The Dude Abides

“If you will it, Dude, it is no dream.”

Those are the words that pop into my brain the first time I fire up Universal Remote Control’s MX-6000 to test out the better part of a week’s worth of tinkering and programming. And it’s not just because The Big Lebowski happens to be in my DVD player at the time. (It is. It always is.) I hear those words in my head because I realize that, for the first time, I’m not making excuses for a remote control.

I’m not left wishing for subtle nuances and setting such nitpicks aside, telling myself that no control system could possibly read my twisted little mind. For the first time, I’m using a remote control system that works exactly the way I think it should.

To be fair, this one can’t read my mind, either. I just spent a few hard days learning the ins, the outs, and the what-have-yous of URC’s Complete Control Program: a labyrinthine piece of freeform software that allows for all sorts of nifty routines, such as IF/ELSE variables, nested macros, delays, jumps, punch throughs and all manner of protocols that probably make no sense to you if you’ve never programmed one of Universal Remote Control’s remotes.

The point is, by the time I finally figure out what all of these toys work, I quickly come to the realization that the control interface I’m going to end up with is limited only by my imagination. And that can be a little scary.

And I’m not talking about merely pressing one button to fire up all of the gear I need and switch to all of the appropriate inputs required to watch a DVD. Any of the remotes I’ve reviewed in this class can do that with aplomb. Even my $400 Harmony could do that without batting an eye — before it bit the dust and started gathering the same. No, I’m talking about contingencies peculiar to the way I use my system, which no software designer could reasonably be expected to prepare for in advance.

I’d rather not have the Crowson Tactile Motion System in my Elite HTS recliner turn on every time I watch a DVD or play the PS3, for example. Not a problem; I simply leave it out of the macros and put on/off buttons on the screens for those activities. But when I hit the System Off button to initiate the shutdown macro I’ve crafted for my media room, I’d like for the MX-6000 to remember what condition the Crowson’s condition is in, turn it off if it needs turning off and let it be if not.

The beauty of it is, unlike other remotes in this class that I’ve used, I can make the interface for the MX-6000 exceedingly simple, and it still does everything I need it to do. Of course, it goes without saying that more advanced—read, more expensive—home automation and control systems can jump through similar hoops, assuming your custom installer is savvy enough to do the programming. But the MX-6000 does it all without the benefit of complex external system controllers, without power sensing, without RS-232 control.

Mind you, all of the above can be added in the form of Universal Remote’s MSC-400 Master System Controller, but that would be overkill in a sort of mid-level media room like my own.

In my case, the only extra goodies I need are an MRF-350 RF Base Station to send IR signals to the front or back of the gear in my out-of-the-way rack, and URC’s new PSX-2 iPod dock.

An RF Base Station like the MRF-350 would hardly be worth mentioning in most cases.

It captures incoming RF signals from the MX-6000, converts them to IR and sends the signals to the front or back of my gear via IR repeaters or 3.5-millimeter mini cables.

The beauty of the MRF-350, though, is that I can tweak the strength of its outgoing IR signals individually, so that my cable box—which has always sputtered, lagged and hiccupped due to the overly powerful signals from most IR repeaters—now responds like a puppy’s foot to a belly scratch.

The PSX-2, on the other hand, bears plenty of mentioning. An upgrade to last year’s PSX-1 (which was designed to work solely with the MX-6000), the PSX-2 is now compatible with all of URC’s remotes.

You’ll still need an MX-6000 to get the most out of it. Thanks to the fact that the PSX-2 and MX-6000 both connect to my home network (the former via Cat-6 and the latter via WiFi), I’m able to not only control my iPod, but also to see and manipulate a very sophisticated iPod interface on the remote itself, complete with album artwork, track, and artist info, as well as some advanced features not accessible on the iPod alone (e.g., shuffle by genre or artist).

This same two-way communication functionality allows for similar control of Media Center and iTunes for Home Theater PC users, as well as access to weather, news and sports RSS feeds on the touchscreen itself.

Speaking of the touchscreen, I admit that I found it a bit small at first, compared to the size of the remote as a whole. This worry subsided as soon as I started actually using it. The placement of the hard buttons is spot on, and the seemingly abandoned real estate to the south of the screen actually makes for a nice handhold. The only thing I would change is the material of the scroll-wheel/thumbpad, which feels a teensy bit flimsy compared to the rest of the remote.

Otherwise, I’m hard-pressed to come up with a single complaint. In every way conceivable, the MX-6000 simply rocks, in the parlance of our times. It’s an incredibly flexible, sophisticated remote that scales beautifully to just about any home entertainment setting, from a one-room media room to a whole private residence’s worth of audio, video and automation. And that’s not just, like, my opinion, man.

DESCRIPTION
MX-6000: Wireless touchscreen remote control for home theater, multiroom A/V and automation
PSX-2: Advanced iPod dock for URC control systems
MRF-350: RF Base Station for URC remotes

PRICE:
MX-6000: $1499
PSX-2: $399
MRF-350: $149

CONTACT: 800.901.0800, universalremote.com