Customer Reviews

Philips PMDVR8 8-Device DVR and Audio Specialty Universal Remote Control

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I bought this remote nearly one year ago, so i have had a good amount of time to wrestle with this remote. I am a technology afficionado and demand a lot from my hardware. Initially when I bought this remote I was extremely happy with it. I got home and was able to program most of my home theater hardware into the remote with the phillips codes providing around 75% of the correct buttons for me.

At first I was frustrated by this but since the remote is a "learning" remote I wasn't fazed. I began to individually program the missing keys into my remote. To my chagrin many keys would simply not transfer no matter how many times I tried. However these were mainly buttons i didn't use too much so I didn't worry too much about it. The learning process worked decently well and I was able to get rid of around 4 remotes.

As time progress I began to find more and more annoying quirks of the remote. If you have a separate Amp that runs the audio for your home theater system you would naturally want to have the amp volume controls in each of the remote categories (TV, VCR, DVD etc). However, if you program a volume button the to volume keys it will not perform as a volume button should. IE when you press and hold the volume increase button it should continuously send the signal so that you don't have to push the button multiple times to raise the volume to the desired level. While using my home theater system more and more I realized I needed to add more buttons to the the remote than I had initially though I needed. These are buttons such as closed captioning, audio type, etc from the dvd. I could not get the closed captioning button to learn on any button at all. This was extremely frustrating as I now needed to keep my old remotes around in case I needed to use these buttons. What's the point in having a universal remote if you still need to use the old remotes???

Also the remote is SLOW. The response time between button pushes is extremely slow and maddening, especially when you are trying to thumb through a tv guide. I tried using this remote along side my original cable box remote and the difference was night and day. The cable box remote was like a race car with the philips remote a toyota corolla.

The last straw came when I needed to replace the batteries. I removed the old batteries and put in new ones and to my utter dismay ALL OF MY CODES WERE DELETED. 1 year of gradual work to get it how I liked it and everything was gone. I couldn't believe it. The advertisement stated that there was an internal battery so that this exact thing would not happen. Thus my time with this remote has come to a very bitter end. The remote still works but I am hesitant to even give it away to a friend cause I hate it so much.

This remote has buttons for Tivo and Replay TV. It has a learning button. Permanent memory retention means that you don't lose your codes when you change the batteries. It's laid out in a way that makes intuitive sense. I picked it up and it felt good in my hand. For the price you won't get two things that I like in a remote: back-lit buttons and macros. We watch movies in low light to dark, and back-lit buttons are a must. The longevity of this product may be problematic, judging from other reviews here. I'm taking away a star because of the lack of internet support. Philips/ Magnavox has several manuals online, but not the manual for this product. (What is that about?) I did find the manual & codes at Remote Central (online: [...]), searching in the files area for PMDVR8.

This is the first universal remote I've seen of any price that has all the buttons I need to control my A/V setup (the main one missing from all other remotes I've tried is the two guide buttons, one for channel, one for recorded programs for a DVR), though admittedly I have not seen everything out there.

Anyway, I was able to set it up to do pretty much exactly what I want, including having the volume keys always control my Teac AV receiver, except when the remote is in TV mode.

One day the TV and DVR modes stopped working. Everything else still worked. I tried reprogramming in the codes, but they just didn't work anymore.

At best, I could use the Learn mode to get some keys for minimal TV and DVR functinoality.

But I can no longer have the volume keys do what I want--they now always control TV volume except in Audio mode.

If this thing were stable, I'd buy another five or ten to keep in case I broke them physically. But since something electronic seems busted, I don't trust it anymore.

I only have a couple of problems with this remote. You have to keep pressing the buttons for dvd, vcr, audio, sat, etc. to change the setting. That sounds like I'm complaining a lot, and I am. (sue me. ha ha) The other is this. I bought this as a replacement for a remote that quit working. I can't teach it the functions that I need through the "learn" command since the orginal remote quit. Which kind of defeats the purpose of having a new remote. I have one of those all in in one home theater units and the remote wouldn't allow me to set the VCR clock and local channels after a power outage.
Other than that, I have no problem with it.

Hate having 5 remotes? Do you ever have to tell your guests "this one is for volume, this one is for channels"? This remote is a great value. The people complaining about no audio punch through are wrong. All you have to do is train the Vol. & Mute buttons for all the devices to your receiver remote. Voila! When in DVR mode, your volume buttons control the receiver volume.

The first PMDVR8 I owned worked extremely well for about 2 years. After it began to fail, I purchased 2 more. One of the two never worked consistently and failed completely in about a month. The other failed in about 4 months of light use. Even inexpensive remotes should last longer.

I needed a a new remote because the one that came with my ReplayTV had stoped functioning, the most used push buttons had, properly. I needed a remote that would control atleast six components and the Magnavox PMDVR8-8 device remote was right for me. It also had three programable macro programs that come in handy. Did I mention a good remote at a great price? Well it is. Only down side was, like any universal replacement remote it will not replicate all the functions of the OEM remotes that it replaces. However I am more than well pleased with my choice of a universal remote and as always it's a pleasure doing business with Amazon.

This remote is the best I have found without breaking into the ridiculously priced $100+ Logitech Harmony remotes. I have succesfully condensed 4 remotes down to 1; getting my Tivo DVR, Sony DVD recorder, Sony audio receiver, and Sansui television to all work as I please. The one negative is that it does take some time to get this remote set up to how you will want it. All my components did have codes listed in the instructions, but none were able to get complete functionality from them. Instead, I had to use the remote's learning feature to capture the infrared signals from the original remotes, and program them over the buttons on the universal remote. Invariably you will eventually come across some commands on the original remote that you forgot to program onto the universal one, so remember the whole process will take some time, but eventually this one remote will be able to do everything you used to need 2 or more remotes for.

I have a directv Hughes TIVO, a JVC Amplifier, a Panasonic 30" HD widescreen TV, a Go-Video DVD/VHS player, and a Panasonic DVD recorder. This remote is the only one I have found in this price range that will satisfactorily control all these devices. I had to use the learning capability to get some of the features to work, but ultimately tweaked it to do everything I need. I highly recommend it.

It's the best 13 bucks you will ever spend. I have attained remote-control nerd-vana: before I finished my 1st cup of coffee, I was controlling my RCA TV, Panasonic VCR, Hughes DVR, Apex DVD and Sony stereo system, by using the no-brainer code search function. The remote only controls basic functions on the stereo, but all I want to do is turn it on/off and control the volume anyway. Some of the DVD keys were hard to figure out (finding "zoom" was trial and error) but I'm pleased that I can control it - no other universal remote that I've tried has worked with the Apex DVD.

It's light-weight, thin and the buttons are laid out well and are not "squishy" like other remotes. I am a happy camper.