HDTV Almanac - A Remote Rant

[akirby]

I understand you could have an Ipod sized touch screen and have different subsets of commands on different screens, but I don't like that either.

I like touch screens in most cases for the reasons you cite. And for people who only pick up the remote to turn stuff on and off or to change a channel once an hour it would be fine. But for people like me who use their remote constantly while watching a show (DVR users especially) a touch screen would be a nightmare. I only have to use my Harmony One touchscreen when using the LIST function (recorded shows) and to use the colored buttons to go backwards and forwards in the program guide and even then I hate having to look down, find the spot on the touch screen and hit it. And I don't always hit the right button either.

On the Harmonys the LCD changes depending on which activity you're in and which devices you're controlling. This is the best of both worlds.

You won't see touch screens replace regular hard button remotes on lower end products because of the cost differential. But on anything costing a few hundred bucks or more I expect they'll become standard.

[submarine]

The Proceed factory remote that I use for A/V has 9 buttons. The footprint is smaller than a typical pack of cigarettes and under 1/2 inch thick. Remove the on/off and mute buttons, and 7 rubber-coated buttons control all set-up and daily control functions. It's very lightweight and feels good in my hands. The main reason is that it's not a micro-structure lacking proper scale and appreciable tactile feel for real human hands.

It converts to on-screen menu displays for lessor used settings and controls. It's very intuitive and the buttons are large enough to easily see in a low-lit HT environment without a backlight.

I can see product engineers - "Okay, department 7 designs the remote....and we'll get back together in 2 weeks", and here comes department 7 with their impressive remote with 50+ mini-buttons.

"Sure makes our product appear more expensive in the showrooms, huh?"

Well-meaning designers may look at the many remote designs on market and take "Q's" from top benchmarks. Touch-screens look impressive, too, yet, can get very messy in real applications.

The best remotes should be very simple, intuitive, a pleasure to feel and use, and disappear when not in use.

[akirby]

Pre-amps and processor controls are totally different from cable/satellite receivers/dvrs and televisions.

For my DirecTV DVR, I use the following buttons almost every time I watch TV:

0-9, rew, ff, play, pause, stop, record, skip, back, guide, list, menu, exit, info, ok, up, down, left, right, red

plus 6 or 8 other buttons that are used less frequently.


There is just no easy way to get that many buttons on a small touchscreen. But like I said for most other applications they're great.

[Roger Halstead]

Typically you can have, or could have say 3 rows of 3 buttons. One button, either hard or soft would change menus so you'd now have a different 8 buttons. Like typing, you soon learn where they are located without bothering to look. 3 bottom or 3 top, just let your fingers run along the edge of the screen. From there it becomes easy to locate the center 3 without looking. But, engineers being what they are, marketing being what it is, and the general public being clueless they all thing more is better and soon the touch screen is as cluttered as the remote with 50 or 60 buttons. Don't forget many of those 50 or 60 buttons have multiple functions and those functions change depending on which button was pressed prior to that button and in what order other buttons were pressed. BTW with typing my fingers know where the keys are located, but I have to look for them.

Computers, data bases, and interfacing with lab equipment were my my profession while my degree is in CS, yet most of the time I find these controls be be illogically organized, but they are simple compared to some of the radios I use. Some of them have multiple layered menus on different keys so the current one may have as many as 5 or 6 different menus depending on which key was pressed prior to getting to that one. Over all. 7 keys may have a total of 40 plus menus which may have 3 to 10 functions each.

[alfredpoor]

First, I don't necessarily agree that the engineers are at fault for the button-itis of remote controls. They're given functions and a budget to make them fit, and my guess is that most of them have minimal human factor training, especially in terms of user interface. (I can always spot a program manual written by an engineer.)

But, don't take the current state of the art as permanent. Haptics provide tactile feedback that can be used for buttons or touch screens. And the touch screen applications can make it feel as though you're actually pressing a button. I can imagine that haptics and sophisticated touch screens could provide tactile feedback that would feel like buttons and the spaces between them, and then provide the confirming feedback when you press one. (It would have to distinguish between a light and firm press, but that's easy if you can map the footprint of the touch; a larger footprint means a harder press.)

So there's no reason -- aside from budget for the moment -- that you could make a touch screen that you could navigate by feel.

Alfred

[akirby]

So you can create an expensive, technologically advanced remote that mimics a $10 hard button remote.

This reminds me of those expensive digital speedometers in the 80s that were made to look like a simple analog speedometer.

What's the point other than to prove it can be done? I think there are applications that work better with hard buttons (or hard/soft combination) and others that work better with LCD touchscreens. Can't we just leave it at that?

[Roger Halstead]

They just aren't all on there at the same time. Most touch screens are used in conjunction with physical keys which select what is up on the touch screen at any one time. My telephone has only 9 at any one time, but it has at least 40 plus functions in addition to hooking to my local network and surfing the net as well as shooting poor quality photos unless you view them as small snapshots, but that is true of all camera phones.