Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
URC-200 is a better choice!, July 27, 2006
This remote is a huge disappointment after using the URC-200 (the previous version from Universal Remote Control). The physical features that made the URC-200 one of the best remotes ever are gone. The RF-20 works pretty much the same in operation as the URC-200 but it is more difficult to use because of the physical changes (e.g., the navigational pad's redesign is not as responsive and hard to use). The buttons are also not of as high quality and the overall awesome feel of the URC-200 is gone.
I'd recommend getting the URC-200 or looking at Universal Remote Control's professional remote selection to get a design more like the URC-200. The RF-20 is a real let down.
|
|
|
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Impressive, but with flaws, January 8, 2009
Wow! What an impressive universal remote (but with flaws)! Most of the buttons can 'learn' from a device's remote, or can be programmed with 'macros' (a series of button presses). For example, my DirecTV/TiVo remote has no 'OFF' button (but there's one on the box), so I programmed the universal remote's 'OFF' button for this. My Samsung HDTV has a complicated ZOOM procedure, and a complicated source selection procedure, so I simplified them for my needs. Practically all of the buttons on a device's remote can be duplicated on this remote. With cheaper 'universal' remotes, the most useful functions of a device's remote are there, but for other functions I need to keep the original remote around, so why bother. Now with this one, I can put the old individual remotes away.
But then there's the bug. One of the 'features' of this remote is 'erasing commands'. Why would you need this? Well, perhaps you decided to rearrange your screen buttons, and you didn't need one any more, so you cleared the label and deleted the command (key or macro). And here's the bug: the 'learning' method for programming buttons DOES NOT WORK, if a macro has previously been stored to the button. One would expect that any old command on a button would automatically be erased when a new command (key or macro) is saved, but that is not the case. The work-around for the bug is that you must manually erase the command first. So this is clearly what the 'erasing commands' feature is for. But that reason is not documented in the manual, and neither is the bug itself.
In fact, another problem with this remote is the manual. It appears glib and superficial. It leaves out some important details. One of the most powerful features of this remote is the macro capability, but the manual explains this only through one example, for the ON button on the MAIN page. It does not give any general step-by-step procedure for setting up a macro command on a button for an individual component. Most users will eventually be able to figure this out, but the manual should have more detail. In fact, what is missing from the manual is a chapter on how to set up macros for users who are serious about using this powerful capability. Also important is button layout, which is a design issue. For the screen buttons, for example, the most frequently used commands should be on buttons that are closer to the center of the remote -- that is, lower on the screen, whereas less frequently used or more destructive commands (such as RECORD or CLEAR COUNTER, for example) should be further away -- higher on the screen.
You should also be aware of the large amount of time that it can take to set up the remote as you might like it to be. The Pre-Programmed Code Method of setup is fast, but usually doesn't set up all of the buttons that are on the original remote. The Learning Method is also fast, once you have designed the button layout you want. You may, for example, set up the OFF button to actually do RECORD, since the ON button does the ON/OFF function for a component (this is the layout taken by one of the pre-programmed codes for a VCR). But doing the design of the button layout, and particularly learning how the various setup features work, then setting up macros, then changing things when you see how you can improve your layout -- these things can take a really long time. And the manual does not give you any help with some of these issues. And then of course you may want to document some of your layout, especially if the OFF button invokes RECORD, for example.
Yet another little 'bug' is in the manual's macro example. If the ON button is programmed in this way, then the ON buttons for the individual components no longer work as you might expect. That is, you may wish to play a CD and so you just want to turn on the audio amplifier (and the CD player). But now the AUDIO ON button invokes the MAIN ON button, so everything comes on instead. The manual doesn't warn you of these problems.
For the remote itself and its capabilities, I would probably grade it a 4.5 on a scale of 1 to 5. But because of the bug and the manual, it is tempting to grade it as a 1. So the compromise is 3.
|
|
|
4.0 out of 5 stars
A pretty good remote, August 21, 2009
I got a RF20 remote for free with the purchase of a TV. At first, I didn't see much value in that our universal remote for the cable/dvr box meets almost all our needs, and it has all the customized buttons for the cable box, which we use the most. Now, we've added an audio system which has really complicated our audio/av setup. We were constantly having to have four different remotes in our hands to do anything. I then picked up the RF20 and gave it another chance.
This remote actually does a pretty good job as a remote that can actually replace all the other remotes. The pre-programmed codes seem to pick up functionality on all the main control buttons for the tv, dvd, audio system, and cable box. On all the secondary buttons, the pre-programmed codes program all the device buttons through the lcd screen. Here, it didn't automatically organize the functionality very well. For example, on the cable box, we use the A,B,C, page +, page -, dvr list, and record buttons a lot. The RF-20 did pick up the functionality with a pre-programmed code, but it distributed these frequently used buttons across four different pages on the lcd screen. You'll most likely need to program all the lcd buttons in the learning mode to give you all the functionality you want organized in a way you can use.
The learn functionality works well, and you can program a lot of buttons very quickly. However, to edit the text for those buttons on the lcd screen, that's a slower and more tedious process. The macro functions are fairly easy to program, and they seem to work well. For example, I now have a macro that turns on the tv, turns on the stereo, sets the input on the stereo to the DVR, then sets the remote ready to operate the DVR, then presses a key to signal the DVR to power up it's hard drive. Even with our cable box universal remote, this would have taken a mind boggling sequence of button presses. That's just to get things powered on. I'm thinking about making macros for some even more complicated sequences.
I did realize that setting up a macro for the power on and power off buttons overrides those buttons even when you operate them within a component mode. For example, if you just want to turn off the TV and you have a macro that turns everything off, you can't just select the TV component and only turn it off. Once you program a macro on the off button, it then universally executes the macro. You can get around that by programming the all off macro under a component button on the lcd screen. I can't imagine any convenient solution to every problem, but the macro functions give you a lot of useful functionality.
Here's a few things I didn't like: I'd like it to have an actual record button. I haven't been able to get it to program the arrow buttons on a playstation remote.
You can't beat the custom buttons on a dedicated remote, but with over five different custom remotes on my coffee table, this is the closest thing I've found that will let me box all those remotes up for only very rare use. It does take a fair amount of time to set up, but it's worth it.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
Saving...
