R2 vs R4

vining

I'm wondering what folks who have used the R2 think of it. I haven't yet used one but I am now thinking it would be a better fit in most jobs than the R4. Although I've used R4 in every job since they came out I find that in every new job I'm sending less feedback to them than I did the job before and subsequently I'm asking it to do less and less because of that. So that I'm now at the point where I have almost no feedback at all and just make them control the basic surround system related stuff like a universal remote. The grand ideas that I had when these first came out have long since turned into one dissappointment after another so I'm now thinking what's the point and the R2 has hard buttons for transport controls too, so, why not.

So anyone that is familar with the R2 and the RF receiver I'd like to hear your opinions.

TurnipTruck

I used a few. It is Axlink device, so all of the buttons are on one port and you cant change their channels assignments. If you are used to using different port for different functions, you will have to do that in code. The pushes and releases dont come in as quickly as they do with the R4. The radio signal range is shorter and more succeptable to interference.

troberts

I've done about 6 R2s and 8 R4s. If the only thing you are doing is controlling a TV system then the R2 is the way to go. It is much cheaper and is extremely reliable....however as Trip says you cannot adjust the channel codes plus it only comes in 2 different frequencies. So, if you have more than 2 R2s in a job there will be cross talk between the systems that are at the same frequency.
R4s are great if you have the budget and if you need some feedback from 2-way devices. However I have seen these fall off line and take a few seconds to come back.

bcirrisi

On the R1, R2, R3, what do you guys typically do for the buttons that aren't on there? Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, Top Menu vs Pop-UP (for Blu-Ray), Aspect Ratio, and Sound Fields? I end up using a URC product for anything less then an R4, because I can't figure out where to put those buttons.

flcusat

bcirrisi wrote: »

On the R1, R2, R3, what do you guys typically do for the buttons that aren't on there? Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, Top Menu vs Pop-UP (for Blu-Ray), Aspect Ratio, and Sound Fields? I end up using a URC product for anything less then an R4, because I can't figure out where to put those buttons.

How do you interact the URC with AMX by IR or did you use an MSC400 to send RS-232 strings to the AMX controller?

bcirrisi

I use IR, NI-700 or NI-900 with an IR Sensor on the display. Lately I've been using a hybrid of the URC controling some things directly like Channel +/-, numbers, transports, and send IR to AMX for all macros and integration options. It works pretty good.

Just in case; URC = Universal Remote Control

jazzwyld

R4 vs IR

We used RTI for a remote solution for a particular budget minded project. I would have rather used an R4, I've programmed 15 or so R4s to be used with big systems. We mainly do large scale distribued audio/video systems. Once you know the limits of the device they are great to work with. I think the difficulty is people assume they are a touch panel, which they aren't. I've modified my ARQ, Cable/sat, Radio, Kscape module all to work with an R4 and it works like a charm.

You can't have as much dynamic text sent to it, because yes it will fall offline constantly. If you program around the parameters of the unit...its quite a great solution. Our company due to the RTI project (which came out very well) has decided we will never mix AMX and another manufacture like that again (unless they need a hot tub remote). We use URC for small projects when they come around if the client doesn't want to spring for the big bucks for an AMX system. I like the ability to change the ports and channel numbers, it severely lessens the amount of code I need to write and although I have a different UI module for the device I can have it follow similar ports to my touch panels.

vining

troberts wrote:

So, if you have more than 2 R2s in a job there will be crosstalk between the systems that are at the same frequency.

Since I've never used one of these I'm not exactly sure but I would think you could easily get 10 remotes to work on a system with out any crosstalk issues by assigning different remotes different channel groups. On the 433 freq remote 1 = channels 1- 49, remote 2 = channels 50 - 99 and so on up until channel 255 then you could repeat the same thing on the 418 freq.

TurnipTruck wrote:

so all of the buttons are on one port and you cant change their channels assignments.

Yeah that would be a bummer. I've already spent enough time rewriting code to minimize feedback to these remotes so the idea throwing out that work and rewriting code to accomodate single port multiple device control doesn't sound like anything I want to get into unless the $$ aren't there for R4s.

I the RTI route looks promising and the style is very similiar the the MIO remotes so I think in situation where feedback isn't needed, no movie or song lists it would be more than adequate.

TurnipTruck

vining wrote: »

troberts wrote:

Since I've never used one of these I'm not exactly sure but I would think you could easily get 10 remotes to work on a system with out any crosstalk issues by assigning different remotes different channel groups. On the 433 freq remote 1 = channels 1- 49, remote 2 = channels 50 - 99 and so on up until channel 255 then you could repeat the same thing on the 418 freq.

You can't change the channels associated with the remote's buttons.

You could have ten remote with exactly the same functionalities. That's would be it.

A press of a play button on any remote would trigger the same incoming push on the master regardless of which R2 it came from.

vining

TurnipTruck wrote:

You can't change the channels associated with the remote's buttons.

I should have expected that since it would have been an intelligent design to make them configurable. God thing I didn't go with my assumption and spec these. I guess in the low budget realm the RTI remotes would a more capable solution.