Customer Reviews

Philips Magnavox PMDVD6 Universal 6 Device Learning Remote Control

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Pros:
Modern, thin design fits well in hand. It's a cheap LEARNING remote!

Cons:
The "one color" buttons may make it hard for those used to Crayola colored buttons to remember button functions. Small button labels and Finicky Learning newer DISH remotes.

I find complaints about the codes that come with this remote not working for this or that home theater item laughable. This is a LEARNING remote. If the codes don't work (and by definition that's why it's called a learning remote, you're paying for usage flexibility) you teach it how to replace the old remote. In today's gadget filled world, to have a 4 digit code developed for every US, Japanese, Korean, Tom, Dick and Harry brand of whatever is an awfully high expection for a consumer. Especially when many of us are budget conscious and would rather buy Apexs vs Sony. Having more "Me Too" brands out there make things cost less for us, but keeping up with codes for everything is a lot to expect of a company. Some years ago, universal remotes were made with a fixed number of codes. If none of the codes worked, you were out of luck. LEARNING remotes were available, but were usually the cost of a small TV itself. Well now learning remotes have come down in price and this Philips PMDVD6 is evidence of this...and what a good thing it is, too. I bought mine at a local Target.

I have a Vizio plasma [fr Costco], an "Aspire" progressive scan DVD [fr RadioShack], and a Dish Network 811 HD receiver. The remotes for the plasma and Dish were like the older universal remotes, if the codes didn't work or if the brand wasn't listed, you were usually out of luck, but with the PMDVD6 I was able to eliminate having 3 remotes and have a single, sleek remote reside on my coffee table. For those of you reading this as a result of Googling how to teach a learning remote to take the place of the Dish Network remote, the key is to change the remote address to "1". (See the Dish manual). Anyway, teaching one remote to learn the other is simple, but admittedly, a finicky process. Simply face the remotes to each other, preferrably on a table and not in your hands. You get into the learning mode in the PMDVD6 and hit the button you want to program on the PMDVD6. Then hit the button on the remote you are trying to eliminate. When you get the acknowledgement blink from the Philips, you've now programmed the PMDVD6 button to do what you wanted to do on the old remote. You go through the process for every button you use, like: Guide, Last channel, Info, mute, arrow left, arrow right, etc. Sometimes you have to get creative because newer remotes have "page up" and "page down" buttons. The PMDVD6 doesn't have a button labeled for this, but I use the FF or REV buttons. When controlling the program guide to page up or down, you don't need a FF or REV button, so using them as substitutes work. That's part of the beauty of this remote--the flexibility of programming almost any button on thePMDVD6. The bad part is that sometimes (especially with the UHF DISH remote) you have to try this process several times for the PMDVD6 to learn the button, but have patience, because it will work. Programming the DVD and the TV remotes into the PMDVD6 was a lot faster.

This was just what I needed. It controlled the TV, VCR and DVD player perfect with codes and it was easy to teach it the controls for my Emerson Stereo. Also adding extra features for the TV, DVD and VCR was very easy.
just for refrence:
TV - JVC
DVD-Apex
VCR-RCA
Stereo-GE/Emerson

I was reluctant to buy this because I own a Philips Tivo that Philips gives absolutely no customer support for. But since this remote was cheap and has buillt-in Tivo functionality (and I broke my Tivo remote trying to make it work propertly) I decided to try it out.

I was disappointed to see that Philips still hadn't figured out how to make a remote properly operate channel changes with more than about 75% reliability on such an "off brand" cable boxes as Motorola (!) but it works at least as well as the original Tivo remote for this.

The good part was that it was easy to get it to operate my TV (Mitsubishi), my DVD player (Sony) and my VCR (Panasonic). Granted I don't use it for complex functions but if necessary I can drag out those original remotes. I once had a very expensive universal remote (Sony) with a touch screen that functionally was no better than this one, and besides it required two hands to operate because it was so wide and you couldn't operate it by feel because of the touch screen. With this remote you will learn the main functions by feel quickly. Although I'm guessing Philips will also provide zero support for this remote (their website pretends not to even recognize the model number and it only shows the remotes costing well into the hundreds of dollars), but if it breaks it's at least priced like a throwaway. It doesn't look cheap and plastic like many universal remotes either. Hard to go wrong here for the price.

This does way more than I need but is very simple to use for TV, DVD & VCR.

After 3 runs to BB, ended up at KM, buying this one. RCA = DOA, Sony - Unable to tune beyond ch. 99.
This one has a >10 button which will fast track you to DVD chapters beyond 9, AND (yes) tune TV beyond 99.
Find it here at Amazon and buy two. Amazon has great price, buy it.

I wanted to be able to program my tv ant rotor and the digital tv I just got.
The TV wants a - between the station and the other parts of it. Like 67-004. I was able to program it. Also the rotor box worked.
Price was right.

Eliminated need for cable box to directly go HD cable channels by allowing entering channels with suffix such as 110-2, only unit with this feature and learning capability in this price range.

Preset device numbers matched most of my units. Learning function enabled adding all functions from all original remotes and allowing me to control audio in the DVD and VCR modes without having to switch to TV, facilitates same when used with home theater audio systems.

Compact size is great. I purchased a unit for each of my TV/VCR/DVD locations to eliminate need for multiple remotes and now I can use the same buttons for remote functions in all locations.

I use the remote with "code only" without learning for my JVC VCR. I have found codes for my Polaroid LCD HDTV and Pioneer DVD player with half of the keys operating and I was able to teach it the rest easily. Since it comes with two round shaped control panels just like that of Polaroid's, I recommend it especially for the TV. I bought a PMDVD4 several months ago and decided to purchased 2 more PMDVD6s at Amazon for future use. I love the price too.

I bought this remote as a replacement for the factory remote that came with my cheap wal-mart magnavox dvd recorder. The factory remote was very poorly made and broke within a few months of using it. I tried several other universal remotes that I own and purchased a few others, none seemed to work with this dvd recorder. So I searched amazon and found this one that states it is made for dvd and it is the same brand as my player. So after I got this and tried all of the codes for magnavox dvd recorders, none of them worked. I had to use a code for a standard magnavox dvd player and am not afforded the functionality of the specific dvd recording buttons. The remote works and learns functions easily. The enter button on the dvd directional pad is hard to push as it is sunken in too far. All in all not a bad remote for the price,but better if it supported all the dvd recorder function keys!

This remote easily programmed and runs my Phillips/Magnavox boom box, my Dishnetwork Satellite receiver, my Toshiba VCR, my Panasonic ES15 DVD player, and my Magnavox TV-vcr-dvd combo. There were some remote functions for the DVD player and boombox that I programmed in using the remote's learning function. That worked fine. The remote seems light, but fits my hand well and most of the buttons are spaced well enough to be easily pushed without accidentally pushing other buttons. Some seem a little small and hard to reach without repositioning my hand, but what can you expect for an inexpensive remote that does so many things? One small disappointment is that the buttons are not as easily responsive as I would like, especially when running the satellite, but I'm getting used to holding them down a bit longer and they work.