Oh! Gizmo

By David Ponce

[ The following article is sponsored by Yamaha. The device was provided free of charge, and I am being compensated for the time I took to review the product. The opinions expressed are entirely my own. -Ed. ]

Yamaha’s pretty excited about their new Yamaha NeoHD line of media controllers, and for good reason: it works as advertised. If you’re a certain kind of consumer this device will make you smile. If you’re not, (as I am) it might make you wince but it’s not Yamaha’s fault at all. I’ll explain everything in detail in the review, but out here suffice it to say that the NeoHD media controller does a great job of getting rid of your panoply of remotes and replaces them with a simple graphic-based user interface for controlling just about any media source you decide to plug into the device… and one single back-to-basics remote.

The idea is simple: plug your DVD player, your Playstation or Xbox, your cable box and your DVD player into the machine and relinquish their individual control to NeoHD. The device will communicate with them all via IR blasters attached directly to their IR ports. It’ll also take care of your surround sound, whether it be through your own 5.1 set of speakers, or the included (in my package at least) 2.1 virtual surround set. There are enough connections at the back to accommodate just about any setup.

You might say “Hey, but I got a Harmony remote that does all that!” And I’d say sure, but you’d be missing the point. Read on for all the details, plus find out how to win one of these systems (an $800 value!).

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