Remote
One of my favorites is the my iMon remote. I've wanted to buy one of these for years, but I was apprehensive of how well they work. I didn't get one unitl one of my friends got me one for my birthday. I got it about 4 years ago and many newer models are out right now.
The model I have is the iMon +PLUS iMon RSC (Remote Stick Controller). It is one of their older models. Many of their newer models utilize radio waves over infared.
The benefits of this is that you don't need "line-of-sight" like you do with infared. This would allow you to have your pc in a neighboring room and control it infront of your television (excellent for reducing system noise).The setup was easy and the agility of the remote was surprising. Took a bit to get use to the thumb stick, but you adjust. Even though you can use it right after install, you will want to adjust the default setting immediately. The IR detector in the corner of the screen and beeping noise it makes to confirm a signal are more then annoying. On the positive side many major media applications are preprogrammed and programming new applications that aren't there is very easy. I easily programed Ace Media Player in 15 minutes by setting the controllers buttons to different macros. I even setup a macro that switches my video output from computer to television.
The remote also comes with a program that runs on your computer to "fullfill" all your media center needs. The program has a relative sleek look, but you would need it to run on a system as the proprietary program. it tended to run quite slow and clumsy searching for all of my various media. When you click on photos, I don't need to access every jpg on my system. There are ways to customize the program, but my initial reaction was that it wasn't worth it.
Pros
- Works exceptionally well with the pc. Install software, install hardware, start playing.
- Preprogramed with many popular media applications.
- Easy to setup with unpopular or newer media applications.
- Extra media program kind of generic and clumsy
- default settings have to modified
I've always loved touchscreens and believe they will be a key part in future computer and media applications. Just look at DS Lite. The downside is that they are expensive and many operating systems don't utilize the touchscreen.
I picked up an old touchscreen from one of my many resources. I can't think of the manufacturer right now but the screen was an old concession terminal that was taken out of use for a newer system. The screen is a 14" LCD with a small mountable base. One large cable comes off of the unit and breaks off into a VGA cable and a serial cable. The VGA carries the signal and the serial carries the touch information. The touchscreen itself loads like a serial mouse. The drivers for the touchscreen were non existant but I found a similar driver made by 3M (thats the company that makes tape, I guess they make touchscreen drivers too).
Sketchup rendering of touchscreenWith the touchscreen installed I can set it up as my pcs second monitor, using a DVI to VGA adapter on that second port on the card. With a simple drag and sizing Winamp fits perfectly on this small screen. Winamp has a built in feature that when ever you open Winamp it resizes itself to the same settings it was when you closed it. This way if you reboot or close out winamp for some reason, when you reopen it, it reappears on the touchscreen. No constant tweaking neccessary.
With the touchscreen setup for music, the remote for television, the wires run and the video card configured I can now watch television on my video card. Now we need to setup the sound to go from my pc speakers to the television without having to switch out wires.
more to come....
