Using a new harmony remote (768/748) with tivo.

Has anyone used one of the new harmony sst-768 / 748 remotes with a tivo. I am wondering how well it controls the tivo like if I can record shows, 30 second skip, thumbs up and down.

If anyone has any opinons about this remote it would be good too. I think it looks good because of the small size and I like hard buttons vs a large touch screen like the pronto.

Also is there something wrong with the pronto neo ? I searched the bbs for the harmony remote and in the thread I found about it people were posting they like the pronto but not the pronto neo. I think the neo looks pretty good too except it's kind of large.

The Pronto Neo is like a "Pronto Light"

I believe the main difference is that it isn't as customizeable like the Pronto is. You can't design the buttons and such. I thought it looked good until I found that out. I, too, like hard buttons. The Pronto is a really great product, but I just don't have the patience to look at the remote screen when I want to operate my TV. After all, I spent year playing video games to develop hand-eye coordination. I'd better use it!

Is the Harmony remote that one that claims to simplify the home theater control process by creating "environment-based" situations or whatever they call it? I don't think I'd like to have a remote that had that much control over me.

The harmony one is the one with the web interface that is supposed to make it easy to program. I don't care too much about that I won't be using any thing advanced like macros. I just want to be able to use one remote to run my tivo, tv, and stereo. So I can be playing a game and run the stereo without having 3 remotes in the chair.

When you say you can't design buttons do you mean the buttons on the touch screen ? According to the Philips website it has a "Dynamic, customizable user interface"

Yes, but only so far. I think you can tell it what to say on the buttons on the touchscreen, but the real Pronto lets you completely customize the face of each screen on the remote seperately. With the Pronto Neo, I believe you are limited to like 2 columns of 6 buttons or 8 buttons, and those are the ones that you can name different things. Other than that, I don't think there is much customization. It's just beyond a normal universal remote.

I think I would just be frustrated with the Harmony. That web interface, for one, doesn't appeal to me. The thing just has so few buttons on it, and I don't want it to control what I can control based on "situations" (or whatever they call it). Plus, it sounds like what you want to do can be easily solved by a much cheaper remote. Like one without an LCD/touchscreen. Isn't the Harmony one of the $200+ remotes?

I was the one who discussed the Harmony Remote. After further research and input from this message board as well as Remote Central, I have purchased the Philips Pronto TSU3000 from Amazon. It should be shipped this week, so I'll let keep you posted on how it is...

The 768 has 32 buttons which is plenty for me. I probably could just get a normal learning remote but all of those I have found are 2 feet long and have way too many buttons that are the same size and shape.

I owned a TSU1000 (the original) and it was awesome ... I then ordered the TSU(6?)000 (the ProntoPro) and it sucked -- ridiculous cost and shoddy craftsmanship. My TSU3000 gets here tomorrow and I'm psyched -- It looks like they went back to their roots I have high hopes.

I found after a couple weeks of use that I didn't really need to look at the remote that much -- you get very used to the layout to the point that you know where the buttons will be.

ms

Ah, I hadn't seen the 3000 yet. They've got so many out now.

Frankly, all I really need is a few more buttons on my Tivo remote, then I'd be in heaven!

the best designed remote I have is actually the first silver TiVo peanut remote ... it's really well layed (laid?) out. I upgraded to a DirecTivo recently and the remote that came with it makes me angry...

The peanut is great that's kinda why I was looking at the harmony it looks about the same size.

Not to bring up religion again, but ReplayTV remotes are (for the most part) JP1able. Good remote, fully upgradable. Hard to beat, really.

I've looked at the previous Harmony remotes and almost bought one for my parents. They're designed for people who don't want to understand the difference between S-Video and Front AV inputs. If you aren't going to use the advanced macro features it seems like a waste, however.

Matthew

My two big concerns about the harmony where 1) the web-based management stuff -- that's just really weird ... they should have done a web service that lets you download the latest settings into a regular app. If they go out of business, harmony owners would be kind of screwed. 2) and this is unfair having not used one, but I tend to question their ability to represent the breadth of commands that you can issue to a certain device with their layout. TiVo's a great example -- there are a lot of different buttons I use on a TiVo controller during a normal session... Until the Pronto, I was never able to really model the TiVo well. Just my two cents though -- Like I said, I've never used a Harmony, so I may just be missing out on an exciting new world

I'm not worried about the web stuff if they go out of business I guess it would suck but what would happen if tivo went out of business.

As far as there not being enough buttons are you looking at the current new model not the original 745 the 768 it has 32 buttons.

Good point ...

You're right that I was thinking about the old version ... The new one looks a lot better. If my new Pronto wasn't showing up tomorrow, I'd would seriously consider it ...

This is the one I am talking about I think everyone is thinking of the 745 old one.
Link

That's at least more acceptable. I was also worried about the lack of buttons on the old one. It looked like it had about 8 buttons on it! I agree, I regularly use more than that when just watching Tivo, so that would make it tough. That new one seems a little better. I still don't like that web management, though.


As for the Replay remote, I won't comment on it because I haven't tried it. I wouldn't say it's unbeatable, if I were you unless I had tried the competition's product Have you tried the Tivo remote?

Honestly, I don't need to try another remote out. Any remote that would be advertised as a replacement for my Tivo remote I automatically ignore because I'm already so happy with the supplied remote. It is, IMO, perfect for me

Yeah the old one wouldn't have enough buttons.

I haven't seen a replay remote.

I need about 17 for all the stuff I use on the tivo remote.

30 sec skip
Tivo button
4 buttons to replace the four way thing
play
pause
record
2 for vol
2 for channel
enter
live / guide
tv power
mute

I'm not sure if it's worth giving up using the tivo remote for the convience of being able to use one for everything or not I haven't decieded yet. I wish a store would carry these things.

For me, I wasn't able to replace it. I've stopped using the Pronto. For a while I was using the remote that came with my receiver, because the 4-way toggle button on it had a click for a press on the whole thing that I used for "select". However, I found that the Tivo layout is just so great, I couldn't live without it! It's sad how ingrained these things get

Have you tried the Tivo remote?

Not yet. Used replays can be picked up far cheapter than used tivos. Everyone knows what a tivo is, so they go for their true value. So far I've picked up two Replays for $150 or less, both of the lifetime subscription generation. If I ever find a Tivo in that price range, I'll buy it and tell you how I like the remote.

I think the real thing is that once you have a Tivo/Replay, it starts dictating how you watch TV, and you don't need anything else, except a DVD remote. My new TV has picture-in-picture, and I havn't even been bothered to pick up a splitter kit so I can use it as there isn't any point.

I don't think anyone's solved the universal remote problem yet. What we need is a company that has a few basic remotes with buttons you can replace with ones that say something else. It should also be fully configurable/learning and do macros. Don't get my started on discrete codes and A/V manufacturers...

I have the TSU-2000 (I think that's the #) and I have found that the DirecTiVo remote (peanut shaped, but I don't think it's the original people speak of) is easier to use by touch. I pretty much use the Pronto to turn everything on and off now. An expensive universal power button...
The beep it emits when you go to the home screen to shutdown everything let's the dogs know it's time for bed.

I don't know what happened to Philips after the TSU-1000, but I got my TSU-3000 today and I'm already annoyed by it ... First of all, the new directional buttons at the button give me carpal tunnel to try and press; second, the thing is huge -- seems bigger than the 1000; third, the lag is infuriating -- button presses on the peanut generate a nearly immediately response, but if i map the directionals to the Pronto, there's a very noticable lag... Anyway, at almost $300 for a remote, the thing should be flawless (ok, at least better than this). Anyway, long story short, it's getting shipped back tomorrow. I think I'll give the Harmony a shot ...

I just got my Harmony 768 today ... I gotta say, I'm really impressed with this thing. It mostly just works, which is rare. There are a couple of kinks i need to work through -- for instance, I have a Hughes HDVR2 (almost a Series2 TiVo, but not quite), and there wasn't an exact device match... everything works except the channel guide they have seems to only send the last two of three channel numbers (so "254" becomes "54"). The "statefulness" is really cleverly implemented too ... and it's a really nice interface when things get out of sync. For instance, everything is off and i select 'watch a dvd". it turns on the tv, turns on the receiver, turns on the dvd player, switches the tv to input 4, and the receiver to multichannel. What's cool is that the first time i did this, the tv wasn't switched to the right input. So I hit the help button and it says "is the dvd player on?" (yes), "is the receiver on?" (yes), "is the receiver on multichanne?" (yes), "is the tv on?" (yes), "is the tv on input 4?" (i select no), "now is the tv on input 4?" (...) i do this 3 more times till it steps through to input 4. Once it gets there, I select "yes" and it remembers how to do it after that. It's really a good implementation.

And the website part -- I was a bit apprehensive about the web-based updating thing. But I gotta say, they did a really good job at it. It could have been a mess, but it is really pretty intuitive. They step you through al lthe basic activities and obviously one of the benefits of the website is that it's always up to date with the latest and greatest IR database and channel guides.

One kind of neat thing (once my channel changing issue is resolved -- i sent an email to support -- i'll post on here when I see how responsive/helpful they are) is that it lets you download guide data onto the remote... Now, yes, this is also on the TiVo, but it's actually a faster UI if you're navigating live programs to just scroll the remote wheel.

I will say that it is a _little_ (and i emphasize little) weird how the different modes change the meanings of buttons (i.e. number buttons become navigation buttons for different tivo modes), but you pretty much immediately get used to it.

That's about it so far ... I'll post more after I play around some.

ms

edit: oops, I was talking to the wrong person

Thanks for the review please give us an update after you use it some more.

As far as changing the inputs does your tv let you directly select which input or does it just have an input button and you keep pressing to go through the inputs (press the button 4 times to get to input 4) mine is the later and I am wondering how well that would work like would I have to keep the remote pointed at the tv while it sends the signal 6 times.

I have read they have great support but I emailed them with a question the day I posted this and haven't gotten a reply.

I think that is the case. If we lived in a perfect world, all home theater components would have discrete codes. Sadly, most don't.

I'll post more after a couple days of use ... I'm almost certainly going to customize it more before it's all said and done.

My TV is the latter (press 4 times). Well, technically there are discrete codes for my TV, but as far as I can tell, the Harmony's database only contains the "stock" codes that come on the original remote. So you do have to keep the remote pointed at least roughly in the right direction while it's sending macros, but it happens pretty quickly. It has a configurable intrakey-delay also, so if you find that it's slow and you know your device can handle the codes faster, you can lower the delay -- i did this for my TiVo, in fact. So the kind of neat thing about the 4-in-a-row is that the remote is statement and it knows anchor keys, so it knows what input you're currently on and it knows how to get to the right input, so if you're on input 2 and the activity you're switching to is on input 4, it knows to just hit input twice.

Another thing i noticed is that it's pretty slick about how it does key delays -- across devices it doesn't bother, so when you hit Power Off, it apparently sends a billion signals a second because every device I own appears to turn off immediately. That was cool to see.

ms

On the email front, here's the autoreply I got from them:

"..... Your request for assistance has been logged and assigned to a support specialist. Due to the popularity of our latest product release, we are currently experiencing a high volume of support requests. While we will make every effort to respond to you within one business day, please understand that a response could take up to 3 business days. ... "

One gripe that I noticed last night -- the buttons don't backlight, just the LCD. That kind of sucks when you're not used to the remote layout. Would it have cost them that much to just put lighting behind the buttons too? Oh well.

ms

just noticed:

http://www.remotecentral.com/sst768/index.html

I found that site while looking for info. Did you check you the harmony bbs on there it appears that people from harmony post on it. (unless someone likes using harmony customer service for a user name.

Yeah -- it does look like Harmony Support has a presence on that forum, so that's nice.

Well, after trying a million multi remotes, the only one which works with all my home theatre stuff is the Sony Clie. And it's macros are brilliant - easily programmable. My favourite is the alarm clock function - turn on amp, wait for warm up, turn on speakers, turn on tv, change to kerrang channel and ramp up the volume.

Bliss.....wakes us, and the kids, up a treat

Oh yeah, that's pretty much been the sole use of my Pronto for the past couple years! What's even better is that I have an IR<->RF translator for the X10 system, so I turn on my TV, turn to whatever chanell I want, then turn on all the lights as well