[OT] HDTV recommendations?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 07:21:55PM -0400, Scott Allen wrote:
> So how many TV marketing brochures or technical specifications have
> you seen that say:
> "Includes additional IR codes for discrete control of power, inputs
> and other functions, for use with other company's remotes"?
> The TV manufacturer doesn't make any money on the sale of these remotes.

Well I know that I will be looking for this in the future.  Any that
don't will simply be off the list of things to choose from.

> Harmony is doing a pretty good job of handling menus and other
> multi-key sequences to switch things, so it's not like most of these
> TVs can't be made to work at all with a Harmony.

They just don't work very well and can often get messed up and out
of sync.  Gets rather annoying.

> How often do you think that a consumer tells a manufacturer "I didn't
> buy your TV because it doesn't have discrete codes to work with my
> Harmony"? How often have you seen postings on the Internet, even in
> technical forums, which say "I wouldn't recommend this TV because it
> doesn't have discrete IR codes for intelligent remotes"?

Most people writing reviews aren't writing anything of any value.

> I doubt that many marketing departments feel that they are loosing
> market share because of it. Believe me, if they thought that adding
> discrete codes would increase market share enough to justify it, they
> would. Otherwise, as you say, they deserve to loose market share for
> not recognising this fact.

Well I am hoping that as harmony remotes and such gain in popularity
perhaps they will start to hear such complaints.

And actually I am discovering that they are getting such complaints:
http://community.insigniaproducts.com/t5/Televisions/Discrete-IR-Codes/td-p/4239

> Lennart,
> Please note that I agree with you. I get just as pissed off as you do
> when my Harmony gets out of sync (although the "help" button usually
> cures it). I had to come up with some tricks to get my Samsung TV to
> properly switch inputs (It has discrete input codes but some don't
> work properly).
> 
> I'm just playing devils advocate to try to explain why the
> manufacturers probably don't think that they are as insane as we feel
> they are. ;-)

Well if everyone just quietly grumbles about it to themselves, they will
never fix it.

I did just find www.remotecentral.com which has collections of codes for
many things.  Seems to even have hex remote codes for a lot of models
for discrete power and input selections.  I am going to have to do some
searching there.

They even have a convinient page:
http://www.remotecentral.com/files/use-ir.htm

It nicely lists brands that are known to not have discreet codes.
Seems Toshiba is the single worst offender.  Every single device of
every type Toshiba makes has no discreet power codes.

Interestingly one brand has a model listed with a note that they released
a firmware upgrade to add discreet codes.  Well that's nice at least.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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