With HDTV, 6.1-channel digital audio, and streaming audio and video files now theoretically at our fingertips, we truly have a bonanza of entertainment options! But let's face it — more often than not it's the fingertip part that becomes a system's Achilles’ heel. No matter how cinematic your TV or how superb your audio system, you need some sort of controller to tie everything together. And as technology pushes our home theaters to new performance thresholds, entertainment systems are getting more difficult to use, not easier. With a typical setup having five remote controls (mine has nine!), even the most basic activity can require multiple button pushes on multiple remotes, transforming a night of movie watching into an excruciating exercise.
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What We Think
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| RC9800i | NevoSL | |
| Computer-free programming, music streaming, photo viewing, and a free program guide overshadow some limitations. | It’s expensive, but the ability to customize its screens to the extreme and its hyper-cool styling will have you drooling. | |
At a bare minimum, your system should respond to one remote. Better yet, if you have two systems in your home, your controller should have the panache to juggle both. And the most modern systems need a way to liberate the thousands of MP3s, photos, and videos stored on hard drives throughout our homes and route them to where we are.
Two super touchscreen remotes we've gathered up, the Philips RC9800i ($599) and the Universal Electronics NevoSL ($799), take very different approaches to addressing these needs. Read on to find out how they performed in my multiroom system.
Philips
Your own private program guide
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The Short Form
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| $599 / 5.625 x 4 x 1 IN / homecontrol.philips.com / 888-744-5477 |
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Plus
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| •Easy, computer-free programming. •Stream digital music files through docking station. •Free, built-in TV program guide. •View photos via Wi-Fi on the touchscreen. |
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Minus
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| •Only IR control (no RF or Wi-Fi). •No customization of screens. •Requires two-handed operation. |
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Key Features
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| •3.5-inch (diagonal), 320 x 240-pixel LCD touchscreen •Computer-free setup •Wi-Fi streaming of music and photos from networked computers •Electronic program guide |
SETUP An initial menu screen asks if you'll be using the remote with a wireless network. I said yes, and the remote automatically found my Wi-Fi connection, grabbed an IP (Internet protocol) address, and downloaded the correct time. Cool! Next up is designating rooms that the RC9800i will control, clearly showing that this remote is designed to break out of single-system boundaries. Once all your rooms are assigned, you add specific components to be controlled to each room's profile. Select a device type, and a list of brands appears. When you select a brand, the remote offers possible matches from its control-code library. If none work (or none are available), it can learn the codes from your original handset. Finally, the remote walks you through some steps to determine whether your gear uses discrete power on/off commands, how inputs are selected, and so on.
Once all devices have been entered, an Activities setup screen appears that ties everything together. For instance, you might tell the remote that you use your receiver and your TV when watching a DVD and that the TV needs to be set to its Video 3 input. This whole “interview” process took less than an hour for my two-room setup, which included teaching the Philips remote all the codes for two components that weren’t in its database.
With the programming finished, I headed to the Philips Web site, where I registered for the free electronic program guide (EPG). Once you're registered, the guide automatically updates itself as long as a Wi-Fi Internet connection is present. I also installed and set up the Philips Media Manager software on my PC from the supplied CD-ROM (a Mac version is also supplied). This allows you to specify folders — such as My Music or My Pictures — on any networked computers that contain music or video you want to access.
PERFORMANCE The RC9800i's interface is terrifically simple and effective. Select the room to control and choose from the list of Activities categorized under Watch, Listen, or Browse. Selecting Watch displays activities like "Watch DVD" and "Watch cable" that are applicable to the room you're in. Listen displays nonvideo activities, and Browse offers a menu of networked devices. Choosing an activity fires up the room's system accordingly. If something gets out of sorts, touching the "?" icon produces a screen with power and input buttons to help get everything back on track.
For a remote at this price — and with the Pronto pedigree behind it — I expected at least some ability to customize. But you can't even rename, resize, relocate, or delete buttons from the touchscreen's display. Eight generically labeled Function buttons can be used for nonstandard commands, but they don'’t appear under the Activities page. Since I liked using the EPG — which appears only on the Activities page — I had to cycle between several screens to access the guide and then the buttons for my cable box. Also, the ability to control remote gear via radio-frequency (RF) or Wi-Fi instead of only infrared (IR) would have been welcome for homes with multiroom audio or video distribution or with hidden gear.
Still, this remote has some tricks up its sleeve. One is the free EPG. If your TV doesn't have a program guide or you want to use a CableCARD, this service will be invaluable. Even though I have a guide through my cable box, using the RC9800i to scan for shows on the sly while my wife watched one of those endless remodeling shows was pretty slick.
As I mentioned, the large screen pretty much ruled out one-handed operation. That could be an inconvenience for some people in day-to-day use. But the ability to stream music and photos from your laptop or desktop to the remote should put you in a forgiving mood. Listening to music over the remote's built-in speaker is definitely neat. Better yet, pop the remote into its docking station and run a stereo minijack-to-RCA cable to your receiver, and you've got a super cool way to blast MP3 songs from your computer through your main system. If you don’t have a media server, this feature transforms the remote into another source component! Too bad the dock won't stream photos to your TV, too.
BOTTOM LINE Judged strictly as a remote control, the RC9800i might come up short compared with others at its price because it lacks any customization, making it tough to totally consolidate all your remotes. But factor in its music streaming, photo viewing, and program guide, and its added value can quickly make up for the shortfall.
Nevo
Sleek, sexy, and so programmable
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The Short Form
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| $799 / 3.125 x 7.5 x 1.375 IN / MYNEVO.COM / 866-612-0583 |
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Plus
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| •Incredible programming flexibility. •It just looks so cool. •NevoMedia Server/Player software for streaming music and photos. |
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Minus
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| •NevoLink worked erratically. •Expensive. |
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Key Features
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| •3.5-inch color LCD touchscreen •Programmable and fully customizable through NevoStudio software •NevoLink Media Bridge option ($199 each) •NevoMedia Server software streams music and photos to NevoSL •NevoMedia Player software plays music and photos on PC or Mac |
SETUP With its ability to customize every single button, the NevoSL can be programmed to your exact preferences. Want a Display Format button on every page? Done. Want a THX button on your DVD page, a Dolby Pro Logic II button on your cable TV page, and a DTS Neo:6 button on your CD page? No problem.
Usually such customization entails a cumbersome and time-consuming setup, so before diving in I perused the remote's 90-plus-page "design guide." Fortunately, the manual is well written, and the NevoStudio Windows XP programming software goes a long way toward easing this pain. The NevoSL is clearly intended for professional programming, but the software is so intuitive that advanced DIYers should be able to tackle it and tailor the remote to their heart's delight! Along with NevoStudio, the CD-ROM contains NevoMedia Manager software, which includes Media Player and Media Server applications (more on them later).
The layout of the home page — where the remote returns when you press a side button — is key. It can be arranged by rooms, family members, activities, and so on. The NevoSL gives you a choice of 15 different backgrounds, with 4 themes each — every page can look the same or different. You also have 67 different device icons to choose from. No matter what background or layout design you select, the NevoSL just looks great. Plus, the software makes changing layouts or adding your own graphics ridiculously simple — just click and drag for most operations. I used photos from my recent trip to Italy as backgrounds on several pages, giving the remote an incredibly personal touch.
During programming you can also set up optional NevoLink Media Bridges ($199 each), giving you Wi-Fi control of audio and video components located in different rooms or hidden inside cabinets. The NevoSL can control up to 250 NevoLinks.
PERFORMANCE The NevoSL fits nicely in one hand, though some may find it awkward to use the touchscreen that way. Fortunately, a lot of system control is done via the buttons at the bottom of the remote. There’s also a pull-out stylus for those with sausage fingers. A well-placed scroll wheel allows you to quickly navigate through multiple pages relating to the same device — say from the TV’s 0-9 keys to its menu keys to a page of your favorite channels.
Using IR control in my living room theater, the remote worked great. With access to every command arranged exactly the way I wanted, I could truly ditch all of my other remotes. However, I had poor results with the NevoLink and Wi-Fi control, and ultimately didn’t use any NevoLinks in my setup. Two separate samples both repeatedly "hung" on commands. For example, about 20% of the time, instead of issuing a single command, the NevoLink would issue the same command repeatedly for 5 to 10 seconds — causing, say, the volume to rise 30 dB unexpectedly or the channel to change 15 times in a row. UEI was unable to replicate this problem, and it's probably a networking gremlin in my system. But still .... The NevoLinks each have six outputs for IR emitters. It would have been nice if the remote could be programmed to individually address these outputs, which would allow you to control multiple devices of the same brand without conflict — for example, if you owned two identical CD changers.
The NevoMedia Player and Media Server programs worked great. Once running, the Wi-Fi-enabled NevoSL "found" my laptop and displayed pictures and played music as instructed. Browsing photos on the remote’s screen isn’t quite as cool since only about one-quarter of the screen is used. What is cool is that album cover art is displayed when available, enriching the browsing experience.
"Power users" with a slew of remotes will want to give the NevoSL a cuddle. It can truly replace every other remote, and its ability to be fully customized should stave off obsolescence. Media Center PC owners will love the NevoSL as an interface for previewing and selecting digital content from around the house. If I have one caveat it's that, at $799, it's pricey for what it does. But, then, how can you put a price on freedom?
UPnP: Universal or Unknown?
Both of these remotes tout their ability to control and interface with UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) devices. During my review period, I found that "Universal" was optimistic at best. I had an Escient DVDM-300 and Leviton’s LE&AP media server platform on hand — both of which claim to be UPnP. Neither remote could "see" the Escient at all. Both found the LE&AP server, but not the receiver/player used in each zone. And while both remotes displayed the music and photo file descriptions from the LE&AP server, neither could access the photos, and only the Philips could access music stored on LE&AP.
Upon investigation, I learned that the UPnP "standards" are more general guidelines than a strict standard, and manufacturers can choose to follow some but not all of the compatibility rules. And it seems that the compatibility issues lie with the hardware, not the remotes. While these issues will likely be resolved by firmware updates, it would be a smart bet to check the most up-to-date product compatibilities before purchasing a media player.
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