Best Remote to Control a 501 and 6000

[Phil T]

I am looking for a cheep ($50.00-100.00) remote that will control all my stuff.
Stuff=Sony TV, Sony, VCR Toshiba DVD, Dish 501(set on address#1), Dish 6000 (set on address#4) and Onkyo surround sound system)

The Sony RM VL900 looks interesting. Anybody have one?

Will it control both of my Dish receivers?

Thanks

[Mark Lamutt]

Phil - you may be able to pick up a Philips Pronto TSU1000 in that price range on ebay, or in the classifieds at www.remotecentral.com - trust me you will really like this remote. I have the TSU2000 and will never go back to anything else!

[ibglowin]

Both of those remote are IR only. Your Dish remotes are UHF. They won't work. The one thing I really don't like about Dish Network stuff is this UHF nonsense. Like we all want to be able to control the receiver from 4 rooms away. I have the Sony AV3000. Great remote. Controls everything but Dish. If somewone knows of a remote that has both IR and UHF let me know!

[Mark Lamutt]

You are incorrect. Except for the model 4000 which was UHF only, all of the other Dish receivers have IR capability, whether they have UHF capability or not. My pronto controlls my 4900, 6000 and 501 just fine.

[brentp]

Originally posted by ibglowin
The one thing I really don't like about Dish Network stuff is this UHF nonsense. Like we all want to be able to control the receiver from 4 rooms away.

Actually, that is exactly what I like about the Dish remote. Of course, everybody's situation is different. For us, we have 2 central receivers with their outputs piped throughout the house through a whole house MTS distribution system. Without the UHF remotes, we would have to do the whole IR target/repeater thingy and that would be a royal pain in the back side!,. . . at least for us :lol:

[Doug E]

Question for Mark Lamutt......thanks to your recommendation, I want to purchase the Pronto tsu2000. But only if it will operate my new 721.....do you know for certain if it will?

Thanks, Doug

[Mark Lamutt]

Absolutely the pronto will control your 721, except for discrete ON/OFF control. We are hoping that Dish will add that functionality to the 721s soon, as they have to all of the other receivers.

You may want to do some programming of your pronto interface when you get it. I don't know if the pronto will control your 721 straight out of the box, but I do know that it can and will learn all of the IR codes from your 721 remote, and that you can assign those codes to any buttons that you want to.

If you like, I'd be happy to post my pronto configuration (called a .CCF file) for you to look at (and use if you want) in ProntoEdit. I don't have a 721, but my 501 config is pretty good I think.

[gcutler]

I have the Sony VL-900 and love it. It is a little heavy compared to the other RCA one I have. But the learning memory is really large. I think I have entire remotes Learned instead of typing in the codes. But it will only control IR devices for dish set to CODE 1, so I don't see how it would work with the Model 6000.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Mark Lamutt
You are incorrect. Except for the model 4000 which was UHF only, all of the other Dish receivers have IR capability, whether they have UHF capability or not. My pronto controlls my 4900, 6000 and 501 just fine.

But does the Remote work on other than IR ID #1? If you set the recievers to ID#1 and the recievers were in the same room, your code would be sent to all recievers within range? Or are you talking about all recievers set to 1 and them being in different rooms? Or are you talking about your remote literally using the different UHF IDs.

As far as I know most Universal remotes will only work on IR ID #1???

[Mark Lamutt]

Sorry, I'm not being clear. The pronto will work with every available remote address because you can teach it the IR codes from every button on every remote you have. It does have an extensive built in database of IR codes for devices, but you can teach it just about anything that sends IR. My 3 dish receivers are all in the same location, set to address 1, 8 and 9. I also use my pronto to contol my tv, receiver, 3 vcrs, dvd player, laserdisc player, home theater computer, fan, and furby! Yes, furby!

I have taught my pronto every button from all of the remotes that run all of these devices. Well, except for the furby - I used furby IR codes that were posted at remotecentral for that. :)

Most universal remotes only work for address 1 because you can't teach them codes. They aren't learning remotes. And by the way, all of those devices combined plus my extensive reprogramming of the graphics and layout take a whopping 37% of my total system memory in my pronto tsu2000.

[ibglowin]

Mark,

Can you explain more on the 6000/501 remotes. Do you have to switch them somehow to make them transmit IR and not UHF or do they transmit both at the same time? My Sony AV3000 is a learning remote so I am needless to say excited about learning that it may be able to control my Dish remotes afterall!

[Mark Lamutt]

The 6000 and 501 remotes send both UHF and IR simultaneously. You should have no trouble learning their codes with your Sony remote. If you do have problems, I know nothing about your remote and probably won't be able to help a whole lot other than point you over to remotecentral to check out their forum about sony remotes.

[gcutler]

See, you learn something every day. I have 2 learning remotes, but never knew I could get them to learn to other than ID #1 (the 2 dish recievers are in different rooms so actually never had a need).

Actually only my Sony VL-900 would have enough memory to learn an entire remote, My RCA 810 is a little limited in memory and there is not enough to remember an entire remote. When trying to teach my RCA 810 the SA TiVo codes(had a sony, RCA 810 only supported philips) I ran out of memory at the point where I had everything but # buttons 7-8-9-0 programmed. Luckily the VL-900 had much more memory.

[Mark Lamutt]

That's one of the big reasons I love my pronto - 11 complete remotes, 1 small furball toy and counting! :D

[DarrellP]

I use a Pronto for my 6000 & HT setup and it works great. The Macro capability is a real timesaver once programmed. I need to add the discrete codes posted elsewhere, I've been too lazy to fiddle with it lately to get the 501 codes input.

[ibglowin]

I LOVE THIS FORUM! Went home last night and taught my Sony AV3000 all the 6000 codes and it works like a charm. I can't beleive it! Thanks guys. Now on to the 508 and then I'll try a Macro for the DVD player. My family hates having all these remotes. The Sony is great, controls 18 things. It sells for $199 at Best Buy but I picked it up for $99 online last week at MacMall of all places!

[Phil T]

Thanks for all the info. I am still shopping for "the remote". I will let you know what I end up with.

[dlsnyder]

I am getting a 508 for Christmas! One thing I want to know though. I have one of those RadioShack 7 function remotes (this year's model - I forget the number). Will it work with my new 508? If so where can I find codes for it?

[gcutler]

As long as it is a learning remote you can get by. I had a remote that did not support the specific 508 (all the special buttons) But I picked the Dishnetwork compatible on my RCA remote and then learned the special buttons and it all worked great. So chances are if it is a learning remote you should be able to work with it. If not a learning remote, it might require extra effort.

[cnsf]

Originally posted by Mark Lamutt
Absolutely the pronto will control your 721, except for discrete ON/OFF control. We are hoping that Dish will add that functionality to the 721s soon, as they have to all of the other receivers.


Mark, do the 501s have discrete on/off? If so, how can I teach it to a learning remote? Maybe a trick on the existing remote?

[Mark Lamutt]

I posted the discrete on/off codes in philips pronto format a couple of weeks ago. To get them into other formats for other types of remotes, I'd suggest doing some research over at remotecentral.

[Phil T]

It looks like the Sony RM-VL900 is the way to go for me. My wife got me one for Christmas

I couldn't find a Pronto at a good price. I tried an All for One URC 8910 but it ran out of memory learning the 501 codes. I also didn't like the small buttons.

The 900 has learned everything except the pg up-pg dn guide buttons on the 501 (address #4) It is one button short. I don't like the fact I can't change button lablels, but I guess I can get used to that.

I looked at the Sony AV-2100 but don't see any advantages over the 900 for an extra $100.00. It looks like it has the same limitations.

[Phil T]

Update: I was able to program all functions of my 501. I was able to use the system control and unused component select buttons for pgup-pgdn and 30 sec skip buttons. I am now a happy camper. :)

[Mark Lamutt]

Glad it's working out for you Phil!

[Phil T]

Update #2

Well I am never happy for long. I took the Sony back and got the Kameleon.

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F002%5F002%5F010%5F001&product%5Fid=15%2D2133

The kids did not like the Sony, but love the Kameleon. I do wish it had a larger memory, but I did get it to learn most of my 6000 and 501 commands.

I will let you know how it goes.

[cnsf]

Try the Universal Remote MX-500....best learning all hard button remote I've seen for under $150.