Once again, it’s time for our monthly contest! But, before we get into the new prizes, I should mention that last month’s contest has been wrapped up and all winners chosen. Find out what the correct answer is to the [surprisingly difficult] skill testing puzzle, and who won which prize by viewing the results page.

For September, you could win one of six great prizes provided by the good folks at AVSmarts.com. There’s a Yamaha RAV-2000 touchscreen remote control, an Evolve Guide Remote, a VTech VT-2431 2.4GHz cordless phone, a Harman/Kardon DAL-150 audio transcoder, a Sennheiser HD500 headphone and, if nothing else catches your fancy, a $300 gift certificate good towards absolutely anything at AVSmarts.com!

Enter the contest today!

Philips reveals successor to the Pronto TSU2000 – part 2!
In continuation of yesterday’s news headline on the forthcoming Philips Pronto TSU3000, I’m pleased to be able to provide nearly complete specifications for the new model.

Hardware

• Metallic silver painted housing
• 3.8" high-sensitivity LCD touchscreen
• 240 by 320 pixel resolution with 16 grey shades
• Digital contrast control
• Light sensor
• Blue backlighting for LCD screen and all surface hard buttons
• 4 megabytes non-volatile memory
• 4-way cursor control plus 15 hard buttons
• USB communications
• Learning frequency range up to 78kHz and 455kHz
• 4 infrared transmitters with a 33 foot range
• 4 AAA batteries (4 months typical life) or rechargeable pack
• Optional RF extender
• Optional docking station (available shortly after the TSU3000’s release)
• Dimensions (WxHxD): 3.6 x 6.0 x 1.1" (92 x 153 x 27 mm)

Software

• Clock and calendar
• Built-in code database with 500 brands (includes 70 new brands and even more device functions)
• Fully customizable user interface
• Full-screen configurability with ProntoEdit
• Supports bitmap transparencies
• Forwards/backwards page navigation

The new LCD screen will improve legibility by adding four times as many greyshades and incorporating a more stable digital contrast control (which will still be adjustable on-the-fly). The new screen’s touch sensitivity should be superior to previous displays. Its blue backlighting will light automatically, thanks to the built-in light sensor (something not seen since early TS-1000 production), and will extend to all surface hard buttons. The backlight is reported to be very blue and very bright and will fade off smoothly.

The 19 main hard buttons are made up of the following functions: volume up/down, mute, channel up/down, 4 customizable with on-screen labels, 4-way cursor pad, 4 multi-purpose buttons surrounding the cursor pad, plus page up/down buttons on the side. User customizable hard buttons total up to 16: nearly all of them, except for the far left hard button immediately below the screen (a “Tools” button for Add, Delete, Learn, etc. functions) and the page up/down keys on the side. Also located on the side is a backlight button.

The TSU3000 is not merely an update to the TSU2000’s case! Indeed, many operational changes and improvements have also been made. For instance, there are now three ways to navigate the Pronto. The first method is via two on-screen buttons. One presents a device overview, while the other presents an overview of all pages under the device. The second method is by the page up/down hard buttons on the side, combined with device left/right buttons on-screen. Finally, the 4-way cursor pad can also be configured to select pages and devices, with a special toggle hard button that switches between this mode and normal device IR commands.

Functional changes include full screen-configurability (system items can be added and removed but not moved), multiple page jumps, plus buttons with system function assignments (these are remote-specific operations, such as page history, backlight, etc.)

Software improvements that will appear later include total full-screen editing capabilities (at that time system items will also be movable), conditional macros, timers, new design objects such as tabs and listboxes, adjustable IR transmission times and more!

Finally, one other bit of news I was able to obtain is that the TSU3000 will no longer use CCF files, instead migrating to a new PCF format. Rest assured, the TSU3000’s version of ProntoEdit will still import the “regular” CCF files you all know and love!

The TSU3000 is expected to ship before the end of the year, hopefully at the same price as the current TSU2000. No word yet on a color version.

[ Talk about the TSU3000 ]