I don’t know if it’ll ever happen, but I envision someday unbundling the whole remote-control aspect from all CE devices. Just give them a little serial/wireless network and standards by which to declare their functionality, then have a little box (OK, this _could_ be built into one of the larger devices to save another box) that marshals all the info together intelligently (I said ‘intelligently’!) and communicates to/from the single remote and/or a computer (like an HTPC). The remote would have buttons that are not spongy and unreliable, I might add.

But I don’t know, if you have the “suck total balls” capability on your remote, you might want to keep that. Sounds pretty rare and useful. This integrated remote concept could also include a function to modulate that capability based on the content and rating of the current video…

And while we’re at it, can we redesign the remote or the IR receiver (whichever parts make doing anything suck total balls)?

But at least it is a big flat-screen. At least it has that going for it.

Now that I have a HTPC, I only need to turn the TV on and off. Which can be a challenge, mind you, but at least the frustration level is reduced considerably.