Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After having this system now for a couple weeks and almost returning it, I've been through a bit of a roller coaster with it. When I first took it out of the box, which by the way, was very well packaged and had no missing components, I really liked the look of the system. I had always wanted a surround sound system but did not want to deal with the big receiver and all the wiring (work) that it would need. When I saw this online it seemed like a perfect compromise considering it's a fraction of the price of the only completely wireless system - Sonos. So, I hook it up, doesn't take long, easy to set up (which is saying quite a lot, since I'm a girl and although I am an engineer myself and have advanced technical know how, I still resent the fact that I don't have a man around to do this stuff for me!!) Anyways... I set it up, turn on my TV and there's sound... great sounding sound...but, absolutely NO sound from the rear satellite speakers. OK, time to trouble shoot...have I wired everything right? Yes. Cable box hooked to TV via HDMI, optical out on TV to in on sound bar. Maybe my TV is not outputting 5.1? Sure enough, check the TV settings no Dolby/DTS can even be selected. OK time to run to Redbox and try out a Blu Ray disc. Blu ray hooked up via HDMI to TV (recommended set up in the manual). Still no sound from the satellites. Time to check all the settings on the sound bar, surround is on, DTS Truvol on, surround balance is centered...do the speaker test... sure enough rear speakers are calling out left rear and right rear so, they work!! But, not with the input from either Blu Ray or cable/TV??!!! Doesn't make any sense to me so, I decide to call Vizio support. It took me about 15 minutes on the phone to just be connected with an agent, when I finally get her on the phone, she was polite, friendly and patient even though I was frustrated. She went through all the steps I had gone through adjusting sound bar settings using the remote, doing the speaker test and switching up the inputs from and to the sound bar in various ways to see if something would work... Nothing would get those damn satellites to produce so much as a squeak! She was confounded as well and said she would have to talk to one of their engineers and opened up a case for me. I had no more time to spend on the phone and said I would call back in a few days. In the meantime, I couldn't get this off my mind!! I posted the question on Amazon to see if anyone could help but didn't get help from anyone with this specific issue who knew how to resolve it. Then, I started reading the questions/answers and the not so shining reviews... boy, were there a lot of people who issues with this system! I even found a few people that had the same issue as me and were never able to resolve it. I hadn't really read a lot of the 1 and 2 star reviews prior to purchase but, now that I saw how many people had problems I decided I must have received a defective system and that it was best I returned it. The day I was going to return the system I decided to take one more shot at it, partly because I didn't want to do all the work to uninstall it and box it up again. So, I got out the manual and started going through the settings again, this time using the Netflix app on my Smart TV and a movie that had 5.1. When I got to the setting on the remote that showed "Surround ON" I tried to turn it off and on again and did that again... all of a sudden! Surround sound....sweet, sweet, surround, the rear speakers were working! Like magic! I noticed two little lights at the bottom of the sound bar illuminate and remembered reading that in the reviews. SO! The big problem therefore is, you have to completely rely on the remote to adjust the system and the setting showing on the remote's LCD MAY NOT BE what the system is actually programmed to!!! The remote has to be pointed directly at the sound bar and you have to turn everything off/on to make sure it is set to what you want. The LCD is so dull you cannot see it without bright light. Forget about adjusting anything when it you're trying to watch a movie in the dark. From all this, I realized 99% of people's problems with these systems are not because they are faulty but, because of this stupid remote!!! Vizio needs to fix this ASAP because they are going to lose customers for no good reason at all. Now that it's working, I could not be happier with it. The sound is completely adjustable, easy set up, no worrying about wiring a bunch of speakers all over the place, beats the pants off the TV speakers and all for under $300!!! Anyone having problems with rear satellites, perform the speaker test, if it completes successfully, they work. Just have to play around with the remote to make sure the sound bar's actual setting is Surround ON, not just showing that on the remote. Good luck!