A portable control unit that interacts with a variety of types of media equipment. The control unit searches for media equipment (including media players) located within an area and retrieves user interaction information corresponding to discovered media players. The control unit can be instructed to control any of the discovered media players. The control unit uses the retrieved user interaction information to adapt. The control unit may periodically, or when relocated, look for new media players in its neighborhood. The control unit interacts with multiple multimedia sources that supply video and/or audio to the media players. The control unit may have a screen on which it displays a video in addition to controlling selection and presentation of a video and/or an audio in any one of the discovered media players. The control unit maintains an updateable media guide that provides a list of multimedia elements available for viewing and/or listening.