Due to the slow reported speeds on the Philips Pronto forum, I have severely tweaked the program code and managed to achieve an 86% improvement in index speed - which I'm sure everyone will agree was certainly worthwhile. So, late last week I upgraded all message forums with the new program, whether they "felt slow" or not. Everything seems to have run smoothly over the weekend, so please let me know if you experience any other issues. In addition to this enhancement, many other minor changes were made to various interactive portions of the website last week that are too numerous to mention here.

CES 2001 reports
This should be the final volley of CES 2001 brand reports. Today we have new information for you on Crestron's Isys advanced touch panel home automation controller, Panasonic's new DVD players, VCRs and HDTVs, Rotel's DVD audio player and RR-1090 LCD remote, Samsung's slew of new DVD players and HDTVs, TDK's new 2 gigabyte CD recordable format, and finally, Yamaha's new receivers, DVD players and DLP projector. I've also created a small photo gallery of other interesting shots that didn't fall under any other category. Check everything out here.

The incredible non-appearing ProntoEdit
As you probably noticed, last week's rumor of a new ProntoEdit version available online... fell through. Will it come out this week? I'm certainly not placing any bets either way - we'll just have to wait and see. For those of you who just can't wait, note that ProntoEdit v2.0 will not provide any additional features for the Pronto TS-1000 or RU890 remotes.

If you are planning to install ProntoEdit v2.0 on your system but have an older version already installed, please perform a full uninstall of the old version and delete the c:\windows\pronto.ini before installing the new version. This will help prevent several critical problems from occurring. And please, do not try to upgrade the firmware on your TSU2000!

Users with the new 2mb European RU940 model will find that their remote does not ship with ProntoEdit v2.0 on CD - but no matter, with a minor tweak of the pronto.ini file you can use your remote to its full capabilities with ProntoEdit v1.05. Just open it up with any text editor (such as Notepad) and change the "SIZE=380" line so that it reads "SIZE=1404". RU940 owners will also be pleased to hear that a downloadable firmware file is now available. This will allow anyone who has corrupted the firmware on their RU940 remote to rectify the situation (but do not try to upgrade any other model remote!). So where's the firmware for TSU2000 owners? Your guess is as good as mine!
[Talk about the Philips Pronto & Marantz RC5000...]