RC User Reviews: Marantz RC2000 Mk II Remote Control (2)

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User reviews for the Marantz RC2000 Mk II from Marantz.

Ratings	Reviews	MSRP (USD)
Average: 4.22/5.00 Median: 4.33/5.00	12	$249

The Marantz RC2000 Mark II is an improvement over the original version with better learning capabilities, improved battery life and a more logical button layout.

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the Marantz RC2000 Mk II remote.

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Written by George from Michigan.

The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-3 months.

Review 5 made on Sunday April 1, 2001 at 11:35 PM.

Strengths:

Learns essentially all codes, reasonably good display, non-volatile memory (thank God).

Weaknesses:

Very top heavy, heavy, button placement for channel scan and volume buttons makes them hard to use with one hand (dumb design), very weak IR signal (especially in a bright room), poor battery life.

Review:

This unit is an odd mixture of real strengths and just plain dumb ergonomic design. It is uncomfortable to hold and use (I have a $80 URC 8090 that is so much better ergonomically it is not even funny) and way too heavy -- made worse by its top-heaviness. I got the Marantz for $130 and at that price it is reasonable value. At it's list of $250 it is massively over-priced.

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Written by Thomasen from France.

The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-2 years.

Review 4 made on Monday January 29, 2001 at 11:11 AM.

Strengths:

Does everything and does it good.
Almost all its many buttons can be learned differently by 10 devices. Excellent.

Weaknesses:

Bad battery life.
Weak IR emission.

Review:

Will do whatever you want it to do. It has LOTS of programmable keys, which is way better than trying to program the usual remote keys to softbuttons. The macrofunction is really strong, and the learning ability simply works with no flaws.

Too few characters to label the softbuttons. No way to label the macrobuttons. Bad battery life. I would really have liked if the RC2000mkII had a library of codes to select from instead of learning all the usual codes through IR.

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Written by Rob Cook from Lafayette, Indiana.

The reviewer has used this remote control for 1-2 years.

Review 3 made on Wednesday December 6, 2000 at 12:42 AM.

Strengths:

Fully customizeable
Only remote for 200 bucks with extensive custome labels in a display. "not a limited bank of "presets ".
1.)4 MACRO BUTTON BANKS "20 commands each"
2.)32 FUNCTION x ten device custom labels and custom function " this is somthing no other remote I have found under 300 bucks does. I have bought several RC2000MKII for under $200 dollars for customers of mine.
3.)Large hard buttons
4.)Durable
5.)Audible button presses "confirmation"
6.)non volitle memory for "safe" battery changes
7.)Remote cloning.
8.)Excelent backlighting

Weaknesses:

Weakness:
1.)Could be improved by adding 5 digit custome labels in the display " not four".

2.)Easy but CUMBERSOM to fully program with all your components.
3.)Responds poorly when competing with ambient light, such as sunlight reflecting thru a window, or bright flouresent ceiling lights. These can be overcom thru other fixes like mini blinds or using a remote IR blaster located directly in the A/V cabinet.

Review:

What can I say, Total bang for the buck !

I have been involved in home theatre design / and instalation for several years and of all the remotes I have seen, (more than a few!) I havn't found a remote to beat the total value of the RC2000mkII.
Strengths:
extremley flexible in setting up simple or complex theatres. It does what is needed in almost any application.
Four banks of 20 command macros is available. This is handy for setting up "device themes". excelent for simplifying complex systems for the less technicaly inclined.
Thirtytwo customized "soft buttons" with unique lables for each of 10 devices.
10 devices times 32 functions = 320 "soft buttons" + the standard hard buttons. If you don't like or use the "hard buttons" or run out of space, "unlikely" then you can set up additional buttons. Excelent when delving into deeper menu functions of your device. More common functions located on page one, less used functions on page two, and so on. you can even combine functions from several devices on one page so you have all the most common functions from several different remotes on the same device/page.
In essence, you are designing or building your perfect remote.
In short, there isn't much that other remotes can do that this one doesn't. Especially for the money !
In short , it is the problem solver when absolutly only ONE remote is desired for full system control.

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Written by RayT from Ottawa, Ontario.

The reviewer has used this remote control for 6-12 months.

Review 2 made on Wednesday November 29, 2000 at 12:10 PM.

Strengths:

- Real hard keys for critical functions !!!(keypad, volume, channel, cursor, and transport)
- Enough soft keys to handle any equipment.
- The best traditional hard key remote
- strong backlight.
- Reasonable price (expensive, but not ridiculous like a Pronto)
- a traditional solution to remote clutter than works. You don't really need more than this remote to get the job done.
- tough and well made

Weaknesses:

- Front heavy feel, a bit large
- battery life below average.
- LCD screen a bit hard to read
- labels need to allow more characters
- macro buttons should be labellable.

Review:

I've owned the RC2000 Mk2 for almost a year and I will say right off the bat that I recommend this remote. I've also own a Philips Pronto and a Home Theater Master SL-9000.

This remote is good in that it's still one of the best hard button remotes out there but it offers some of the flexibility of fancier remotes like the Pronto, namely custom buttons. Since these can be found at a discount from its $200 USD list price, it's still good value.

Having a good dedicated set of transport keys, keypad, and a cursor pad is what makes this remote desirable. I love my Pronto because of its powerful macros, but when I need to do more intensive tasks like editing the VCR and even navigating DVD menus, a set of hard keys is so much faster and intuitive than having to look down at a touch screen.

The remote has a LCD screen where you can assign short labels to the softkeys. You can have up to 4 panels of softkeys for each device in the LCD screen. And you can customize the title for each of the panels (e.g. "Transport", "Keypad", "Main" panel etc) It also has a set of macro keys that allow you to set up sequences of keys. You can control the delay of each keypress in a macro. The 4 character labels for the LCD panel's softkeys don't allow very descriptive labels...so they end up pretty cryptic (e.g. +PIC, SRCH, etc). The LCD is a bit hard to read I find. The macro keys are, unfortunately, not labellable so you'll have to go by memory. They unit comes preset for Marantz/Phlips components which labels for all the custom buttons loaded. They should have provided an easy way to blank ot the labels for each unused button. I had to blank out the unused labels by manually entering space characters. Programming this remote takes a good few hours but is easy enough. It helps if you plan out the layout of the LCD panels beforehand so they are grouped by common functionality.

The battery life is a bit poor but you won't lose information when you pull the batteries out. I invested in a set of NiMH AA rechargeables which take the pain of replacing costly alkalines. I have the backlight come on for long periods but I am sure that you could easily get a couple of months out of alkalines if you were easy on the backlight. Other than that, no real complaints...the unit is very large and also bit front heavy but will survive drops better than the touchscreen models.

(note: since I have a Pronto which has programmed with discrete codes, I was able to duplicate macros which would not be normally possible...e.g. a macro to turn off all my components...)

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Written by Antony Boulton from Stoke-on-Trent UK.

The reviewer has used this remote control for 3-6 months.

Review 1 made on Thursday August 24, 2000 at 9:49 AM.

Strengths:

Will copy virtually any IR based remote up to 10 devices. Programable screen for an extra 32 functions per device. Strong IR beam, better than than most of the Toshiba ones that came with the equiment.

Weaknesses:

Very poor battery life, sucking 4 Duracel Ultras every 2 months.
Not enough Macros available.

Review:

I luckily got mine from Ebay UK for the price of �20 (better than the �149 wanted at all good retailers) so when it comes to value for money I can not complain. Yes the battery life is very poor, rechargeable batteries last around 1 month.
The device is of a fairly strong build quality, which is a bonus as it has been dropped onto a wooden floor far too many times.
It comes pre-set with Marantz and Philips devices setup. The learning process is very slow, and you will be teaching the device for at least 3 months and you find that you learnt 7 twice or the volumn down does not work when in DVD mode. These all arise from user error not device failure.
The customisable LCD screen is a great asset with the only problem being a maximum of 4 characters to each button. You can customise the backlight to be on for x seconds or not at all etc, also a beeb when a button is pressed.
The macro function is very useful but there is not enough of them and they are not that easy to setup.
All in all a very good remote, but for �149 the extra �50 for the RC5000 from Hotkit.com, is a much better investment.

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