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The following page was printed from RemoteCentral.com:
User reviews for the Sony RM-AV3000 from Sony Electronics. |
| Ratings | Reviews | MSRP (USD) |
Average: 3.72/5.00 Median: 4.00/5.00 | 102 | $199 |
As Sony's top-of-the-line remote control, the powerful RM-AV3000 features control of 18 devices, 45 macros, full learning capabilities, timers, a large LCD touchscreen and a good complement of hard buttons.
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Written by Felipe from Caceres, Spain. The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months. |
Review 81 made on Friday February 13, 2004 at 8:04 AM. |
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Review: | I received my AV3000 from US (I live in Spain and I saved more than 100 EUR -128 USD- by purchasing it overseas). After owning it for a week, I'm very happy with it. I dedicated several hours to investigate what this thing is capable of, so I'm familiarized with it.
First, out-of-the-box the remote is beautiful, great design which will be easily welcome by your wife. Maybe a bit big, but the wide, clear LCD display needs big dimensions to be read easily. I love the blue LCD lighting, which can be adjusted in several ways (i.e., light-on when touching a key, light-off after x seconds, etc).
The RC come with pre-programmed Sony components codes, which I don't use (except for the TV). To set preset codes is very easy, and you can preset all your A/V equipment in a few minutes. Unfortunately, some basic controls and many of the advanced ones won't work until you program them via learning mode.
I have to say the interface used by Sony is really crap. Keys do flashing when you are setting them or creating a macro, making a bit difficult to select. This is not a problem when you get familiar with the remote, but it could be way better and may confuse newbies. The remote doesn't have a PC-connector like the Pronto has.
Learn mode is VERY easy and powerful. I teached almost all the controls in less than 1 hour, and even customize many of the label on-screen keys in a while. The remote accepted ALL the commands from the original remotes I have and did perform all of them perfectly.
Label customization is great, but only component labels are fully customizable (up to 8 letters/digits). Operational soft keys aren't, or are only partially (3 or 4 labels elegible for each), which is kinda annoying if you need a key to perform a command and none of the predefined labels don't match what you want. Luckily, there are 4 customizable labels per page, with 3 pages for each component, so you'll have up to 12 fully customizable soft-keys per component, which is enough for me.
Up-to-32-steps macros are easy to create and run by using "system" keys (up to 18 available, I think). I found particulary interesting to create macros when pressing and holding component keys for 2 seconds, which will help you to power-on and get your TV volume, DVD and AMP ready to go with a single keypress: Just load the disc and play! I had some trouble with preprogrammed system 1 and system 3 hard keys (user's manual is wrong at this point), but after reading the forums at remotecentral.com I reset and deleted them, being able to load my own macros on these hard keys.
Execution of macros is also customizable. You can enter delays whenever you want (use TIMER key for it) and even adjust the time between the performing of commands. Remember that some components, like TVs, need to warm-up before accepting another command!
Other noticiable things are the 4-way directional keys, which seems to work in every component that uses them for menu navigation, and the TIMER key that allows you to timer macros to be performed at the time/day you want.
Now the bad things. Operating may be a bit tricky only if you are a newcomer and follow the poorly-written user's manual. A Spanish version of it came in the box, and I found it's better than the English one.
The remote seems to have problems with certain components (Marantz among them, and I have a SR5200 Rcvr): An incorrect learning (not always by user's mistake) could make the AV3000 to become stuck, entering in an endless transmitting loop which can be stopped only by removing a battery (losing clock setting, by the way). If you suffer it, teach the remote correctly waiting for a beep before releasing the original remote key being teached (that's what is called "long burst" in the forums).
Finally, I want to say that although the box says it's "for NTSC", it worked fine with all mi Euro (PAL) components.
Overall it's a very good remote, too expensive if you buy in Spain but it's worth the price if you can get it by 120-140 EUR. So, i give 4 stars out of 5.
Regards from Spain, Felipe |
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Written by altgrr from UK. The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months. |
Review 80 made on Monday February 9, 2004 at 7:20 PM. |
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Review: | I bought this remote to replace an E-pilot SRC-9200 remote control, as that didn't have enough buttons for most of my devices. As the E-pilot is the only previous experience I have of universal remotes, I'll mainly compare to that. It's a little unfair comparing a £90 remote to a £30 remote, I'll admit, but it should lead to a conclusion as to whether it's worth the money.
Firstly, replying to John Smith from Toronto: I found that, with this remote, programming in codes from my satellite receiver could occasionally cause the problem where the remote would lock in transmitting one button and stop responding, either if you held a button down, or if you pressed it twice. The remedy for this was to program the button into the E-pilot remote, and use that to program the RM-AV3000! A pain in the arse, but it solves the problem.
The above should hint that this remote has a few problems learning commands. No point in shying away from this: it does - with my Beko television and Telestar satellite receiver. The problems would vary from not learning the command such that you could not press the same key twice and have it register on the target device, to the remote crashing if you press a key twice, to the remote crashing if you hold a key down. The remedy to this is either lots of careful reprogramming, or getting a cheap learning remote to teach the Sony with.
That's probably the main flaw with this remote. Other than that, I have yet to find a remote as flexible that shows as many keys on one screen - I don't think any remote can claim to have 45 keys accessible all at once. I was considering buying a One For All Mosaic (it would have been £10 less), but went for the Sony on the grounds that it could provide access to most features for each device on a single screen.
The customisable display works a treat - it works around some of the shortcomings of my E-pilot primarily by having more keys, but also by having the four programmable buttons along the bottom. It's amazing how many LCD remotes don't have the facility for the Red, Green, Yellow and Blue buttons as found on my TV, satellite receiver and Freeview box (The Sony is *entirely* lacking in Teletext features), but they can at least be programmed in along the bottom of the Sony's display.
A further feature I felt lacking from the E-pilot, but present on the Sony, is the ability to program macros to the component buttons, so, when switching the remote to, say, DVD, it switches the amplifier over as well. (An automatic SCART switch handles the video, but that could be taken care of by the remote if need be.)
Unbelieveable that a cheap universal remote control could provide a feature that the Sony lacks that I actually want, but this is it: a sensor for the backlight. It's a waste of your batteries to have the backlight come on every time you touch the remote, but it's a pain to have to switch it on in the dark. The E-pilot had a sensor that would switch the backlight on when it was dark. Also, it's only the display that's backlit - the hard buttons aren't, though the component buttons do glow in the dark, and, to be fair, the backlight gives off enough light to see all the buttons anyway. Also, the channel and volume buttons are contoured differently, so you can tell the difference between them.
Overall, the remote drops a mark on quality, as the learning isn't brilliant; it also drops one on features for not having full backlighting and for the backlight not being immensely configurable.
Paying £90 for a remote control may seem a little excessive, but when you think that it replaces every single remote that you'll have in your living room (and probably your house), and replicates their features perfectly, it's hard to complain. The only thing it can't do that I'd want it to is program my old Sony VCR - but, as with all VCRs where you program the video on the remote and zap it over to the VCR in one press of 'Transmit', no learning remote can do that. The RM-AV3000 does, however, replicate the functionality using its timers. That's got to be a good thing.
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Written by John Smith from Toronto. The reviewer has used this remote control for more than two years. |
Review 76 made on Tuesday January 27, 2004 at 7:49 PM. |
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Review: | I was in heaven when I first bought this remote. It controls my TV, my satellite system, my VCR and my DVD. I even programed the macros in no time at all. It was great that you could program it so that when you touch the screen, the light comes on. You could even change some of the wording of the functions at the bottom of the screen, which I did (I wish you could do it on more icons).
Occasionally it would lock up - the transmission icon would keep flashing. Sometimes just taking the battery out and putting it back in right away solved the problem. But now...I'm always losing the preprogrammed information. It takes over an hour to program everything back in! And, of course, for days your reprogramming the odd button you forgot to reprogram in!. It's not worth the frustration anymore.
Don't buy it. I emailed Sony about this problem a year ago. I'm still waiting to hear back. Apparently, they could care less. So could I...and will not be buying their next genertion of remote. It could operate my dishwasher too, but I still won't buy it, not after the money I've wasted.
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