Charlie, how would the task oriented interface differ from the current one? Right now, if you have all of your inputs plugged into their respective spots on the processor, simply changing the active input from Xbox to DVD (for example) would bring all of the corresponding inputs into play. Granted, many pieces of equipment (cough, cough) could use renameable input labels to make this better, but...

The fly in this ointment is usually the display (as in television) where there's an input selection on a device not directly controlled by the processor is required.

Right now, macros do the trick, nicely. As you describe in your activity concept, I execute my macro for Tivo, and the processor changes to Sat/TV mode, my TV to the s-video input, and the remote ends on the Tivo device setting. How is that different?

I do have to admit that the whole shooting match would be greatly simplified (you still have to program those remotes for whatever random configuration of equipment you put together) if the devices could talk to eachother, though. That right there could lead to the macros being created by the AV interface behind the scenes, leaving geeks like us to customize the defaults and everyone else to just use without confusion.

--Mike