Control Freak

By Lev Grossman

I'm not one of those people who get all lathered up about what a great show The Sopranos is, but last week I watched an episode in which a guy gets himself whacked over a remote control. That seems a little ridiculous, but then again, it was a pretty nice-looking remote. Lots of buttons. Silver case. Even had a little built-in screen. Come to think of it, I've spent some quality time with some quality universal remotes recently, and I think I can understand how he felt.

A universal remote is a remote control that works with a whole range of appliances--TVs, VCRs, stereos, satellite dishes, what have you--instead of just one. It will also handle devices from any manufacturer. Since my apartment is practically a museum for obscure, obsolete and otherwise obstreperous electronics, I need a remote that can whip a whole houseful of misfit gadgets into shape, kind of like Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen. I set out to find one.

Out of the box a universal remote cannot control a pet rock, much less a satellite dish. First you have to take it around and introduce it to each gadget in turn, punching in the proper code for each make and model, so that the remote knows what signals to send to which device. With some remotes, this phase is sheer torture. The extremely fancy Philips Pronto ($399), for example, forced me to watch 20 minutes of Chains of Love before I could figure out how to change the channel on my TV. No one should have to go through that.

I had the best luck with the Home Theater Master SL-8000 ($79). It had my TV up and running in 20 seconds. I tried my cable box next. It's a harder case: the remote it came with is so lame it can't even turn up the volume. The SL-8000 had it working inside of a minute. Volume too.

Then, for the maximum degree of difficulty, I went after my ancient VCR, which doesn't even have a remote. It's a legacy from a woman I dated for about five minutes back in 1993--and it was old when she bought it. Ladies and gentlemen, for 10 years I've had to get up and walk across the room every time I wanted to fast-forward through the sad parts in On Golden Pond, but the SL-8000 had my VCR begging for mercy in just under 10 seconds. That did it. I swept all my now superfluous remotes off the coffee table and threw them into a shoe box in the back of the hall closet.

Mind you, at $79 the SL-8000 is a relatively cheap remote. It can handle up to eight components. Sony's RM-AV2100 Integrated Remote Commander--the fatal remote featured on The Sopranos--costs $179 and can handle a dozen. The Remote Commander is a serious remote--tweakable, customizable, programmable--bursting with preferences and macros and timers. Instead of plain old buttons, it has a glowing blue LCD touch screen. ("Hey, is that the remote or the TV?" quipped my wife. She's still jealous about VCR Girl.)

But she's got a point. I'm not sure anyone needs that much control. I found the Remote Commander too big and too clumsy. You need two hands to work it, the touch screen is hard to read (it gets all smudgy and fingerprinty in about five minutes), and its high-level functions are so inscrutable I felt like I needed another remote just to operate it. Give me a simple, no-fuss, no-muss controller like the Home Theater Master SL-8000 any day. Now that's a universal remote I'd kill for.

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