the sats, dvds, etc., from other tv's in the house, but you couldn't tell it by me so far. There is also some X-10 stuff here and there, and we're wired for a multi-zone audio distribution system with what looks to be several miles of cat-5 and speaker wires.

The instructions with the 3100 may as well be written in Japanese. Typical Sony instructions- terrible to understand. I would have better luck climbing into the space shuttle and blasting off on my own. I have more electronic experience than your average idiot on the street, but this remote looks like I need to go back to college to program it, and I just dont have the time to shop around for an easier device to learn.

So here's the question: Do I bite the bullet and keep this 3100 or is there a better, more intuitive device out there that will run the above components from one device that doesnt take a college degree to master? Is this 3100 worth keeping or is there a better choice? It was purchased at Best Buy, so I can still return it for something else. I have no clue which one might be better..... or worse!

Thanks for the advise.

JIM

Although I am new to the AV3100, it is a fantastic remote. It however takes a little time to get to grips with the learning function, and from what I have learnt most of the buttons will have to be learnt from the old remotes and not the codes of each device.

Although my system is much simpler than your I have still managed to get 95% of the buttons to do what I want.

Prior to buying my remote I did a trawl of the internet and the AV3100 seemed to come out on top for functionality and price. There are a number of substantially more expensive (£500+) remotes out there, but not to many write ups on them and nothing like this stie where if you have a problem there are a multitude of people who have had the same problem and either know a fix or a work around.

As to needing a masters degree to understand the manual, well, I agree. However if you do a few simple learning functions first and don't try for the full system key macros until you are completly familiar with the learning function it isn't that bad. each step is effectively the same and therefore very quickly you will be able to program it without have to decipher the entire manual each time.

One small hint is that don't hide you old remotes to quickly. There will be a couple of functions that you don't realise you use until you need them. If the old remotes are handy you can quickly program an extra button.

Have fun
Jim

I don't know if you have seen these, but they may help clear some things up for you.

Your question, and many others which may come up, will be answered somewhere in the following threads.

RM-AV3000/3100 NEWCOMER’S PACKAGE-WELCOME-CHECK THESE OUT (IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY DONE SO) AND SAVE YOURSELF SOME PROBLEMS

SYSTEM CONTROL KEYS: Everything you need to know about them

HOW TO LABEL, CHANGE OR HIDE BUTTONS

CHANGING BATTERIES (May not be necessary on RM-AV3100, but why take a chance when it's only 20 seconds?)

AND IF YOU HAVE A SONY RECEIVER:
CHANGING YOUR RECEIVER AND REMOTE TO AV1 (or AV2) COMMAND MODE

AND HERE IS SOME MORE INFO IN CASE THE MANUAL GETS TOO CONFUSING

REMOTE CENTRAL RM-AV3000/RM-AV3100 FORUM REVIEW (INCLUDING THE QUICK PROGRAMMING GUIDE)

ALSO, CHECK OUT THE TIPS AND TRICKS SECTION.