Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazingly, it works!, November 15, 2001
Universal remotes are usually a joke because they always miss at least one crucial feature of each old remote you're trying to replace. Instead of four remotes on your coffee table, you end up with five. Not this time. The Sony Commander is magic! The key is the learning feature, which lets you teach the Commander any signal you need to. The remote codes provided in the literature will go a long way toward making the Commmander work with your equipment instantly, but there will always be something left out. That's where the learning feature comes in. In less than 5 minutes, I taught the Commander all the signals for our General Instruments digital cable box. While I was at it, I programmed the Commander to turn on/off all my TV equipment at the touch of a button. I programmed another button to set everything up for DVD viewing. The Commander has done what no other universal remote I've tried has been able to do: It replaced every remote in my house. (I have a Toshiba TV, a Toshiba DVD, a Sony VCR, a Sanyo VCR, a G.I. digital cable box, and an Aiwa compact stereo system.)
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bought the Right One, October 19, 2001
After reading reviews for many other programmable remotes, I decided the Sony RMVL900 was the best choice on paper. The RMVL900 is not the smallest, wiz bangy or prettiest remote out there, but it is a fully functional learning remote control in the $50 price range. My system consists of a Sony TV w/ 4 inputs, Harman/Kardon A/V receiver, Toshiba 5 disk DVD, Phillips VCR ... and an echostar satellite receiver. Of all these components I was able to program the RMVL900 for all of them except the satellite receiver, only because it has an RF remote control - I'm never making that mistake again - always buy A/V components with an IR remote control. TV: its a Sony, so the remote control worked as expected - just tweaked programming on a couple of Picture-in-Picture buttons. Receiver: The remote that comes with the receiver is bazaar, lots of buttons, non-intuitive, separate on and off buttons. I programmed the most used functions on the RMVL900 with no problem - even on screen menu and cursor buttons. I use the RMVL900 pwr button for "ON", and the "9" button for "OFF" - I blame this silly oddity on Harman/Kardon, and applaud the RMVL900 for having the flexibility to deal with it. DVD: no problems - just had to program the number buttons to switch between disks. VCR: no problems. Once you figure out how to program it, the macro function is great, it even has programmable delay (per macro) between commands! Hold the DVD button for 2 seconds, and the TV turns on and selects DVD input, AV reciever turns on and selects the DVD input, DVD turns on. Hold the VCR or SAT button for 2 seconds with similar results (on IR components). I use the "1" macro button to turn all components off, effectively hiding the receivers awkward "9" off button. I hope this review helped and wish you good luck making the right decision for your situation.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Almost the perfect remote, September 18, 2003
I've had mine for almost a year now. I have a fairly complicated AV setup many different brands of products. The RM-VL900 easily replaces all of my other remotes. The remote itself has 3 macro buttons at the top. These buttons will perform up to 16 commands. Use these for turning on or off all of your components at once with the touch of 1 button. The 8 component selection buttons below also double as macro buttons. Press them to change components, press and hold for 2 seconds to perform a macro. This is a great feature when switching your AV system from one component to another requires multiple commands. These macro buttons not only make it more convenient for you, but also make complicated AV setups much more accessable to non-technical people. Any function that the remote can perform can be included in a macro, including learned functions. The rest of the buttons on the remote are your standard fare of VCR, DBS, and TV control type buttons. Every button is programmable/learning. You can look for your remote on the list of provided codes, or just program all the buttons yourself using the learning feature and the old remote. You are not limited to traditional layouts and can program any button to perform any function you want. You can even mix remotes under a single component. Use the DBS component mode to change channels on both the VCR and the DBS system without have to switch the remotes component mode if you want. Nice. The button themselves are well laid out. You have big channel and volume buttons on the bottom. The volume buttons can be set to change the volume on your TV or reciever no matter what component is selected on the remote. The other buttons have different shapes and sizes and are laid out in such a way that you can quickly learn to find your way around the remote without having to look at it. Try that with one of those fancy LCD remotes. The only 2 minor drawbacks with the remote are that only the component select buttons are actually lit. The others are glow in the dark. This isn't a huge drawback because they glow fairly well, and after you get used to the remote, probably won't be looking at it anyway. The other drawback is that programming it is a little complex, and the manual isn't the clearest. Given all the functionality of the remote, I doubt they could have made the programming much easier, but they certainly could have made the manual a little clearer. The manual, while not clear, is comprehensive. Spend a few extra minutes with the manual and I think most people will be able to figure it out. This remote doesn't just replace other remotes, it makes using your entire AV Theater setup much easier to use. There's not much more I can say about it, it's just a few backlit buttons away from perfection.
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