|
|
Sponsored in part by:
Before I begin, I should state a couple of things. The first and most important is that there is a far better technical review available at RemoteCentral.com. As usual, I'm approaching this review from a layman's point of view, because that's what I consider myself whenever I encounter a new piece of equipment. I'm continually learning as the landscape of home theater rapidly changes (for the better, I hasten to add). The other thing I want to make clear is that this isn't a demo unit that Philips sent me. I went out and actually purchased this remote from an authorized retailer for my own personal use. The idea for this review was an afterthought. However, I can assure you that 
even though I've made the personal investment, my objectivity regarding the pros and cons will remain faithful.
I was recently struck by a powerful bug. A desire to purchase this remote the minute I laid my eyes upon the very picture of it at the top of this page. The same all-consuming, irrational desire that flooded my senses when I purchased, sight unseen, my Sony VPL-W400Q video projector several years ago, based only on one or two informal consumer reviews that were available at the time.
So why all the excitement? We've all seen many learning remotes appear on the market over the years, including Philips first and second generation Pronto units. Most of us have purchased at least one learning remote in our quest to rid the coffee table of twenty remotes and a hundred and four batteries.
When I was building my first home theater, I opted for the highly touted Marantz RC-2000 -- a dinosaur by today's standards, but still a solid performer, and at the time, one very sexy remote. I was pleased enough with the capabilities of the Marantz to forego an upgrade to it's immediate successor, the RC-2500 and even the very impressive early Pronto remotes from Philips. That's not to say that I've been completely satisfied with the Marantz. It's a real battery hog, requiring a new set of 4 AA's on pretty much a monthly basis. That's a lot of batteries to purchase. I'm not very big on ni-cad rechargeable batteries, either. Too much hassle, not as long a life per charge as standard alkaline batteries, etc. The other thing about the RC-2000 that bugged me was the small, faint LCD lettering on the relatively small LCD window that grows dimmer as the batteries fade. And for some reason, my RC-2000 likes to light up by itself, during the daytime, when it's not being used, further draining the batteries. Probably dropped one too many times by the kids.
The monchromatic screens of every remote I've seen haven't done much for me, but once I saw this remote with a color LCD screen and a built-in recharging dock system that I might actually be able to afford... I began to get that itchy "gotta have it" feeling that I haven't experienced in awhile. And not just a color remote, but a learning remote that can be further customized via computer link to specialized editing software... That did it. I just had to find one. At a retail price of $999, the ProntoPro isn't cheap -- but it's still well below the cost of a Crestron or similar whiz-bang remote system -- while featuring many of the same wonderful attributes like RF compatibility that most home theater owners could only dream about -- until now. With a street price of under $800 (or much less for BIG Picture Front Row Members), reaching into the pocket to come up with the cash for this remote wasn't as difficult as 
I thought it might be. Especially since I found a great deal.
Part of my desire to retire the Marantz RC-2000 had to do with my lovely wife and mother of my three children. While the kids were able to figure out the RC-2000 in about five minutes, my wife found the tiny lettering on the LCD screen and the myriad of buttons way too confusing. Even operating the macro takes instruction and Kim is simply not interested enough to bother learning about remotes. Hell, she can barely use a computer! Like any good husband, I wanted to make things easier for my wife, and so besides all the other positive attributes, the ProntoPro was just the ticket to solve a very real problem in my household. I can't tell you the number of times I've had to talk on the cell phone while away on a camping trip or whatever, trying to explain to family back home how to watch a movie on the big screen. With all the choices (letterbox, full frame, anamorphic, etc.) you know what a nightmare it can be for "normal" people to operate semi-complex to downright dizzying home theater setups.
For example, in our bedroom, we have a Sony KL-W7000 rear projection LCD monitor. For the tuner, I'm using an RCA DTC-100 HDTV receiver. Two remotes. Too many buttons. Neither one backlit. Again, way too complicated for my poor wife to figure out. So BP (Before Pronto), I'd either have to drop whatever I was doing to turn on the bedroom system for my technophobic wife and find her channel, adjust the volume, etc.. More frequently, usually out of frustration, she'd just skip everything and watch TV downstairs or read a book instead.
With the ProntoPro (and a long weekend to program it), I've come up with the ideal solution not only for my wife, but for all media areas in my home. My wife can now press a picture of our bedroom TV on the remote (above right), and it turns on both the RPTV and HDTV tuner at the same time. To change channels, all she has to do is press an icon logo of the station she wants to tune in and voile! It's there. I've programmed the three main network channels she watches for sitcoms right on the home page screen, along with a clearly labeled link to more channels and a simple "off" button that turns everything off again. It couldn't be simpler. To make it even more personalized, I placed a photo of my wife walking along the beach during a memorable family vacation inside the television screen area.
The Philips ProntoPro arrives with everything you need to easily get started. The remote comes with an RGB cable for attaching to your PC, special editing software, and a docking station with a rechargeable battery that's good for several hours of continuous use. The battery does not have to be fully exhausted before recharging, either. Just pop the remote back in the docking station when you're out of juice and it'll go from fully depleted to fully charged in about 2 or 3 hours, but you 
can certainly use it in the interim if you wish. Two LCD's on the docking station light up when the ProntoPro is charging. The only thing I don't care for is the way in which you must insert and remove the ProntoPro from the charging dock itself. You have to slide it in and out at an angle and when trying to remove the remote the docking device, it doesn't seem too keen on letting go of the remote, requiring two hands to extricate the control. There's a small recessed reset button inside the battery compartment, which I found necessary to use once or twice with the original ROM version and software that shipped with my unit (more on that below).
From the factory, the remote ships with codes for most home theater components already built in. Philips calls them 'devices' and naturally, their products are the default. When using a device for the first time, you are asked whether or not you want to change the remote codes. If you answer yes (since most of us don't own all Philips components), you are given a choice of manufacturers to choose from for that device. Each manufacturer usually has several different codes, which you can "test" to make certain it works before saving the new configuration.
While this is a great place to start, I noticed that "receivers" were not included in the default device listing (there were tuners, amps, DVD, LD, etc., which meant that I was going to have to add my own receiver device via the editing software. There are limits as to the level of programming that can be done via the remote control only, but the options are abundant nonetheless. If you're not technically inclined, you can simply use and enjoy the remote at this level with great satisfaction. But if you can spare the time, the included software really lets you kick things up a notch or two, by presenting many more options for customization.
After charging the battery and eager to fool around with my new toy, I immediately ran into trouble when I opted to revert the configuration back to the factory default until I had things figured out a little better with respect to the software (which is not intuitive, but easy enough to master after a brief learning curve). When I hit the "revert" option, my remote went into an "endless loop" cycle and could not reboot since the software had been corrupted 
somehow. In the editing software, there are links to both Philips and Pronto websites. The latter revealed a toll-free number for customer assistance and a friendly gent named Phil explained that I needed to follow a specific procedure in Windows using special instructions that he e-mailed to me to restore the remote to working condition. I'm happy to report that this procedure worked, but even happier to report that you probably won't run into this problem yourself, because they've since released a newer version of the firmware and software that has eliminated the looping problem and a few other annoyances that should NOT be included with a remote that costs hundreds of dollars.
It should be noted that while Philips provides the editing software for the remote, it does not support it with technical assistance. They manage this with a disclaimer that it's a "developer" version that you use at your own risk, etc. As it turns out, the version that shipped with my remote was outdated and had problems that prevented me from uploading my new configuration to the remote after I spent the better part of a Saturday afternoon fiddling with it. Fortunately, after doing a search at Remote Central's forums, I discovered that a newer version of the edit software was available from Philips that corrected the problems that I was having. So if you purchase one of these bad boys, make certain to download the latest software and ROM version from the Philips website and it should be smooth sailing for you.
Even then, the editing software is not completely smooth and hassle free. It seems that I have frequent difficulty uploading or downloading from and to the remote, respectively. Usually, just repeating the command seems to work. But I can see why Philips doesn't want to support the software. It's also very time consuming to program. The more elaborate your demands, the more time you'll need to allocate to the task. But the good news is, once programmed, you'll not have to worry about it again. The non-volatile memory will save your configuration even if the battery is depleted, plus you'll have a backup on your computer... A really cool feature of the edit software however is the 'emulation' mode, which creates a life-sized graphical representation of the entire remote that you can use to test your menu configuration.
The remote controls are laid out in a couple of different ways. There are four programmable hard-wired buttons below the 
LCD screen and five along the right side of the screen that are backlit and intended for channel up/down, volume up/down and audio muting. A small button and thumbwheel are on the left side. The thumbwheel adjusts the screen contrast and the button is another option for lighting the LCD panel. My preferred method is to simply tilt the remote at an angle necessary to activate the screen. Like when you pick it up from the coffee table, for instance.
Most of the action on this little pup takes place within the backlit color LCD screen itself. It uses several 'panels' to control everything in your house and colorful graphics that smoothly animate from one task to the next. Pressing the "home" icon at the top right (which in itself has proven to be a bit tricky for me to get since the icon is very small and close to the edge) takes you to a main page or index. You can designate as many home pages as you wish, to represent different rooms for instance. I currently have two home pages. One for the theater equipment and the other for the upstairs bedroom equipment. The latter menu is programmed to make controlling the A/V equipment as effortless and intuitive as possible for my wife.
Each home page provides you with three default icons along the top edge. Going from left to right, you have a purple icon 
representing your macro list. Press this button and your available macros appear. In the middle, there's an icon that looks like the remote itself. It shows you when the remote is working by tilting down and showing waves emanating from the front when you press a button. Cute. Holding down this button for several seconds takes you to the setup menu where you can set how long the hard-wired buttons to the right of the screen stay backlit, the brightness level of the large LCD panel or how long it remains lit after your last command, among several other properties including a speaker for beep tones that confirms your commands are being received, time of day, battery life, available memory and more. If you press the remote icon for just a blip -- the same way you would press any other button -- you can change the mode to label your buttons, add a device, select it's brand, delete a button, learn commands from another remote, edit macros, etc.
On the right side of this top row is a blue button that represents your equipment or "devices". Press this one to display a list of all your goodies and effortlessly switch between TV, tuner, amp, DVD player, HDTV receiver, or whatever you have by selecting it from the dropdown list.
As easy and intuitive as the remote itself is to use, the real fun begins with the editing software, where you can download color bitmap images to really personalize and spice up your remote display. RemoteCentral.com and Prontoedit.com have preconfigured files and ready-made icons that you can download for use with your setup. These are files that other Pronto and ProntoPro users have designed and uploaded for the use of others. For instance, once I programmed my Sony televisions, I went out and searched and found the .ccf files for my Yamaha receiver, HDTV tuner, Toshiba, Sony and Apex DVD players, Quadscan scaler and Sanyo projector. As far as the graphical icons are concerned, you can download collections or create your own. I've done both.
Once you have saved your configuration, you are asked if you want to replace it or merge it with a new one that you're opening. This is a really nice feature and a real time saver. For example, to get the device codes for the RCA DTC-100, I had to download a configuration file that contained the author's other equipment. Stuff I don't have and would certainly have no use for on my remote. After deleting his home page and all the devices except the one I wanted to add, I then opened my saved configuration file and "merged" the two so the new device codes from the other gent would be merged into my 
directory. Neat! I repeated this process several times until all my devices were covered. For the few components I have that haven't already been converted to Pronto files by someone else, I simply created "pages" for each set of controls under the device heading, populated them with the various buttons and navigation icons supplied with the software in the gallery folder, and used my old remotes to teach the Pronto their codes. Scrolling through your control pages for each device is achieved with the outermost hard-wired buttons below the screen.
The macro feature on the remote itself is a bit frustrating. To create a macro, you must select from the device menu, NOT the main home page, and the process is not as intuitive as I would like to see. Plus, to activate the macro once it's saved, you have to press the macro button from the home page, then select the macro from your list. I've opted for a different approach that I like a whole lot better -- but it took a whole lot more time.
In the editing software, once you create a new button on a device page and double click on it, a new menu appears from which you can select the image icon that the button will display, and among other options, an "action" page which determines exactly what this button will do when you press it. You can add as many commands, including delays and beeps, as you want here, creating one-touch macros.
For example, when I created the TV station icons, I created two or three separate action command lines for each channel. Select the channel number, (select a different channel number for two digit entries) and select "enter" or "okay" to carry out the channel change on the device.
On my theater home page, I uploaded a bitmap image of The BIG Picture logo. Pressing this button will:
Dim the light to off.
Turn on the projector.
Roll down the electric screen.
Turn on the receiver.
Select DVD on the receiver.
Turn on the DVD player.
Press play on the DVD player.
While all of these functions could be duplicated in the macro editing menu on the remote, I like not having to press two buttons and wind up in the macro directory. I press one button and stay on the home page to quickly get to the projector or DVD menu. One touch processing like this is only possible to create through the editing software.
An optional RF relay device is available to control RF controlled items with your ProntoPro. Allowing you, for example, to turn off or on your X-10 lighting system, crank up the spa outside for a quick dip after the movie, or anything else than you can control by IR or RF remote.
As you can see, the ProntoPro is much smaller than my trusty old RC-2000. Ergonomically speaking, it's pretty good, but I'd personally like to see future units that were a bit more tapered and narrower in the back so one hand can cradle (and perhaps even operate) the remote more easily. The touch-screen is reasonably sensitive enough, but takes a bit of getting used to for us reformed button pushers. The default mode had the tiny beeps turned off, but I find that I prefer to have them on, to let me know for certain that my command has been received by the device. Perhaps I'll turn it off again once I've established the consistent finger pressure necessary to activate the controls.
Ironically, now that I've made bedroom television watching so much easier for my wife, I've found myself relegated back to using my old battery-sucking RC-2000 in the theater occasionally. But that's okay. Sharing my new toy is the least I can do considering all the laundry and meals my wife has to contend with for the whole family. While it took me several days to program my entire collection of remote controlled items into the Pronto, the effort was well worth it. I've never owned a more powerful, attractive or easier to use remote control.
Perhaps the greatest emotional pull is the ability to customize this remote to do exactly what you want. For example, if you have a 200 DVD carousel, you could load the DVD cover art graphics for every title and program the ProntoPro to start the movie by pressing the image of the cover. Very cool.
The ProntoPro also has the ability to be programmed as a timer, to activate whatever you've assigned to it at a specific day and time or on a regular schedule. For instance, you could have the remote start the coffee pot in the morning before you wake up, ramp up the lights in your bedroom, turn on the lights in the kid's room(s) to wake 'em up, and turn on Good Morning America on TV. Another scenario might have your ProntoPro being used as a home security device, turning on and off lights, TV's, the stereo, etc., to simulate someone being there. The possibilities are only limited by what can be operated by infrared or radio frequency remote -- and a LOT of stuff around your house -- virtually anything that uses electricity, can be.
For objective discussion about the ProntoPro remote, be sure to visit our new forum here at The BIG Picture to discuss remote controls and home automation. But for the real meat and potatoes, be sure to check out remotecentral.com for lots of helpful information and files for downloading if you haven't already. But if you want to buy one, you can become part of a great power buy discount by becoming a BIG Picture Front Row supporting member. But however you purchase this remote, you're going to love it. With plenty of built-in memory to accommodate an amazing array of graphics and control commands, easy to use interface via a backlit display that never leaves you fumbling in the dark, upgradable and a large network of supporting users, I'm confident that the ProntoPro is going to be finding its way into a lot of stockings this holiday season.