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Philips TSU9200 Pronto Universal Remote Control |
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| Editorial Reviews: | | |  | Ergonomically designed, the TSU9200 offers the best of both worlds: a familiar remote control look-and-feel with an easy Pronto interface that is a snap to program. Designed for ease of navigation with just the right balance of hard buttons and on-screen interfacing, the TSU9200 displays essential actions like ?Watch a DVD' and channel icons right on the LCD screen.
Fully compatible with all IR devices, the TSU9200 is full of functional design details, like handy white backlighting, laser-engraved tactile buttons to prevent wear, and a subtle minimalist docking station that doubles as a battery charger. Like other members of the Pronto range, the TSU9200 is ?one-of-a-kind' remote control that integrates everything from home entertainment systems to PC-based digital music libraries.
Instead of operating your components one by one, activity based control blends the most commonly used functions into activities such as "Watch a movie" or "Listen to CD". When a user selects 'watch a movie', rather than having the end user address each individual piece of equipment - such as DVD player, TV and multimedia receiver, one button holds all necessary commands to be able to start watching a movie: switch on the TV, switch on the amplifier and select the right input, switch on the the DVD player and start playing.
The 2-way RF communication incorporated in the remote and the USB dongle provided with it, ensures the content of the PC is transmitted to the remote. So, no need to turn on your TV or monitor to view the menu and select your favorite files. Activities to control multiple devices with one button press The perfect key layout for optimal home theater control Control hidden equipment and devices in other rooms Navigate your music files without using your TV/monitor Compatible with Media Center Edition, WMP10-11, iTunes 6-7 Database - Configurable personal database, Model number based datab | |
| Custom Reviews: | |
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| | I have been waiting and looking for reviews on this remote for some time but have been unable to find anything substantial so I just ordered it keeping in mind the hassle free returns I've had with amazon in the past.
I purchased this remote for my father-in-law and our primary reasons for doing so were the reputation of full customization Phillips has garnered for their pronto line of remotes and the ability to display music being played from a media center PC on the remote's LCD thus allowing the TV to remain off or for use in a separate room.
Thus far I've only spent a good hour or two with the remote and have not completed initial setup but wanted to give some preliminary insights to those who might like us be on the fence with this remote and its likely competitor the Logitech One.
This remote while dubbed a Pronto can really be considered a pronto-lite. The higher end Pronto remotes use a seperate piece of software called pronto edit while this one uses a brand new application called ProntoConfigurator which is more of a setup wizard. While still very powerful, the ProntoConfigurator is definitely suffering from initial release bugs which I hope will be fixed in subsequent updates. As an example some input boxes hide partially behind images and other parts of the form.
I'm certain that the idea behind going to a wizard based setup for the TSU9200 is to make the Pronto a little more end user accessible like the Logitech One (other Prontos are designed to be programed by a professional installer). To this end however I don't believe Phillips has been successful. I was rather disappointed with the very limited database of components found in the database. In fact of the devices it is intended to control, only the Windows Media Center PC and the Sony receiver were found. The Pioneer Elite Plasma and Motorola DVR/Cable box were not. The second area where the initial setup falls short of Logitech's is that while this is an activity based remote, when you assign components to perform an activity the automatically generated macro has very few steps in it, really just a sample and not nearly enough to actually perform the task. While I'm not really put off by this I offer it as fair warning to those just wanting a quick and easy remote setup.
Physically the remote is a beautiful product. The exterior is the currently popular gloss piano black and the LCD screen looks very nice and clear. This remote is not a touch screen and I'm actually glad of it as I haven't had good luck with button precision in the past on remotes that use them. On a small screen I've found it takes way longer to find an icon and correctly align your finger than to spin the cool dial on this remote to select it. The dial is also something I really like for quickly scrolling though lots of items displayed on the LCD.
I have not yet gotten to the stage of setup where I am able to review the features of this product which actually compelled its purchase, however I will post back here for you all as soon as I can.
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| Awesome design, great effort, but still falls short! | |
| | My Harmony 880 remote died recently due to the infamous battery charging issue. Anyways, as I was researching a replacement for the 880, I came across the Philips TSU9200. First impressions were "Wow, this a stunning piece of equipment!". It also had all of the features I was looking for, i.e. activity based commands, ability to learn new IR commands, customizable (more on this later), rechargeable battery, and reasonable price. I was excited when I received the remote. Aesthetically, it is a truly a beautiful remote (kudos to the designer)! My research had told me that there was some legwork to be put in to get the remote to work properly, but I didn't realize how much. So, I loaded the Pronto Configurator, the software that you use to configure the device and connected the remote to my computer via the USB connection. Similar to the Harmony 880, there is a default device database. I entered my equipment in - most of my equipment was found in the database, except for, ironically, my Philips DVP-5960 DVD player. I started setting up my activities... I really like the 'Test' function in the software that let's you test the remote commands with the remote still connected to the computer. I recommend, if you are configuring this remote, to connect it to a computer that is close your equipment or to a laptop. I had a little trial and error since not all of the default codesets are tied to a descriptive equipment name as with the Harmony remotes (i.e. instead of 'ReplayTV 5504', I had to figure out that it was 'ReplayTV: Codeset 0643'). Of course, I also misplaced my Philips DVD remote. The Philips DVD player codeset was nearly impossible to find. I searched for about an hour for a suitable codeset. Nothing on the Philips Pronto site. I finally found a usable set on remotecentral.com but I had to extract it out of an existing CCF configuration file - that was time consuming. Ok, so I get it configured to a point where I think the remote will function properly. The update of the remote is really quite quick - much faster than the Harmony process. I click on the 'Watch TV' activity that I've set up, great, TV turns on, ReplayTV turns on, Tuner works, Inputs switched. Next, I click on the 'Watch DVD' activity, DVD turns on, TV input doesn't switch right from Component to HDMI. Ok, no biggie. But, I notice that the ReplayTV is still on! I expected it to shut the ReplayTV off and turn on the DVD player, just like my Harmony used to do. Hmmm, ok, I re-hookup the remote to my computer. A little research later.... oh, my DVD player, ReplayTV, CD player, and cable set top box only have a Power Toggle option that defaults for the equipment - not a Power On and Power Off action. For those of you who are used to your remote switch from activity to activity while shutting down the previous activity, this is a problem. Since a Power Toggle cannot determine the state of the equipment, i.e. whether it is currently turned on or turned off, if you are switching from activity to activity, the remote won't be able to effectively turn on/off your equipment. It's not as simple as clicking on 'Device' as you would with the Harmony remote, selecting the device, and clicking on a Power action. You need to set all that up as well! Ok, I'm thinking, there must be discrete codes for Power On and Power Off for my equipment somewhere on the internet. I spent 3 hours locating the discrete codes for the majority of my equipment, downloading hex editors, hex converters, CCF disassemblers, sorting through CCF configuration files, testing and retesting. I still don't have it the way I'd like it configured. And the missing discrete codes for some of my equipment almost makes it impossible for this remote to function properly!! I'm sure I could spend another night to figure out how to make it all work, but what happened to ease of use? I miss my one-click Harmony, click 'Watch TV', my TV comes on, ReplayTV on, Tuner on, I flip over to 'Watch DVD', my ReplayTV shuts down, my DVD turns on, I hit 'Power Off', everything shuts off.
5 hours later of fiddling with this thing, I'm on the verge of returning it and just getting another Harmony 880. Bottom line, the remote is very nicely designed from an aesthetic standpoint. The software is intuitive, fairly flexible. The programming logic (or lack thereof) will make this remote challenging to set up correctly (i.e. the remote doesn't remember your previous activity and knows what state your equipment is in so that when you select another activity, it can determine which devices it needs to turn on/off). The seemingly impossible to find discrete codes that make this remote usable was an utter disappointment. If your equipment doesn't support discrete codes, at least for Power On and Power Off, I think you are going to have some real problems using this remote.
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