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Nevo: Review a newbie's attempt?
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Irimi-Ai



Joined: 24 Jul 2017
Posts: 5

                    
PostPosted: Sat Jul 29, 2017 5:10 pm    Post subject: Nevo: Review a newbie's attempt? Reply with quote

Anyone willing to just take a look at my first attempt? Mostly wondering if there are ways to improve the activities and also the accuracy of the device button mappings. I don't care about the Favorites feature.

One specific question: after activating a Master Power Off macro when in an activity, is there any way to exit the activity screen and go back to the Home screen or Activity selection screen? Weird to power everything off and the remote is still in "View TV" activity screen.

Remote is a Nevo C3. Equipment is:

Panny TC-P55VT60 (TV)
Phillips BDP-2185 (Blu-ray/DVD)
Cisco 8742HDC (DVR)

*.RMIR file is uploaded to diagnostic area. Link: http://hifi-remote.com/forums/dload.php?action=file&file_id=14625

Thanks for any help!
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vickyg2003
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 30, 2017 10:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know where everybody is. Usually this type of post gets lots of attention. I downloaded your rmir file last night, just for my own education as I haven't programmed a Nevo.

I do have a few comments on some best practices. A macro should run quickly, the more time that they run, the more time that you have to have the remote pointed at the device with a clear line of site. The only reason to insert pauses between buttons is to allow the equipment to get ready for the next command.

Your View Activities will work more reliably if you reorder the commands to shorten your macro run time. It appears you have determined your tv needs 4 seconds to power on before you can select an input.

Looking at the ViewTV macro
DVD;Discrete Off pause for .02 seconds
TV;Discrete Power On Pause (4 seconds)
TV;HDMI

If you reorder this so the
TV; Power On is first
DVD;Discrete Off
TV;HDMI

Then you can shorten the Pause after the Power On because the DVD;Discrete off will eat time. DVD:discrete will send 3 copies of an RC6 signal, so it will eat up about 300,000 ms of the time you need between Powering On and selecting the HDMI port.

Also make liberal use of NOTES. Notes don't go into the remote, they only reside in the RMIR file, but I can tell you from experience that when you come back to a file a few years from now when you get new equipment, you will be very happy you have notes.
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Irimi-Ai



Joined: 24 Jul 2017
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 30, 2017 7:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the reply! Yes, the TV needs 4 seconds after power on to switch inputs.

Thanks for the ideas about the order of the activity commands. There are 2 things about my Blu-ray that make it a pain to work with:

1. The discrete Power Off appears to actually be a Power Toggle...can't find a discrete power off in the code search, remotecentral.com, etc. The discrete power code was included in the closest upgrade I could find (Philips BDP-2985).

2. The Philips DVD also seems to have some function built-in that makes it unresponsive to any IR signals for about .5 seconds after it senses one (ANY IR signal...so, I increase the volume on the TV, the DVD detects that IR signal and is blocked from receiving any IR signal for about a half a second).

It is driving me nuts. To get around that, I placed it in the order first (so it gets the signal and responds, and while it's in the "cool down" window, the TV Power On signal gets sent).

Your comment about 3 copies of the signal being sent is intriguing. Is that standard? I played with number of copies sent per key press with my old Harmony and also TouchSquid smartphone remote control. Is there a way to edit the number of copies sent? That may help work around my pesky DVD/Blu-ray.
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mdavej
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 30, 2017 9:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Finally took a look at this. Looks pretty good. Only have a couple of comments in addition to Vicky's excellent advice.

- Gaps in soft buttons are ignored, so go ahead and pack them together as best you can
- Shorten function names so they fit better on the screen, i.e., "Power Off" instead of "Discrete Power Off"
- Double click the icon box on all your devices and activities. Gives a few more visual cues making remote easier to use at a glance with out actually reading the words. I also like to use icons for individual functions. Just looks nicer IMO
- Delete all the Assist buttons. They just take up valuable screen space IMO

Unfortunately, you can't go back to Home screen with a macro step. I wish you could do that too. I make the soft button device on my Good Night (same as your Pow Off macro) activity my most frequently used device (DVR). But you could make a dummy device with a some soft buttons labeled "System Off. Press Activities button to continue" or something like that.

Repeats vary by protocol, but 2 or 3 is the norm for reliability's sake. We (Vicky) can tweak to protocol to reduce the repeats.

This example may give you some more ideas:
http://hifi-remote.com/forums/dload.php?action=file&file_id=13513
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vickyg2003
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 7:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Irimi-Ai wrote:
It is driving me nuts. To get around that, I placed it in the order first (so it gets the signal and responds, and while it's in the "cool down" window, the TV Power On signal gets sent).

Based on my experience with Philips TVs I think you may be seeing something different.

Every signal is started with a lead in pair, kind of a "Hey Listen up" before it actually starts sending the information. If the timing on that signal is not correct your DVD should just ignore it all together and go on waiting for the next lead-in pair.

Philips likes to use toggling protocols. This type of toggling protocol has the toggle bit flipped with each button press. My Philips TVs enforced this to the extreme and wouldn't react until it got its signal with the correct toggle. To make matters worse they had two different sets of toggles, the menu keys kept state, and the other keys kept state. The OEM remote did a great job of keeping state because it was designed to work specifically with my device.

On a universal remote, we only have one toggle bit. It flips with every button press no matter what device mode you are in. Consequently the first button press sent to a device that strictly enforces the toggle has a 50% chance of failure.

I have publicly said I hate the RC5 protocol which is the toggling protocol my Philips TVs used. I used to have all Philps TV's because they offered a really rich feature set for the money. Now before I buy equipment, I check to see what kind of protocol it use. If I see RC5 or RC6 and it immediately comes off the short list. Your Philips uses RC6. I don't know if they strictly enforce the toggle they way they used to with the 1995 era TVs, but just playing with the remote, you should be able to figure out if your device is missing a lot of the first keys sent to it after a device switch, no matter how much time you leave between signals. Its an odd-even thing. Sometimes you can fix it by sending a do-nothing key like an exit, unless of course the menu keys are on a different toggle in the OEM remote.

Quote:
Your comment about 3 copies of the signal being sent is intriguing. Is that standard? I played with number of copies sent per key press with my old Harmony and also TouchSquid smartphone remote control. Is there a way to edit the number of copies sent? That may help work around my pesky DVD/Blu-ray.


Typically there are three frames sent when in a macro. But as mdavej said, it might be more or less. Because the slingbox treats every button press like it is in a macro we have a lot of protocol variants that come with NO REPEATS. I lobbied hard to get these included in RMIR. They are now there, you need to go under the OPTIONS menu and click SHOW SLINGBOX PROTOCOLS
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vickyg2003
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 8:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mdavej wrote:
This example may give you some more ideas:
http://hifi-remote.com/forums/dload.php?action=file&file_id=13513

I don't know if this helped the OP, but it sure helped me. Thank you!
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vickyg2003
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mdavej wrote:
- Delete all the Assist buttons. They just take up valuable screen space IMO

Unfortunately, you can't go back to Home screen with a macro step. I wish you could do that too. I make the soft button device on my Good Night (same as your Pow Off mamy most frequently used device (DVR). But you could make a dummy device with a some soft buttons labeled "System Off. Press Activities button to continue" or something like that.

What does an Assist do?
I read the Nevo page in the wiki. It said that we need the software update from ez-rc in order to remove them. I know that graham is working on getting that functionality into Rmir. But what is their function?

Also it seemed to me that I read something about running macros inside activities being being a problem, is that true?

Any other pointers for a Nevo newbie?
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mdavej
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 4:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's a Help facility they added to compete with Harmony. The idea is if a macro command gets missed (bad aim or whatever), you can retry each step via Assist. Problem is when enabled a big fat Assist button takes up half the screen. If my macro misses anything, I just run it again, no need for assist.

I'm not aware of any problems running macros inside activities. I do it all the time.

For newbies coming from other JP1 remotes:
- Macros work the same as in traditional JP1 remotes except each step has a configurable pause built in
- Activity replaces macros that control power, inputs and key group mapping (VPT, transport keys, num keys, etc.)
- On screen buttons replace key moves, shifts, LKP, etc.
- Favorites tab replaces Favorites key
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vickyg2003
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mdavej wrote:
It's a Help facility they added to compete with Harmony. The idea is if a macro command gets missed (bad aim or whatever), you can retry each step via Assist. Problem is when enabled a big fat Assist button takes up half the screen. If my macro misses anything, I just run it again, no need for assist.

Okay, sounds like it wasn't real popular if EZ-RC made the removable with the update. No wonder Graham has made updating the software a top priority.

I wonder though if the OP needs assist to deal with the RC6 issues with the Philip's BluRay.

Quote:
For newbies coming from other JP1 remotes:
- Macros work the same as in traditional JP1 remotes except each step has a configurable pause built in
- Activity replaces macros that control power, inputs and key group mapping (VPT, transport keys, num keys, etc.)
- On screen buttons replace key moves, shifts, LKP, etc.
- Favorites tab replaces Favorites key



I'm not looking forward to traditional macros after more than a decade of fast macro execution. I did just purchase a half dozen of these to replace my 15 year old 8811's in the family room. Are these things tough? I think when the toddlers are here I'm still going to use the 8811's, they are indestructible.

Your test file didn't have any macros, so I created one.
It looks to me like Macro's are DSMs (device specific menu) not traditional macros.

Up until these few examples I've not had a chance to look at what RMIR is doing because you can't do a file new, to explore, so like I said thanks for posting a file.
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 10:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What is the condition of the rubberized surface on the black plastic like on your Nevo's Vicky? It's not as long lasting as the stuff they used on the old Radio Shack 15-1994 remotes. I've heard several reports of people saying theirs has deteriorated and started to come off, which is how mine is (and we don't even use it).

If that does happen, the only thing to do is to just take it all off. There's regular black plastic underneath.
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vickyg2003
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 6:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Robman wrote:
What is the condition of the rubberized surface on the black plastic like on your Nevo's Vicky? It's not as long lasting as the stuff they used on the old Radio Shack 15-1994 remotes. I've heard several reports of people saying theirs has deteriorated and started to come off, which is how mine is (and we don't even use it).

If that does happen, the only thing to do is to just take it all off. There's regular black plastic underneath.


The Nevo doesn't have a rubberized back. It has a hard slippery finish. On the other hand myOARUSB04G has two rubberized non skid pads on the back. My "brand new' OARUSB04G arrived with the those pads being a gooey mess. I've had great luck getting things to clean up with WD40 and a Scotch-Brite Dobie sponge. The Dobie sponge has just the right amount of aggression. It won't scratch the plastic, but will remove the goop. Some of the other experts told me to use talc but I am sticking with WD40. Rob, if you can remember that far back, about 12 years ago you sold me some lab-remotes, a Chameleon and a Producer 8, on the cheap because you deemed them "not suitable for resale". Those were so gooey, they made me gag to touch them. Here it is a good 12 years later and the gooeyness never returned after the cleanup. Its only been 1.5 years since I cleaned up the OAR and so far so good. And they are still rubberized, so they don't skid.
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 7:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well done with the cleanup, there's no reason for the gooeyness to return because it's a coating, so if you remove it, it's gone. It's not the plastic deteriorating.

I wonder if someone already cleaned your Nevo or if they just stopped using the rubberized finish.
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vickyg2003
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Robman wrote:
I wonder if someone already cleaned your Nevo or if they just stopped using the rubberized finish.


I must be guilty! Embarassed Laughing I just opened a new one and there is definitely something that scrapes off with my fingernail on the band around that circles the remote around the area where the Chanel, Volume and Menu buttons are located. The new one's do look like someone cleaned them a bit. The new ones just don't look as the one I have in my lab. That does show me that I didn't leave any evidence of a clean up. I even posted about it here when I received it on Christmas. It just totally slipped my mind.

The great experiment will be to see how DH does with the words on the Nevo. He still hasn't figured out that every remote I design has the long press of the mute button to turn on/off CC or subtitles no matter what device mode he's in. Will see if he does better if the top soft key says CC. I bought 3 for here and 3 for FL. I hope that having the same remote, with similar style might help. But he gets so confused because we have a cable box down there and no matter how hard I try, the experience when using the box tends to be noticeably different than tuning via the TV.
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mdavej
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 10:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some ebay sellers have indeed removed the rubber coating. I have received some like that. There are still tiny traces, so you can tell it used to be there.

Biggest problems I've had with durability is buttons wear out in a couple of years and battery door tabs can break when dropped.


Last edited by mdavej on Thu Aug 03, 2017 10:59 am; edited 1 time in total
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The Robman
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 10:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Given how these are universally deteriorating, I am not surprised that they are cleaning them up. That's what I would do.
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