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P Day:
I received my Pronto remote control on the morning of Nov 4th, 1998 and figured I would share
my initial impressions of the Pronto. Please keep in mind that I received my Pronto before
ProntoEdit was available (and it still kicked some butt).
Impressions After the First Day: It will take some time for the "new toy" factor to wear off enough for me to know if I really like actually using it, but I have a feeling I am going to love it. :) Just as a warning, this is probably going to end up a little on the long side. When I first opened the box, I was surprised by how compact the remote was. It is shorter than my other remote controls, and a little wider. It is about the size of my hand, minus the tip's of my fingers. I got over that pretty quick and was pleased to find batteries in the box as well as a 100 page (aprox) manual. I was a little worried because the manual looked a little thin, but it described things in a way that made sense to me. I did not have many problems programming my Pronto, so I think the manual was pretty good. I put in the batteries and was a little worried when nothing showed up on the screen. I eventually managed to put the batteries in correctly, and ended up even more nervous when there was still nothing on the screen. I was finally able to breath a sigh of relief when I found the contrast control and the display became visible. :) I am not really a manual reading kind of guy, I normally try to muddle my way through and end up paying for my lack of patience by wasting tons of time. I had a couple of hours to kill before meeting a friend for lunch, so I actually read the manual. After lunch I really sat down and started customizing the remote for my system. I decided to start with my Mitsubishi TV remote since that has the least number of features I wanted to duplicate. I set it up to do everything my tv remote could do and did not run into any real problems at all. There were only 2 cases where I did not get exactly what I wanted, and both were very minor. I wanted one of the button's to be a little larger so I could fit more text to describe the PIP input selector, but that was no big deal. I also wanted to change the layout of one of the templates a little so I could have my PIP channel changer going up and down instead of left to right. I decided to tackle my Yamaha RX-V2092 receiver's remote next. I had a classic case of operator error that led to a few minor problems. The first misunderstanding involved me trying to make the receiver's mute and volume controls global. I tried to verify things were actually global by switching to the TV device and trying to change the volume. I found that I was controlling the TV, which is not what I was expecting. I spent some time chasing my tail before I re-read the manual and discovered that global hard button definitions can be over-ridden by various devices when that device is selected. When I performed the test with a device that did not have custom volume controls, things worked exactly the way I expected. I can't even blame the manual for this one as it was very clearly stated how this functionality worked, I guess I must have been slacking when I read it. :) I then programmed the rest of the receiver's functions. I labeled and then learned most of the keys. When I went to test what I had learned about half of the button's did not work. I tracked it down to a problem with the way I was doing the learning, I would press and hold the key on my Yamaha remote and then hit the key on the pronto I wanted to learn the function. That did not work out very well. When I re-did the problem keys I would press the key on the Pronto first and then the key on the Yamaha. I did not have a single problem when I started doing it that way and the whole programming process started to get faster as I got into the swing of things. The next remote I programmed was my Sony VCR's. This one took a while because I spent quite a bit of time making sure I got the layout the way I wanted. I knew from my past experiences with the Sony touch screen remote that I wanted to avoid having the power or eject button close to the fast forward button. I was tired of turning off my VCR by accident with my "no look" fast forwarding. After I decided how I wanted to label the buttons, and which templates were going to get which buttons, the actual learning of the IR codes was a breeze. I have 2 of the exact same Sony VCR's so I was very happy to find the "copy device" capability of the pronto. It saved me quite a bit of time since it made it so I did not have to re-type all my labels or re-setup the templates with my button choices. After the copy, and some quick learning, I had my 2nd VCR done in no time flat. Things went pretty well when I started in on my Sony DVD remote. I spent quite a bit of time on this one, but only because I was being really picky with the layout and naming of each of the keys carefully. I spent about 5 hours getting things the way I want and am pretty happy with how things turned out. I am positive I could have done it much faster if I wanted too, but I was not really in any rush. I have not spent much time actually using the remote to control my devices, but I am really impressed with what I have seen. I love the "feel" of the remote too, it fit's comfortably in my hand and I don't think I will have much trouble using it one handed. The Pronto has a very sturdy feel to it, though I don't know how fragile it really is. I hope I never know for sure, but it feels like it could take a real beating and survive. I would also like to see the PC cable and software for creating and updating templates released. I was able to easily support all of the features of all of my remotes with the default templates, but there are a few that I would arrange a little differently if I had the software. Impressions After a Week of Use: In a stroke of good luck, I managed to get a pronto before they sold out a little more than a week ago. I wrote a quick description of my first impressions and figured I would follow that up with some impressions after using the Pronto for over a week. The new toy factor has not totally worn off yet, but I am definitely _loving_ the remote. I have become very comfortable with it and have even started to use it without any conscious effort. What I mean is, for most operations I don't have to think about what I want to do, I just do it. I am using the two hardkeys at the bottom of the remote for fast forward and rewind and have found that to be really good for me. I end up taping a bunch of TV shows each week, and like to fast forward through the commercials. I always seem to overshoot and need to rewind a little bit too. I programmed them to using the jog and shuttle fast forward and rewind. I can't even begin to tell you how convenient that it is having those functions on the hard buttons. I wish there were an easy way to describe how each device's control panels are set up. I think it would be neat to see what other people did and see if we could come up with the ultimate configuration. :) I am very happy with the ergonomics' of the Pronto, though it can seem a little slippery at times. It takes a while to get used to it before it stops feeling like it wants to jump out of your hands. The Pronto will sit on your leg really well. I don't know why, but I prefer to keep it on my shoulder where it also sits quite nicely. I think I started keeping my remotes there because I had too many for them all to fit in my lap. :) I ended up putting the Pronto's sturdy construction to the test. I had the remote on my shoulder when someone knocked on my door. I stood up and much to my horror, my Pronto flew from my shoulder and slammed into the coffee table. It then bounced to the carpeted floor. I was very relieved when everything still worked perfectly. Heck, the battery cover did not even come off, this puppy is tough. I am definitely at the point where I would not want to do without my pronto and I don't have any reservations recommending it to anyone. I hope it becomes more available soon because I am sure other people would love it too. Impressions After ProntoEdit Was Released: PE Day: 01/29/99 6:58pm, the anticipation was over, "a helpful person" announced that the ProntoEdit software was available. It was an exciting time, and we all had very high expectations. I am here to tell you that mine were met in spades. The time leading up to the release of ProntoEdit was a little nerve racking for me. I had thrown away my box, along with my serial number. I was very worried that I was going to have a difficult time getting a copy of ProntoEdit because I could not register. I was very relieved when it turned out I had no problems. My only real problem was that I could not order the cable from philips. Luck was with me, and my friend Chris was kind enough to download the wiring diagram from www.ProntoEdit.com and make me a cable. The time it took to download ProntoEdit seemed like an eternity, but eventually the download finished and I was about to start messing around. I actually decided to read the manual first because I was a little scared of messing up the ccf in my pronto. It was so freeing to be able to change the layout of buttons, or better yet use bigger ones when you needed that extra bit of room for a clear discription. I was having a blast tweaking the little things. Eventually people started posting ccf files, and that was when things started to really change for me. People started to implement ideas and concepts that were very interesting. I ended up spending way too much time taking those wonderful ccf's and trying to encorperate as many of those ideas as I could into my ccf. :) I discovered that working with ProntoEdit and tweaking your ccf file is a continuing process, but a fun one. I have been working on my ccf pretty regularly for almost four months now, and there is still plenty I want to muck around with. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy with my configuration and do not feel like I "need" to spend this much time playing with my config. It just seems like every time I start to slow down, someone comes up with a new idea that I want to try and work in somehow. One of the best things about the Pronto is how great everyone has been about sharing ideas and trying to help each other out. I think the bottom line is that I am very much addicted to ProntoEdit, and I would have to say that my impressions of it are very good. :) |