JP1 Remotes

[mathdon]

Ed, I looked at your first post when I wrote about your Atlas. I had forgotten that you also had the RCRP05B. I have just now had a look at the RDF and the ReadMe for its extender 1.05 and its Fav implementation seems to be very much the same as that for the common extender. So yes, that would also be a good test. Thank you. I look forward to hearing the result.
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Graham

[Ed]

Hi Graham,

First results are in as follows:

I downloaded RMIR v2.03 Alpha 26b and created a new experimental directory for the new RDF file. I edited the RDF file for 3A793A79, v1.05 of extender, in this new directory, adding a new line under the FavKey entry in General section as you specified. I used the current maps directory but pointed 26b to the experimental RDF directory I created with the edited version of the RDF in that directory.

I used the default Fav Device, CBL, defined in other Settings on the General tab of RMIR. In my case, the CBL device operates my dish network receiver.

I performed a series of three tests.

First, I added 3 mini-macros separated by pauses, each consisting of three keys, as follows: 1;4;0;{pause};1;1;0;{pause};1;2;0;{pause} (RMIR added the last pause automatically). The intent was to cycle through channels 140, 110, and 120.

With my TV and dish receiver on, I pressed the FAV key several times. Each time I pressed FAV, I ended up selecting channel 1 on the dish receiver. (I don't have a channel 1, so the receiver set it to 2).

For the second experiment, I replaced the mini-macros with the following: 2;4;6;{pause};1;4;0;{pause};1;2;0;{pause}

This time, I achieved the following on successive presses of FAV:

2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1,...

I think I see what's going on, but I tried one more time just to confirm. I went back in and changed the three mini-macros as follows:

2;4;6;{pause};3;4;0;{pause};4;0;8;{pause}

I expect to see 2, 4, 6, 2, 4, 6, ... on successive presses of FAV, and that's exactly what happened.

Evidently, RMIR is only seeing the first key of each mini-macro.

Of course, I might be doing something wrong myself.

Let me know what you need me to do next.

Again, thanks for your help.

Ed

[mathdon]

Interesting. Thank you, Ed. It isn't RMIR that is only seeing the first digit. I can look at the data that RMIR puts in the remote when you set these values, and I see that all the digits are there. What I can't do, without a remote, is know how the remote interprets this data and what signals it sends. That's why I need your experimental results.

It is interesting because it is certainly working to some extent, in that the remote is seeing each of your macros, even though it seems only to be sending the first digit. I think I will need to consult with the extender writer to find out what data really should be going into the remote. However, I won't have time to do that until after New Year, so unless I have further thoughts as to what is going on, further progress will have to wait till then.

Edit: I presume that when you select a channel manually, you don't have to press an Enter or OK button after the digits, you just press the digits. If you did have to press Enter or some other key, you would need to add that at the end of each mini-macro.
_________________
Graham

[Ed]

I'm happy to help, Graham, and quite happy to wait until after the New Year for further progress.

You are up very late doing this!
Thanks very much for your support.

Happy New Year!

Ed

Response to your edit: I don't have to press an enter key when changing channels. I just enter the number.

[ElizabethD]

In RCRP05B 1.04 extender, neither the FAV device on general tab, nor the one at the bottom of FAV tab in IR are relevant.
I'm dusting off some old RCA stuff, and there I did not have to fiddle with any ROM bytes as I needed in Atlas. The 3rd byte-length controls the whole thing. Oh, and there is a 5 byte restriction/macro but you can put in longer sequences if you nest macros.

Ed, insert DEV_something, DEV_CBL in your instance, into each of your FAV macros. As I showed in one of the earlier posts.
Perhaps you should also tell your device to not remember your fav list since I'd think things might get confused. Not sure here.

I've made a zip package of some old experimenting,reran today with old IRscope, screenshots included, in case is of some use to you or Graham.
m1, m2, etc in the IRscope screenie are the macros within the FAV. Yellow in Raw data is the FAV stuff. Results are as expected from the FAV coding.

http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload.php?action=file&file_id=13013
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Liz
Tweeking 8910, HTPro/9811, C7-7800, 6131o, 6131n, AtlasOCAP-1056B01, RCA-RCRP05B and enjoying the ride

[Ed]

Hi Liz,

I inserted Dev_CBL into each of my three macros I used in my third experiment using Alpha 26b and the revised RDF. Results were exactly the same: The first press of FAV changed to channel 2 on the dish receiver, the second press changed to channel 3, and the third press changed to channel 4.

Then, for grins, I saved the file in RMIR as an ir file, opened it in IR and uploaded it to my remote. I did not point IR to the new RDF, so I figured I might get a different result, but I didn't. I got the same result.

Finally, I decided to get adventurous and loaded my current working .rmir file, saved as an .ir file, before making any changes for these experiments, into IR. I used the unmodified RDF and coded up the same "experiment 3" Fav/Scan macros, with Dev_CBL included as you suggested, and then loaded the resulting .ir file into my remote. At that point, each press of the FAV key caused the CBL LED to blink 4 times, presumably once for device selection, and one for each of the three channel numbers. That seemed like an improvement to me, but I did this several times, and although I got the right number of blinks with each press, nothing happened with my dish receiver. It was as if the remote were sending incorrect codes, or no codes at all.

Then I pressed the volume key on the remote and nothing happened, so I pressed the CBL device key and nothing happened either. At this point, no key resulted in any LED blinking. The remote seemed "dead".

I downloaded the image from the remote into IR to see if I could understand what happened, then reloaded my working image back from RMIR. The remote works as it had worked before the experiments.

My FAV key, up to the point of this testing exercise, had no function in the remote and had no connection to the "favorite" channel list on the receiver. To access that list, I have to press Menu;8;2. I could be wrong, but deleting my favorite lists (I have a couple) on the receiver is not likely to have any impact on this exercise.

I'm going to download your package and have a look, although my level of understanding is nowhere near yours, and I probably won't understand it. My guess is Graham will benefit from that far more than I will.

Thanks for your help.

Ed

Edit to add: I looked at the .ir file from the remote when it quit working, and all my keymoves and macros, and device definitions were gone. I thought maybe Fav/Scan corrupted things, but then I discovered that I messed up the "save as .ir" from RMIR. I actually started out with an .ir file that was missing all that stuff! I carefully re-did that "save as" and reconstructed experiment 3 in IR. I got the same result as in the other tests.

I guess it's satisfying to note that regardless of whether I did this experiment in RMIR or IR, or whether I used the old or new RDF in IR, I got the same result.

Sorry for any confusion.

[mathdon]

Hi, Ed and Liz

Not much time till the New Year, but here are a few comments. Ed, four blinks is usually bad news. It usually means that the remote has crashed and done an automatic factory reset to get itself out of a mess. That's why you found everything gone when you looked at your post-crash .ir file.

My suspicion now is that the remote is sending all the digits, but too quickly for the cable box to respond. Unless you already have this in your standard setup, could you create an ordinary macro containing the data of one of your mini-macros, to see if you still only get one digit apparently sent.

If you do, since the extender supports the Pause special function, try putting a pause of, say, half a second between the digits in the ordinary macro. This should help in two ways. It will allow the cable box time to respond to each digit, and if the remote has an LED that flashes when signals are sent, you will be able to see how many flashes you get when you press the Fav key.

Liz, many thanks for the data but it will be the New Year before I have time to look at it. You say that in RCRP05B extender 1.04 neither the Fav device on the General tab nor the Scan device on the Fav/Scan tab has any effect. In the ReadMe for the v1.05 extender, Bill explicitly says that the device is specified by the Fav device on the General tab, so if that has no effect in v1.05 then it is a bug in his extender.
_________________
Graham

[Ed]

Hi Graham,

Your suspicion was spot on! I tried an ordinary macro to change the channel to 140 and only the first digit, 1, was "received" by the dish box. Then I inserted half-second pauses between the digits and all three digits were sent to the box and the channel changed correctly.

Thus, to use Fav/Scan for channel looping with my dish box, I concluded that I need to use nested macros to hold the number and pause keys, with each mini-macro consisting of a single key. I tested that, and it worked. I was able to cycle among 3 channels as I originally set out to do in this experiment.

I suppose another test would be to try the Fav/Scan functionality for mini-macros not involving channel looping. I'll think about that, but I'm not sure there is any reason to think that it wouldn't work.

I could also try to duplicate my testing with IR, but given the last time I tried that I toasted the remote, I think I'll hold off on that.

Let me know if you'd like me to try anything else.

Thanks!

Ed

[mathdon]

Ed, very pleased to hear your latest news . As you are allowed 5 keys in a mini-macro, you should have just enough space for the three digits separated by pauses, but nested macros will also do the trick.

I suppose the final confirmation for me would be to check that the Fav/Scan works in RMIR without the FavFormat entry in the RDF. It should work, since you have already tried that with IR.exe, but it would be useful to have it confirmed in case there is some other difference between IR.exe and RMIR that I am not aware of.

Liz, by now I am confused as to what setup it was in which Fav/Scan did not work with IR.exe. If you still have the remote concerned, I would like to have a .ir file from it with a working Fav/Scan, i.e. with the second byte corrected by you through the Raw Data tab in IR.exe. The Raw Data tab is not editable in RMIR and I would like it to support the extender you used, even if it has now been superseded. What I want to see in particular is the format of the macro data, as you indicate the mini-macros are not limited in length to 5 keys. I don't think RMIR at present supports Fav/Scan where the mini-macros do not have a limited length, as it pads each one to the maximum length with nulls.
_________________
Graham

[Ed]

Hi Graham,

To provide the final confirmation, should I just delete the new entry in the RDF and run Alpha 26b? I'm assuming Alpha 26a won't work, but I'm not sure.

Ed

[Ed]

One other thing I just thought about. I started this thread in anticipation of doing some work with the Atlas remote. I still plan to do that, and, based on what Liz has said, the remotes/extenders work a bit differently, and there may be implications for the Fav/Scan functionality.

I'll probably start that project in the next couple weeks. If I run into any issues, I'll post them here.

Thanks again for the help.

Ed

[mathdon]

[Ed]

Hi Graham,

I think we can close the book on this, at least for the RCRP05B. Here's what I did.

First, I opened a "clean" .rmir file with 26b, where 26b was pointing to an RDF directory that contained the modified RDF file. This clean .rmir file was created with RMIR 2.02. Now in 26b, I created the FavScan mini-macros I used before, using a single (macro) key for each of the mini-macros, with .5 second pauses between the channel digits. I uploaded the result to the remote and confirmed it was working as designed.

Then, I changed the RDF directory to one that had the "old", unmodified RDF file in it. I chose "no" when RMIR asked if I wanted to apply the changes now. I wanted to "start over" with the FavScan mini-macros built using the old RDF. I saved the .rmir file, exited RMIR, then re-opened the previous .rmir file with 26b, which was now pointing to the old RDF file. I then uploaded the result to the remote and re-ran the tests. It worked exactly the same as it had worked using the "new" RDF file.

I guess the new format is not necessary?

Thanks again for your help.

Happy New Year!

Ed

[ElizabethD]

I had trouble finding my current Atlas .ir file, but finally did.
Atlas(211).zip has .ir and the RDF it used. IRscope data matches what's coded. And the FAV job works and I just stuck a note to that effect into the ir file to make finding things easier
http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload.php?action=file&file_id=13021

The format of the macro data looks identical to RCA. FAV macros ARE limited to 5 bytes. There is no FAV on the general tab, and device on the FAV tab is irrelevant, at least for my fav code where I explicitly set the device since might use other buttons in between fav keys.
Variable length macros, I have a hunch, is either from something Bill tried or said, or a figment of my imagination.

Graham, Re your request in Sat Dec 27, 2014 1:00 pm post above, I'm having trouble finding the .ir file you want where I had to edit RawData. It apparently was under extender 2.10 and is burried someplace in my mess. I'll keep looking. So let me know if you still want it. I have a screen shot but not yet the matching file and a wrong RDF
_________________
Liz
Tweeking 8910, HTPro/9811, C7-7800, 6131o, 6131n, AtlasOCAP-1056B01, RCA-RCRP05B and enjoying the ride

[mathdon]