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Consumer Electronic Information: The Basics of the DLP Projector
Projectors have come a long way in the past few decades. The desktop fossils that were once used to show home movies or classroom filmstrips are a thing of the past. With today’s technology, you can now experience a projected movie that emulates...
easymusic hit by easygroup injunction
easymusic hit by easygroup injunction Added: (Sun Jun 26 2005) easymusic hit by easygroup injunction easymusic is part of the easygroup of companies which includes easymoney, easycruise, easyjet, easynet, easycinema, easymobile Stelios, the...
Enlightening Cinema
Enlightening Cinema By Jed McKenna "Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't...
Gambling stories and tales
Gamblers and gambling have both been known throughout the world for their fair or rather unfair dealings. People gamble not only for money but also for the fun of it. Some might even do for the heck of it too. But all said and done, gambling is a...
God Bless IMAX
As a resident of the American South for 27 out of the 28 years of my life and a childhood “Dukes of Hazzard” fan, let me start this by saying the following: I’m really sick of us Southerners making ourselves look like ass-clowns. Get it together...
Home Cinema Room Setup
The best home theater experience is achieved with proper home cinema room setup. A home theater cannot be setup like any regular living room or den - it has special requirements so you can get the full experience from the sight and sound of the...
Miami International Film Festival, SAG Awards, The Oscars! Highlight February Showbusiness and Media Events
The Mobile Exposure handheld video program is an exploration of the potentials of mobile video and culture and is running now through February 6 at Microcinema in Houston and on the Web. Concert Industry Consortium, founded to foster greater...
Monsters and Demons: A Short History of the Horror Film
Going to the movies may not seem like a novel way for little kids to spend an afternoon. But have you ever brought your child to see a Disney flick and ended up viewing trailers for Jeepers Creepers 2 or Freddie vs. Jason? When this happened in...
Star Trek In Flames – No Phoenix In Sight
As a recovering Trekker, I miss good space science fiction in the theater. I’d hoped Chronicles of Riddick might be some sort of revival of it at the movies, but apparently I’m the only one who doesn’t hate it. Before that, the trailers for Star...
What does the term Anamorphic mean on a DVD?
What does it mean when a DVD is described as being ” Anamorphically Enhanced”?. Basically this means that the picture is stretched vertically on the disk. When the disk is played the picture is resized by the DVD player depending on the shape or...
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Home Theater Control – It's The Remote, Stupid!
It’s the one piece of equipment that can really make or break your home theater system; the remote control. It’s no good to have the latest and greatest gear and world’s biggest DVD collection if you can’t figure out how to use anything. True home theater nirvana is a fantastic performing system anyone can use with a single button press.
Many of today’s home theater receivers and surround processors come with a “smart” remote control. Some of these are actually pretty good too. B&K and Denon come to mind. If you know what you are doing, you can get one of these babies programmed to orchestrate your entire system pretty well. If you haven’t the time or inclination for such a project yourself, hire a professional installer to bring everything together for you. A great place to start is CEDIA (Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association). They have member firms in every state, and many foreign countries, that are experts in making complex home theaters easy to use.
Remote controls come in several flavors. The one most people are familiar with comes with almost any electronic component you buy these days. For the most part it does a pretty good job at making the particular component do what you want. Some of these even let you control other components, especially if they are from the same manufacturer. This way, for example, you can use your TV remote to also control your VCR or DVD player.
The next rung up the remote control ladder is the so called “smart remote”. This type of remote is able to control multiple pieces of equipment from different manufacturers. Some can control up to 8 or 10 different components. They are usually set to control each piece of equipment by entering a 3 or 4 digit code. Some of these units will learn control functions from other remote controls. This is helpful if the unit you need to control is not in your remote control’s internal database. You usually accomplish the learning by entering a “learn” mode on the smart remote, pointing the “teaching” remote at the smart remote and pressing the desired button. Viola! Your smart remote has learned the command from the original remote control.
If you want things even easier than using just one remote to control everything, you need a remote that does macros. These are command sequences initiated by pressing one button. For example, you want to watch a DVD. Typically you would have to turn on your TV, DVD player and surround receiver. Then you would have to switch your TV to the component input and your receiver to the DVD input. With a macro capable remote, this sequence is programmed into the remote. The remote then plays back all the
commands in the appropriate order so you don’t have to.
If you want a remote that controls everything, you need a remote with a lot of different buttons. This can make the remote a little intimidating. Sure it can do almost anything but make toast, but where to start? If you have the budget, now is the time to get a touch screen remote. With a touch screen, you typically have only a few actual buttons. These are typically the most used functions such as volume up / down, channel up / down, mute and possibly cursor functions.
All other buttons are just icons on a screen that you touch to initiate the desired command. The beauty of this approach is that you only need to have just a few icons on the screen at any one time. This really cuts down on button clutter and confusion. The icons can be graphical representations of the command, which makes everything very intuitive. For example, you can have an “NBC” logo you touch to go to the local NBC station.
Touchscreen remotes come in four basic variations. First there is the choice of color or grayscale. Color looks better and more information can be conveyed more quickly. Grayscale units are much less expensive. Next, the communication with the remote can be one way or two way. Two way communication allows status to be updated on the remote itself. For example you can display album and artist information from a music server or check the status of your security system or thermostats. Two way communication has been provided via a two way radio link, similar to a digital spread spectrum telephone.
The latest two way remote controls being introduced from companies such as AMX and Crestron use WiFi. This allows a whole host of other possibilities. The range is spectacular for one thing. You can roam around your entire home. On some units you can browse the internet too. Imagine, you are watching a game but you want updates from around the league. Just go to ESPN.com on your remote and take a look.
The remote can really make or break your system. You can have an unusable system with 7 different remotes or a slick system that even visitors can use with no instruction. It’s all up to you, your budget and your programmer.
About the Author
Steve has 15 yrs in electronics. He is a CEDIA certified designer with ISF and THX certificates. Experience includes: installer and programmer; system designer; business unit director for an a/v importer; sales rep for a CE distributor; and principal of a $1.5M+ CEDIA firm. He's now senior sales engineer for Digital Cinema Design in Redmond, WA. See him at The Home Theater and Automation Guide
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