MX-450 Remote Setup and Macros

Remember when you got your first TI-82 calculator, and you programmed it to do your math homework for you? Well, programming the MX-450 is a little easier, in full color, and of course the result is better than getting your homework done. By holding down the Main button for 5 seconds, you enter into the remote's on board programming mode. Not only do you enter into the programming mode, but the programming mode for dummies. An instructive tip screen appears, telling you to use the cursor up or down buttons to move through a list. Hit the next button and you get another tip, this time cautioning you that the buttons at the bottom of the screen change meaning from screen to screen. OK, now that we're past those two screens (which we can and will turn off via the main menu) we get to the good stuff. The third screen in to our programming mode, our main menu looks like this:

• Basic Setup
• Advanced Setup
• Favorite Channels
• User Settings
• Display Tips

Basic Setup

Begin with the end in mind, right? This is where we can execute the following options: Search the Database, LEARN, Delete a Device, and Review Code Set.

Advanced Setup

Once all of your devices have been selected from the database or learned, this is where we find the Copy & Paste, Macros, Hide or Display Pages, Edit Labels, Erasing and RF Setup features.

Favorite Channels

Here you can add up to 48 favorite channels, with about 50 high quality stock channel logos and 8 make-your-own templates to choose from.

User Settings

Here you can adjust the brightness of the LCD screen, adjust the Auto Turn Off from 5 to 60 seconds, do the same for the button lighting, check out the battery life and system memory usage and perform a factory reset.

Tech Note: Display Tips
A favorite, discovered way too late. This turns off all of the helpful, and after a while annoying, tip screens.

The IR/remote database is huge, and contained all of the devices used in this review. With that under our belt we'll move on to the PC-free programming. Upon selecting "Search the Database" from the Basic Setup Menu, you are asked to choose the icon position on Page 1 of your main menu. You can either choose new position or an existing icon (if reprogramming an old icon to a new device). Once you choose the position, you then choose the type of device you are adding (TV, CABLE, SAT DVD, AUDIO, AUX, etc.). Each device type has a stock icon already attached, with a few having slight variations to choose from, i.e. a flat panel TV or what looks like an old school rear projection model. Once you decide from the limited 30 icons, you lock in the name of the device. If you're used to texting with a traditional cell phone, you'll fly through this. If not, type slowly. HINT: Pushing the cursor button (Circular button around the SEL button) to the right will create a "space". I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out where the spacebar was.

Once you've got a name you like and hit Next, there is a "most popular" listing of the most common brand/device manufacturers in that category. The TV set up had a top ten and then about 200 other manufacturers in alphabetic order. Upon choosing a brand, you are presented with a test screen where you are instructed to manually power on the device that you are programming. You then hit test, if you get no results then use the cursor button to scroll through the options within that brand and the remote sends the test signal with each new screen. As soon as the device powers off, you've hit a potential winner and you select the TEST button. This moves you to a screen where you are instructed to test the power, volume up, channel up and number one buttons. This did well for 3 out of 5 devices, but for the Sony Receiver and Scientific Atlanta HD-DVR in our test group, a couple of codes passed that test but were not correct for those units. This entailed taking just a little more testing and time to find the correct code.

Macros

The Macro Setup Mode is easily reached via the Advanced Setup Menu. Once here you'll find an intuitive process, minus the bells and whistles your PC might bring to the setup process. After you have entered the Macro Setup Mode, actions are recorded as you take them, so you go to the Main menu, scroll to the page containing the desired device, select it, and choose the command you want recorded, i.e. once in the TV device menu, press the power ON button to record this command. Editing options include moving a command, adding a command, and adding a delay of .5 to 60 seconds.

RF setup is also super easy, starting at the Advanced Setup, RF Setup is selected and the next screen gives a choice of either All Devices Set Same or Each Device Differs. For our purposes, equipment was all located in a closet and an MRF-260 RF base station was used to receive RF from the MX-450 and transmit IR signals to all of the necessary devices.