Home Theater Mega Remote
Posted by Tech Toys Guide on Oct 17, 2008
For those who are into home theater, universal or programmable remotes are the ultimate tech toys. Philips and its Pronto line of products are, frankly, the undisputed kings of the ultra-programmable, ultra-cool touchscreen remote control market.
The Philips Pronto TSU9600 is the leader of the pack in Philips Pronto line. It’s big. It’s cool. It’s shiny. It looks more like some sort of wireless web pad than a remote control. With a 3.7 inch touchscreen and a few selected hard buttons, it’s pretty much the ultimate in home theater control outside of paying huge sums for a Crestron or other high-end, dealer installed system.
Where the TSU9600 really stands out from the crowd, like most of the Pronto line, is in its programmability. You can literally program this thing to do just about anything. Turn on just the devices you want to watch a movie? Yeah. How about turning on all the devices to watch a movie and then dimming the lights, closing the shades, and grabbing you a cold beer… Yeah, it can do all of that… well, maybe not going to get you a cold beer. All of this can be done with a good bit of work using the included ProntoEditPro software. The remote even has built in WiFi so you can actually use ProntoScript to develop scripts that access the web for information or communicate with your networked devices in your home.
Philips Pronto Professional TSU9600
Play Your Digital Media on Your Home Theater
Posted by Tech Toys Guide on Oct 16, 2008
In my opinion, one of the greatest new concepts of the past few years is the idea of the Media Center Extender. Linksys, who we all know as a leader in home and small business networking, has recently released a couple new Media Center Extenders that bring your digital media from your computer to your home theater.
These are great for families and anyone interested in tech toys. Instead of having to invest $500 or more in a home theater PC, you can simply hook up a Linksys DMA2100 or Linksys DMA2200 like any other High Definition component and connect it to your wireless network and you’re off and running. From browsing your music library to watching movies stored on your hard drive, these Media Center Extenders can do it all and, best of all, are very easy to use.
There are two models available from Linksys now. Both are fully functional Media Center Extenders, but the DMA2200 adds a DVD player, as well. The DMA2200 is a bit more expensive and the DVD player is nice, but probably not really all that important since most of us already have at least one DVD or Blu-Ray player already.
Check out the
Linksys DMA2100
and
Linksys DMA2200
