IR 6.00, Extenders, and Special Protocol Functions

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 11:31 am

I love the new Special Protocol Functions tab in IR6.00.

I do however, have a question about it's use with extenders. I don't know about other extenders, but the 6131 extender has special pseudo-device for DSM. There is no installed device upgrade or protocol upgrade. How can I get IR to enable adding/editing DSM special functions?

Post by **ElizabethD** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 4:45 pm

gfb107 wrote:I love the new Special Protocol Functions tab in IR6.00.
... How can I get IR to enable adding/editing DSM special functions?

This maybe a dumb answer, since I don't know 6131. RDF file has it now listed as one of the protocols that will be interpreted in people language not hex. So:
IR assumes that both the protocol and upgrade are already in IR (from your extender zip file?) AND that this protocol is assigned to a virtual device. I took a hit on this one earlier with 8910, and all it took was that one little step. Or hope that an expert answers ... You, not me

Nils_Ekberg · Post by **Nils_Ekberg** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:44 pm

Greg, let me tinker with this a bit. The problem is that the DSM is TV/1103 but there is no associated protocol since it is handled within the extender and I am not sure how the remote will react if you assign a dummy protocol to DSM in the RDF.

You could just try adding DSM=01FC to the [SpecialProtocol] section in the RDF and see what happens. I think it might work

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:01 pm

Nils, I already tried that. That makes DSM show up in the drop-down, but it is disabled. In this case there is also no device upgrade TV/1103, the support is hard-coded into the extender.

Nils_Ekberg · Post by **Nils_Ekberg** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:10 pm

Greg, create a dummy device TV/1103 in the device tab with FC 00 01 for the value . It will ungray the DSM but I am not sure if it will work or not.

mr_d_p_gumby · Post by **mr_d_p_gumby** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:38 pm

gfb107 wrote:I don't know about other extenders, but the 6131 extender has special pseudo-device for DSM. There is no installed device upgrade or protocol upgrade.

The same is true for the Atlas DVR extender I just posted, since it is based on the 6131 extender.

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 10:21 am

Ok, creating the dummy device TV/1103 did the trick.

Nils_Ekberg · Post by **Nils_Ekberg** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 10:45 am

OK, I will add DSM to the 6131 and Atlas extender RDF's.

This will not cause a problem to add it since the device is not in the IR file it will be grayed out and unusable until the dummy device is added.

One thought I had was to add the dummy upgrade device to the documentation for the extenders that the user can copy and paste into IR if they want to use the UI for DSM.

Can anyone think of any other instance where a SP is available for a remote and it is not in the extender and is supported on the SP tab? One that comes to mind is the standalone LKP and some others in the Special Protocols spread sheet.

So the question is should I be adding these to the non-extended RDF's?

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 10:54 am

I guess if the standalone special protocol is compatible with the non-extended remote, I would add the entries to the RDF.

In addition, it would be nice if IR was enhanced so there is a way to indicate in the RDF that a special protocol is enabled in the remote even though there isn't an associated device or protocol upgrade. I know creating a dummy device upgrade isn't very hard, but it is another one of those little things that confuses users, even some of the more advanced ones. It confused me.

GameGod · Post by **GameGod** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:20 pm

Nils_Ekberg wrote:Greg, create a dummy device TV/1103 in the device tab with FC 00 01 for the value . It will ungray the DSM but I am not sure if it will work or not.

The only thing I would add to this is to make sure the "Protocol > FF" box is checked in the Device section when adding it.

One more thing - when I add a DSM, it gives me a warning saying "This function will not work correctly until you load the associated Special Protocol (01FC)".

I guess this is because IR doesn't know about the built-in protocol yet.

Thanks.

Nils_Ekberg · Post by **Nils_Ekberg** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:34 pm

GameGod wrote: One more thing - when I add a DSM, it gives me a warning saying "This function will not work correctly until you load the associated Special Protocol (01FC)".

I guess this is because IR doesn't know about the built-in protocol yet.

Thanks.

Correct... If I remember correctly you get that message whenever the first DSM or other SP is created. This is just to make sure you are not surprised if it does not work due to a missing protocol.

GameGod · Post by **GameGod** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:20 pm

I understand.

Thanks.

mr_d_p_gumby · Post by **mr_d_p_gumby** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 7:52 pm

gfb107 wrote:In addition, it would be nice if IR was enhanced so there is a way to indicate in the RDF that a special protocol is enabled in the remote even though there isn't an associated device or protocol upgrade. I know creating a dummy device upgrade isn't very hard, but it is another one of those little things that confuses users, even some of the more advanced ones. It confused me.

I agree. It's especially problematic when using a 1K extender (like the Atlas DVR, and hopefully soon a 6131 1K version) where space is a a premium to have to add a dummy upgrade, even temporarily. It would be far easier if the RDF could just have additional optional arguments on the DSM item to tell IR that TV/1103 is a built-in DSM. Something like DSM=01FC,TV,1103 would work, because TV/1103 is what is hard-coded into the extender itself.

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IR 6.00, Extenders, and Special Protocol Functions

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