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I have my new Pronto screen and am dying to try installing it and seeing if it works. My
computer crashed before I can upload the pictures. I still have them all in my camera,
I just need to find my camera software again. :) It looks like it is going to be a painless
procedure. I will post an update after I perform the operation.
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I just ordered a new screen. Many thanks to Aaron Macpherson for providing so much
helpful information at Remote Central! I have taken my remote apart and took a bunch
of pictures with my digital camera. I will try to upload the "before" pictures and then add the
"upgrade" pictures soon. If all goes well I will get the new screen early next week and will hopefully
get everything up again soon. I figure it is a shame to have the Pronto DOA, I am sure I can find
a good use for it.
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I managed to get my Pronto apart after reading
Tom Held's
"opening the case" description (thanks Tom!) and ordering a #6 Torx screwdriver. I think I found the
problem causing my BackLight to be dead. A small component was broken from the circuit
board attached to the back of the touch screen. I am not sure exactly what the
component is or if it can be repaired. I am going to try and get some pictures of the
internals since I have it taken apart anyway and will post them here. I figure that anyone
intersted in the Pronto will probably find the insides just as cool as I do. :)
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This is a sad day for my Pronto and I. My Pronto has fallen and I doubt
that it will get up. I have dropped this remote on many many occasions and
was actually convinced that it was impossible to damage. It fell off my end table
and now the back light no longer works. After doing a few searches on the ever cool
www.RemoteCentral.com, I discovered that there is a connector that controls the back
light and that it sometimes breaks off when the remote is dropped. I plan to find a
way to remove the #6 Torx (sp?) screws that hold this remote together and see if it can
be repaired. Unfortunately the damage to our relationship has been done.
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I am sure you all know how much I love the Pronto, but I have to think about what is
best for me and I don't think the Pronto is it anymore. I have been trying for
a long time now to come up with a ccf that was good enough at controlling the TiVo to
stop me from longing for the actual philips TiVo remote. The TiVo remote is very well designed
and I prefer using it
hands down over the Pronto. That had never happened before, it is the only remote that
I have not been able to create a config that I prefer to the original remote.
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I thought my last ccf update was good enough to lessen the desire, but
when the backlight went out on my Pronto I discovered how much I still yearn for
the TiVo remote. I have poor lighting in my TV room, it is either too bright or
too dark. I prefer keeping the room dark when watching TV so I really noticed when
I needed to turn on the light to see the Pronto so I can navigate the TiVo menus.
That is what convinced me that it was time to try and find a new Remote.
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I will always love the Pronto and still think it is a fantastic remote, I just
don't think it can handle the TiVo well enough for me. I think the Pronto is
the PERFECT remote for someone trying to make there home theater easy to control
for someone less technolgically inclined. I like having things easy to control,
but none of my users really require the remote to be super self explanitory. I still
recomend the Pronto to anyone, even TiVo owners. I think my issues with controling the
TiVo are more personal preferance than a design flaw of the Pronto. More hard buttons
could not hurt the Pronto, but it is really well desigined the way it is.
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I think I am going to try the RTI Theater Touch and see if that can be a suitable
replacement. It looks like it has a decent number of hard buttons, but the LCD looks
a little small to me. I am also disapointed that they chose to include the number pad
as physical buttons, I don't use them often and would have rather seen transport controls
and other generic hard buttons. I still think it looks like a good remote to control
my equipment, and the navigation cursor will come in really handy with the TiVo. I will
probably order it sometime in the next few weeks.
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I am not sure if I will continue updating this area of my site, but I will definately
leave it up and running. I have a feeling I will be adding a new section for whatever
remote ends up replacing the Pronto. I will probably also add a TiVo section at some
point because that is a truely amazing device. I hope this has been helpful for you
guys, it was fun to work on and I have really enjoyed my time with the Pronto.
Take Care, Will.
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Wow, been a while since I updated! I am not dead, but I have not had as
much time to work on my ccf lately. I have still been thinking of
small ways to improve it though. :)
I just picked up a second TiVo from Philips so I had to change
things around a bit and add the support. While I was making the changes I
removed the interface to a couple of VCR's that I am not using anymore. I did
leave the IR codes in the CCF in case the prove useful in the future.
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Thankfully, the latest release of the TiVo software (v1.3)
added a feature that lets
you set the address of the remote you are using. This is important if you
want to have two TiVo's in the same room. I left my new 30 hour unit set to
the default which is address 0, that did not work out so I changed it to address 3.
I changed my old 14 hour unit to use address 1. That seems to be working out
well for me.
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I added a TiVo only ccf so that people would not have to strip out my stuff if they are
only interested in the TiVo support.
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Uploaded current ccf that includes some new featues borrowed from Paul Buttler, and also
did some rearranging of some TiVo and DVD buttons to make them more convienent. The biggest
change would have to be the way the cursor is setup in the TiVo. I found myself hitting "ok"
too often, so I moved it from the middle and tweaked the remainging graphics.
Added a new bigger system on and off buttons and replaced the "remotes" button with a "lights"
button that is a more useful for me. Updated my gallery file also to include some new
buttons.
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Uploaded current ccf that includes a "Del" button for the TiVo. There is also an initial
go at getting a comercial skip in there. The timing on the delays needs to be tweaked,
though to be honest I am not sure it that will end up being a useful button. The fast
forward speeds are already pretty fast and the button will not have that natural "hit it 5
times fast to skip 5 comercials" effect that you would expect. I am leaving it in because
it may be useful if the delays were increased enough to skip many comercials.
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I just wanted to put up a quick note to mention that I have the wrong version of my
ccf uploaded here at the moment. My newwest CCF has a "Del" button in the TiVo section
that is used to avoid a bunch of key presses for deleting programs. I forgot to upload
that version. I will put it up tonight when I get home from work, sorry for any confusion
this may have caused. Doh!
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I added a new section that contains everything I know about how to get
Mitsubishi TV's discrete codes for directly switching to a particular
input. It sounds like the codes in my ccf and at RemoteCentral do not
work with some of the older TV's. I don't know if it will help, but
I figure it can't hurt.
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The new ccf is essentially the same as the old one, I made minor
enhancements and did some cleanup work. I also added some extra TiVo
pannels, but they still need a little bit of tweaking.
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I have had my Pronto for over a year now, and I love it just as much today
as I did when we were first introduced. I would still recomend it to anyone
who is looking for flexibility and power in a remote. People are still coming
up with very unique and awesome ideas for the pronto. I still find myself
pining away for more time to spend with my Pronto to try some of them out. :)
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The redesigned ccf is working out pretty well. There are a few minor things
that I want to change, but things are looking pretty good right now. The new
TiVo support is definately easier to use.
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I put up an addition to the mini-pronto tutorial. I added a few thoughts and suggestions
and included a great post from Remote Central by Dale Crawford. It describes his
approach to designing a CCF and I thought it made some sense and was interesting.
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I was not happy with how I had implemented my TiVo support, I found myself wanting
to use the TiVo's well designed remote instead of the Pronto. I figured the pronto is
way better so I better fix my CCF. I started looking at my ccf and ended up doing a
total redesign. It is pretty much Dale Crawford's awesome
ccf tweaked for my equipment. I focused on making the TiVo support better and
trying to keep things from getting two cluttered. I think I am pretty happy with
the TiVo support now. The real test will come be if I still find myself reaching for
the TiVo remote after more serious use.
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I have a tendancy to make things overly complicated on the off chance that I may use
one of the less common buttons. This time I tried to avoid that by keeping copies of
the complicated stuff around, but making the focus of the main portion of the ccf
simple no frills functionality. I also really like the graphics that Dale created,
especially the cusor. It is small, yet easy to use and that is handy.
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I finally found a few hours to play with my config, I did not actually change
that much. I added some support for my TiVo. I made a few other minor changes
but have not had time to finish implementing my new design. Dale Crawford posted
a new style of ccf to remote central and I really like that. I have been thinking
that sometime it would be neat to change the graphical style I am using to something
more like his. One thing I want to keep in mind is that the button graphic can be
smaller than the actual button. I think that will be useful in making a design that
does not look crowded, but is still easy to hit the buttons.
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I recently changed jobs and bought a new house, so hopefully after I settle in a bit
more I will have more time to tweak my configuration. I have to admit that I have
been going through tweaking withdrawls. :) I guess it is true what they say, absense
can make the heart grow fonder. I love my pronto more now than I did before, which
is no mean feat.
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Man have I been super busy lately, I have not really had much time to tweak
my Pronto configuration. I am expecting to recieve the TiVo machine I ordered
tomorrow (can't wait to check that out!), so I finally made some time to start
implementing some changes to my ccf inspired by Kelly Fisher's ccf. I added a
tabbed based menu that will let me switch between my devices easier. The biggest
reason that is better than just using the default drop down device menu is because
the device menu has animations that slow it down, and because all the devices I
use often do not fit on one screen's worth of drop down menu.
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I did not have time to actually finish implementing the new design, but I did
finish most of the DVD player, TV, and Reciever. I included a menu to make jumping
to different panels easier too. I would like to add neat graphics to that menu
at some point instead of just using the panel number, but that will have to wait for now.
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I really loved Daniel's 3D button's but I ended up making some new plain button's (which I
added to my updated gallery.ccf)
that did not take up quit so much space. I did not want to make the button's so
that they are hard to hit, but I also did not want to loose the room for text that was
taken up by the 3d-ness of the buttons.
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I don't think this is anywhere near the way I want it yet, I feel like quite a bit of
the screen space is wasted by my new tab system. I would really love to have a way to
disable the pronto's built in UI so I could reclaim that space. I am looking forward
to some tweaking when I have more time. I think that even with the smaller screen space
my ccf will be easier to navigate when I am done. Hehe, I guess I would not have bothered
if I did not think it would end up at least a little better. :)
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I have not actually changed anything with my configuration lately, but
Kelly Fisher's CCF from remote central has given me a few ideas I would
like to look into implementing. I like the idea of a tab system that
lets you change devices AND the pannels in that device. I think I would
have some trouble working it into my ccf because everything is so crowded,
but it is a neat idea that could work out well.
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Made a minor change to my CCF, I added a device to make working with
the Mitsubishi VS-6043 TV's service menu. I would not recomend people
muck around with the service menu because you can damage your TV. I also
figured out what model my TV was and added that to the information panel.
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Things have been a little hectic lately, and I have not had much time
to update my ccf. I would still like to finish the mini-walkthrough,
and I have a few experiments I want to try with my TV. Hopefully I
will have time after I move into my new house on the 29th. :)
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I don't know if it will work or not, but a kind soul on the
Home Theater Forum has
posted some information about a way to use the Mitsubishi TV's service menu to change
the aspect ratio of the screen. This will be very cool for watching 16:9
enhanced DVD's. Changing values in the service menu is a little risky and is not for
everyone. I am hoping to get it working and turned into a set of macro's that only I
will use. I will add more info after I have tested it with my system, which
could take a while.
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Philips has created a new website that has some great pronto information
available! I am very glad that they have done this as it will help people
find RemoteCentral.com and ProntoEdit.com. I will add a link to my links
section.
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I don't know exactly when I will be able to finish my
mini-walkthrough for creating a ccf, so I will
add a link to it in the "Pronto Ravings" area and try to finish it later.
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Updated my ccf to include macro group for turning on and off my system.
It could still use a little work to make things more automatic, but it
has been pretty easy to use and is a start.
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I have also started to work on a mini-tutorial/walkthrough for getting
started with the pronto. I did not get too far before I ran out of time
but hopefully I will finish it soon. You can check out what I have done
here.
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I have redone the color scheme of this page so the whole site will end
up with the same look and feel. Besides, the neon blue was really starting
to bug me. :)
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I just signed up for a new domain, so sometime in the next
few days, the address should change. I will provide a link here when it does,
and probably auto-forwarding. The new domain will be www.madravings.com in
case your wondering.
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Added a few new sections to the Pronto Chronicles area that focus on
the Surf device and the TV device.
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Made a few minor additions to the 'Pronto Impressions' page about ProntoEdit.
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Made a few minor changes to my ccf. I added some to the help for my
surf device. When you press the help tab, you get sent to a duplicate
of the panel you started from. The difference is that instead of sending
an IR code, all the buttons on the pannel jump to help screens that describe
what that button does.
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Added a new section to the right for miscellaneous Pronto musings.
I added a page for my first impressions of the Pronto and a link to the
stuff I started writing on the 9th.
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I have not made any changes to my ccf today, but I did create a new web
page that is a start at explaining why my ccf is the way it is. I really
enjoyed reading Barenada's explination, and also enjoyed reading simular
things on remote central. It is really helpful to know that kind of thing
when you are looking for ideas to incorperate into your own ccf. Here is a
ruff draft of my Pronto Chronicles.
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Created a new slightly smaller 3d rectangle button for the "Quick" pannel of
the Surf device. I wanted to fit a few more channels on that page and am pleased
with the results. I added the new button to my gallery file too.
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Changed the names of some of my devices. I also updated the screenshot section
to show the latest ccf file.
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I added a few buttons to my main DVD page, one for switching Audio tracks, and
one for selecting the DVD's menu (also jumps to menu panel). I fixed up a few
other glitches, like the fact that the panasonic vcr did not have the fast forward or rewind
buttons set to the left and right hard button's like my other vcrs.
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My direct input IR code experiment failed, but luckily Craig's did not. :) He has
the IR codes that will set my sony VCR's directly to Input 1. I have not had much luck
getting any of the other input's to work, but that is ok. I figure if you can get things
set to a known input you can toggle your way to the others. I have not created any macro's
to take advantage of this yet, but I did add an Input 1 button to each of my sony VCR's.
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Unfortunately it looks like the direct input IR codes did not work. I
was really hoping that it would work because it would make it possible for me to create some
cool macro's. I hope I did not get anyones hopes up too much, sorry!
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Fixed a button in my DVD device, added some experimental IR codes that may allow
for discrete input select's on my sony VCR's (the button's are in a special macro group).
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The Pronto FAQ has been translated to German and Japanese, so I added links to
the sites with the translated versions.
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It looks like I was wrong about not making any updates. Gecko, from
the prontoedit forums, found codes for the Mitsubishi TV's that allow
you to go directly to a particular Input! I added the codes to my CCF
and am looking forward to re-working my macro structure to take advantage
of them! This is awesome, I spent some time looking for those codes myself and
had no luck at all. I spoke with Mitsubishi's tech support and they said that
there was no way for it to be done. I have learned my lesson and won't give up
so easily next time. :)
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Ack, things are getting busy again. :-) I wanted to let you know that I don't
expect to make any real updates to my ccf for a while. I do plan on adding
a few things to the FAQ sometime next week, but I am not sure exactly when.
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Added some experimental help. I have only added the new help system to the
first 2 pannels of the "Surf vtr3" device so far. The way it works is that you
click the help tab, which warps you to a "help device" then you click on
any button that you want to know about, which warps you to info about that
button. when you are done getting help for that pannel, click the return tab.
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Updated the Home graphics and added a button to the surf device
to jump to the DVD device. To make this fit I had to change the button's
that call the macro for switching between day and night dynamic range to a
graphical representation instead of text. hehe, in case you can't tell it
is supposed to be a sun and a moon (with a star). :)
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Updated the screenshot section with shots from my newest ccf.
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Big update today, I changed all the graphics in my CCF. I created a new
transport control, and used many button's from Daniel's CCF (from RemoteCentral),
and created some new button's. The gallery file is updated too.
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With any luck I will have time tommorrow to do a update the
screenshot section.
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Updated the screenshots to use my current config.
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Added a Panasonic PV-8401 VCR to my CCF. I needed another VCR because
there are a few days when I want to watch 3 shows that all come on at the
same time. I figure that if I record them all, then I won't have to choose
a favorite. :)
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Updated the Pronto FAQ.
New:
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1-12 Why can't I get the Pronto to learn a particular device?
1-13 How do I find discrete on/off codes?
Updated:
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1-10 What do I do if the Pronto will not power up and I hear 4 beeps?
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I pretty much ran out of time today so I did not get to mess around with my
CCF much. I am mostly trying to think of a neat way to arrange the transport
controls for my VCR and DVD player by creating some new buttons. I like the
square buttons, but I think I want something a little different. I like the black
button with white text color scheme too.
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Made a few minor enhancements to my ccf, hope to do more later.
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I have been looking at making a new transport control, but I have
started to give up on my graphical ability. :) I do have a few idea's
that may give someone a head start. Check them out at
this page.
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Added a favorites list to my home menu. You can scroll from channel to
channel on this list using the right and left hard keys. I don't know if
I will keep that in my configuration for long, it was more of an experiment
than anything else.
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Created a FAQ. If anyone has any additions feel free to send them to
me at will@madravings.com
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Updated the label's in the surf device that identified which VCR you were using.
It now says "top" or "bot" in addition to vtr 1 or 3.
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Fixed a problem with the surf device for the vtr 1 VCR. I forgot to
change the pannels that each tab jumps too, so they were set to jump
to the pannels from vtr3.
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Added arrow graphics to EZ-DVD pannel. Added WNDS icon to surf
devices and fixed a small alignment problem with the watch tab.
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I was toying around with the idea of creating a CCF file using
a Star Trek theme, but I decided against it because I know I would
not use it, I am not that graphically energetic, and I don't like Star
Trek enough to bother (I like B5 much more). :) The idea came
to me when I was trying to come up with some new 3D buttons. I
started looking at Winamp skin's (a mp3 player) because some of them
have interesting button designs. I came across a bunch of ST based
skins and most were made to resemble a ST control pannel like the kind
found on shuttlecraft.
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