The remote control has the power of making your home theater system experience wonderful or highly dissatisfying. You can have all the newest and best technology and the most impressive collection of music and DVDs, but what good is it if you can’t even use it?

A system that performs superbly and is easy to use with just the press of a button is real home theater paradise. "Smart" remote controls are included with lots of the home theater receivers and surround processors on the market now. Some of these remotes, such as B&K and Denon, work well.

With the right knowledge, you can program one of these remotes to control your whole system beautifully. If you lack the time, desire, or ability to do this yourself, hire a professional installer to get it all coordinated. CEDIA (Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association) has member firms in every state, and some in other countries, with experts in providing ease of use for intricate home theater systems.

There is a lot of variety in the remote controls that are available. Consumers are pretty familiar with the ones that come with most electronic devices you buy nowadays. These usually are good at getting that specific device to perform the tasks you want it to perform.

Such remotes have the ability to control other components, especially when those different components come from the same manufacturer. When this is the case you can, for example, use the remote control for your television to control your DVD player, too. An improvement upon these remotes is the "smart remote," which can control multiple components, even when they are from different manufacturers.

Some can control between 8 and 10 different devices. In most cases, they can be set to control the various components by entering codes of 3 or 4 digits. Some of them can learn control functions from other remotes, which is beneficial if the unit you want to control is not included in the internal database of your remote.

You can usually make your smart remote "learn" a command from another remote control by entering a "learn" mode on the smart remote, point the "teaching" remote at it, and press the appropriate button. You can make using your home theater system even simpler with a remote that performs macros, which are command sequences initiated when you press only one button.

Let’s say you want to watch a DVD. Traditionally, you have to turn on your TV, and your DVD player, as well as the surround receiver. Then, you would have to switch inputs on your TV. This whole sequence can be programmed into a macro capable remote, so that the remote performs all of the necessary commands in the right order, and all you have to do is press one button.

A remote that controls all of your devices has many buttons, which can be overwhelming. It can perform all kinds of functions, but you may not know exactly how to get started. If your budget allows it, you should get a touch screen remote. These remotes typically have only a few buttons. These are usually the buttons for the most basic functions like volume control and channel changing.