» Philips TSU9400 Pronto Universal Remote Control

Philips TSU9400 Pronto Universal Remote Control Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Best remote on the market
Comment: I upgraded to the TSU-9400 from an older Pronto. What an improvement. The addition of wireless makes all the difference. I control my a plasma tv, surround sound receiver, CD player, CD recorder, DVD juke box and Mac Mini/Squeezebox music server. I purchased ProntoSqueeze to control the music server via wireless and nolonger use another laptop for that purpose.

The build quality is great, programming is fairly easy once you get started. The response time is very fast and the wireless signal better than any of my laptops.

It is a blast to own and use!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A powerful, highly flexible remote, but pricey
Comment: First off, I rated this product 4 instead of 5 stars for being pricey. Not the best value considering I paid around $800 for it including the RFX-9400 RF extender.

That said, this is one great universal remote. I am not a professional installer but I am reasonably computer literate and comfortable enough setting up and configuring my home theater gear. If I can set this thing up, anyone can. It just takes more time and it pays off handsomely if you do a lot of homework first. As the other reviewers indicated, it does not come set up out of the box. Before I attempted to set it up, I read the instructions many times, got on the fantastic website Remotecentral.com, read the many Pronto Professional posts, and downloaded the outdated but still useful Pronto Setup Guide. Then, I played with the Pronto Configuration software for about an hour a day for two weeks. Finally, I jumped in, used the powerful learning feature to learn commands from my 6 other remotes, and started making modest changes to the macros and graphics already loaded in the sample .CCF file. In all, it took me about a good month to get a useable configuration I was comfortable enough with that would allow me to put away the other remotes and allow other family members to use it without trouble. Now, I just tweak it now and then to make further use of its capabilities. Each time, it gets easier. There is no "programming" involved if you don't want to get too fancy. It's just a matter of following available menus and features contained in the software. There is the ability to take advantage of the Prontoscript commands that can be truly programmed into it, but it's only necessary if you want to get into some serious power capabilities. So far, we haven't needed to take advantage of that powerful feature. That part does require knowledge of Javascript or the services of a professional installer.

As for the unit's performance, I can't say enough. It's very easy to use, once you set it up to your liking. You're limited only by the logic in which you set it up. With the RF extender, I can easily operate any pieces of equipment without having to point it anywhere, without having to be in the media room itself. Even those pieces that I still just operate with IR capability, the radiation pattern of this remote is extremely wide, beyond 180 degrees. About 3 times over 6 months, the wireless link was lost between the remote and the extender, making it inoperable. A simple power recycle of the extender quickly solved the problem. That's the only problem we encountered.

Battery life and charging the unit is no problem. We simply use it all day and whenever it's not in use, we set it in the recharging cradle. Can't get much easier than that. The display is gorgeous and between the buttons you set up on the touch screen and those hard buttons below the screen, you have amazing flexibility to set up any functions you want. We've set up several redundant functions between hard and soft buttons to allow use without having to even look at the screen. The sky is the limit.

Highly recommend it if you can get past the priceyness. Then again, if you have already put a sizeable investment into your home theater, this is a worthwhile upgrade that will certainly add that "Wow" factor.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Unit - Expensive, but you get ultimate control
Comment: I am a professional installer and I have installed many pronto units for my clients. I have been installing prontos for over 10 years.

Pros:
The unit is nice looking.
It is ultimately customizable in that every icon, image, background, etc. can be customized with your own images. The display contrast is very good and there are a number of 'hard' buttons (soft buttons are the ones that are configured on the touch screen) to control almost any aspect of your home theater system. It definitely takes a day to program the unit (it is basically unusable out of the box as the pre-configured devices are for Philips branded AMP, TV, etc.)

Cons:
Complicated setup - Not for the novice. It will take over a day to get it working on your system (as you have to learn how to use their software to configure the device) and beleive me that explaning the options and how to use the unit to a client takes longer than actually programming the unit. The software does feature a 'simulation' mode where you can test your screens and navigation on the computer before you download the configuration to the unit via USB. The body of the unit is VERY Slick and slippery - it is coated with a clear epoxy that is very hard to hold and the unit WILL break if it hits your tile floor. Unsure about the battery life, but I expect it is a battery drainer with it's high-contrast display. The unit is quite large (not as big as the TSU-7500 in width), but still quite large. The current price on Amazon ($699) is not bad as the old discontinued TSU-7500 also used to cost $699. This is a much better unit than the TSU-7500. You will need a VERY solid flat surface on which to position the charging base and unit for charging (it is a little top-heavy when the unit is on the charger and tends to fall over if not set on a hard flat surface. The unit has a JOG dial, but you can only use it with their Media Server. The unit has built-in WI-FI and it works (you can even stream live TV to the unit's display (check out YouTube for sample videos)) and the RF Extender (purchased separately) will allow you to control devices even in another room.

All in all a good unit. I don't think I would own one myself as it is too big and too expensive to use every day due to potential for droppage/breaking a VERY expensive unit. I would rather own a $100 unit that if it drops and breaks, I won't cry over it. But as long as my clients can afford them, I will install them. The software is the biggest issue I have. It is complicated and unless you know what you are doing, it is nearly impossible to setup for the non-technical computer user.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: This is no logitech harmony
Comment: The Philips TSU9400 is a very impressive remote control, capable of many things when configured correctly.

HOWEVER it is not a Logitech Harmony (I also own a Harmony 990) or another consumer targeted universal remote. This is neither a criticism, not a complement. This is targeted towards either AV installation specialist or very advanced users.

On the plus side it offers a large touch screen and enormous configurability. The device can be programmed to do almost anything using JavaScript. The configuration/programming tools are fairly good.

On the negative side, you may have to program the device in JavaScript or have to dive through huge databases of IR (infrared) codes for devices. Much of the database is not very easy to navigate. This is one area Philips aught to improve.

All in all, this is a very impressive remote, but count on spending a number of hours setting it up. If you are not comfortable writing some JavaScript you may be limited on what the remote can do.

Also check out the forums at http://www.remotecentral.com for more information.

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