JP1 Remotes Forum Index JP1 Remotes


FAQFAQ SearchSearch 7 days of topics7 Days MemberlistMemberlist UsergroupsUsergroups RegisterRegister
ProfileProfile Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages Log inLog in

The Simplest Possible Question

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    JP1 Remotes Forum Index -> JP1 - Beginners
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
gstrickland



Joined: 03 Jan 2004
Posts: 43
Location: Tulsa, OK

                    
PostPosted: Sun May 30, 2004 8:01 pm    Post subject: The Simplest Possible Question Reply with quote

I have read (and read and read), but still find IR.exe and KeyMapMaster.xls confusing. So to try to start at the simplest possible question:

Let's say that I took a brand new 15-2116 (before learning any codes or making any changes) and assume that there were already stock codes for all my devices (no need to do anything but look up the devices in the manual and plug them in). But just to put the odd twist on this, say that I wanted to rearrange some existing keys. Say that I wanted to flip the number pad left to right so that 1 is 3 and 3 is 1, 4 is 6 and 6 is 4, etc. So I load everything from my 2116 into IR.exe then move/change some things there, then load it back from IR.exe to the 2116 How would I do that?

Now, I don't really want to do that, but if I knew how you would do that (swap 1 for 3, etc.), I think I'd better understand how all this works. You see, I have taught many codes to my 2116, then loaded it into IR.exe, but I don't see anything in 2116 that a I recognize as being results of my training/learning.

I guess, to put things in simplest terms, if my 2116 has about 40 buttons, plus 9 state buttons (tv, vcr, cbl, etc.), that's a good 40*9=360 or so possible combinations. Why is it that when I upload from my 2116 to IR.exe that I don't see a window which lists 360 settings for 360 buttons? I guess I would expect -- or at least I would understand anyway -- to see a table which shows 360 rows with columns for the label, state (vcr, tv, cbl, etc.), action, and raw (hex?) code. Mine shows zero (0) "learned signals" and zero (0) "protocols", for example. As for "devices" mine lists one (receiver 1074) and 34 key maps/key names. But my 2116 is controlling a tv, vcr, cd player, dvd player, replaytv and a stereo receiver. Why don't I see all the rest of what my 2116 is programmed to control? The obvious answer, of course, is that that's not the way that IR.exe was designed (you dumba__, gray). I understand word processors, spreadsheets and database applications. All make inherent sense to me. IR.exe makes as much sense to me as when my compulsory music teacher explained why C was at the middle of the keyboard: "because it's 'middle c'... just because."

So if anyone is still reading, thanks for your patience and your help.
_________________
Gray Strickland
Curmudgeon
Tulsa, OK
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
johnsfine
Site Admin


Joined: 10 Aug 2003
Posts: 4766
Location: Bedford, MA

                    
PostPosted: Sun May 30, 2004 8:35 pm    Post subject: Re: The Simplest Possible Question Reply with quote

gstrickland wrote:

Now, I don't really want to do that, but if I knew how you would do that (swap 1 for 3, etc.), I think I'd better understand how all this works.


Since you don't really want to know how to do that, I won't answer that in any detail, because you're mistaken in thinking an answer to that would help with what you actually want.

gstrickland wrote:

You see, I have taught many codes to my 2116, then loaded it into IR.exe, but I don't see anything in 2116 that a I recognize as being results of my training/learning.


I wonder if "taught" and "training/learning" mean the same thing to you that they mean here (see below).

gstrickland wrote:

I guess, to put things in simplest terms, if my 2116 has about 40 buttons, plus 9 state buttons (tv, vcr, cbl, etc.), that's a good 40*9=360 or so possible combinations. Why is it that when I upload from my 2116 to IR.exe that I don't see a window which lists 360 settings for 360 buttons?


It just doesn't work that way. It's more complicated than that in a way that gives you nearly as much flexibility as your hypothetical simple table would, with much less eeprom capacity required.

gstrickland wrote:
Mine shows zero (0) "learned signals"


That's the real surprise here. That means one of three things:
1) What you meant by "taught" (above) is not what we'd mean.
2) You did something quite incorrect in downloading the eeprom contents to IR.EXE
3) You are misinterpreting IR's display of learned signals.

gstrickland wrote:
As for "devices" mine lists one (receiver 1074) and 34 key maps/key names.


Meaning there was already an upgrade present, which is a little surprising.

gstrickland wrote:

The obvious answer, of course, is that that's not the way that IR.exe was designed (you dumba__, gray).


Sounds about right Smile
I think you need to read a little of the documentation.

The behavior of most keys can be defined by:
a) Learned Signals
b) KeyMoves
c) Macros
d) Setup Codes

And Setup Codes can be built-in to the remote or "upgrades" (stored in the eeprom).

Until you have those basic concepts understood, none of the rest can make sense.

gstrickland wrote:

I understand word processors, spreadsheets and database applications. All make inherent sense to me.


Maybe you've just forgotten what starting to use those was like. I can remember when Word and Excel made a lot less sense to me than IR.EXE did at first glance. (Despite using a few database apps) I still don't know any database app whose UI makes any sense to me.

gstrickland wrote:

IR.exe makes as much sense to me as when my compulsory music teacher explained why C was at the middle of the keyboard: "because it's 'middle c'... just because."


Quite a lot of the remote's behavior and even some of IR's does have no better explanation than "just because". Most of IR's behavior has the explantion "we had to do it this way because of the way the built in behavior works". A lot of beginners blame our tools for oddities in the remotes' built in behavior. You won't get very far that way. We aren't going to fix what is beyond our control, and some of those odd things actually make sense if you knew more, and quite a few people have gotten exactly the remote behavior they want using JP1 but working with those oddities instead of complaining about them.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
gstrickland



Joined: 03 Jan 2004
Posts: 43
Location: Tulsa, OK

                    
PostPosted: Sun May 30, 2004 9:38 pm    Post subject: Re: The Simplest Possible Question Reply with quote

[quote="johnsfine"]
gstrickland wrote:

Quite a lot of the remote's behavior and even some of IR's does have no better explanation than "just because". Most of IR's behavior has the explantion "we had to do it this way because of the way the built in behavior works". A lot of beginners blame our tools for oddities in the remotes' built in behavior. You won't get very far that way. We aren't going to fix what is beyond our control, and some of those odd things actually make sense if you knew more, and quite a few people have gotten exactly the remote behavior they want using JP1 but working with those oddities instead of complaining about them.


My apologies if it appeared that I was complaining about IR's design, or any of the other tools or the various remotes. Likewise, if it seems like I'm just trying to whine or complain, I'm sorry. Neither are true. I never learned to play the piano beyond brute-force memorization. It just never made sense. I could play, but I never understood. On the other hand, I understand what makes my car go (from carburation to combustion to gearing/transmission). I understand MS Word -- but then, I've used it since version 1.0 for DOS when it came on one 360k floppy -- with room left over for several documents to be saved, since systems then had no hard drives and most had only one floppy drive. What I've found through the years, is that when I understand what the designer had in mind, I learn and remember better. I'm not trying to get folks to re-design IR, much less the remotes. What I am trying to understand is the vision behind the system.

[quote="johnsfine"]
gstrickland wrote:

gstrickland wrote:
Mine shows zero (0) "learned signals"


That's the real surprise here. That means one of three things:
1) What you meant by "taught" (above) is not what we'd mean.
2) You did something quite incorrect in downloading the eeprom contents to IR.EXE
3) You are misinterpreting IR's display of learned signals.


I thought I was making the question and answer simpler by leaving out details that I thought were irrevelent. Sorry, I guess I just made it more confusing.

About a year ago, I bought a 15-2116 to control my Sony tv, Sony dvd player, Sony vcr, JVC stereo receiver and ReplayTV 5040. The Sonys were all easy to setup in the 2116, as the codes were in the manual. No need for JP1 or IR.exe there. The JVC is pretty old, but with some help in this forum, I found a RDF which I could make work. The Replaytv was a common project and I just followed in others footsteps.

A week ago I replaced the sony tv with a Sanyo HT30744 30" widescreen HDTV. There is no RDF for it that I can find. I used my 2116 which already controlled my existing equipment and "learned" (taught?) every button on my Sanyo remote to the 2116 in its TV mode. Some buttons were problematic. For example, I couldn't teach the power button to the power button or the exit button to the exit button. Instead, I taught the power button of the Sanyo to the "+100" button of the 2116 and the exit button of the Sanyo to the "move" button of the 2116, thinking that I would figure out how to move/map/relocate those to the proper power and exit buttons ont the 2116 using IR.exe. Having learned all the codes as said, I uploaded (downloaded?) the codes from the 2116 to IR.exe using my handy cable. When I asked about swapping 1 for 3 and 3 for 1, I thought I was making the question generic so as to limit the answer to the principle behind the process; that it would be simpler for all concerned to ask it that way than to say, "now that I've learned (taught?) the Sanyo power button to the '+100' button on the 2116, how do I move/map it back where it's supposed to be?"

Again, I apologize if it appeared that I was complaining or being ungrateful.
_________________
Gray Strickland
Curmudgeon
Tulsa, OK
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
mr_d_p_gumby
Expert


Joined: 03 Aug 2003
Posts: 1370
Location: Newbury Park, CA

                    
PostPosted: Mon May 31, 2004 1:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gstrickland wrote:
Let's say that I took a brand new 15-2116 (before learning any codes or making any changes) and assume that there were already stock codes for all my devices (no need to do anything but look up the devices in the manual and plug them in). But just to put the odd twist on this, say that I wanted to rearrange some existing keys. Say that I wanted to flip the number pad left to right so that 1 is 3 and 3 is 1, 4 is 6 and 6 is 4, etc. So I load everything from my 2116 into IR.exe then move/change some things there, then load it back from IR.exe to the 2116 How would I do that?
Short answer: you can't do that at all with JP1. Your example states that you would be using "stock" (built-in) setup codes. JP1 has no access to the built-in setup codes. They are permanently burned into the ROM of the remote at the factory and cannot be altered anyway. Why is this the case? Because Universal Electronics Inc. (UEI) decided to design it that way.

What you can do with JP1 is add upgraded setup codes to the remotes EEPROM. These supercede the built-in setup codes. You obtain an existing upgrade or create your own with KM or RM, then copy/paste that into the IR program, which then uploads the information to the remote. The capabilities of the JP1 tools are primarily limited by the way UEI designed the remotes, not as a result of arbitrary decisions on the part of the programmers.

You could also do what you've done, which is to learn all of the original remote's functions. This is an entirely different technique for storing and reproducing IR codes than the methods used with setup codes. The main difference is that learning uses vast amounts of memory to store the commands. Some remotes costing considerably more that your RS 2116 use this as their primary method of storing & reproducing the codes (like the Prontos and MX-500s, etc.) UEI's remotes are considerably cheaper than those remotes, and one of the areas where they save money is reducing the size of the memory provided. As a result, there is only room to store maybe 20 to 30 learned IR codes.

From UEI's perspective, learning is only an adjunct to the primary functionality provided by the setup codes that allows users to fill in a few missing codes without having to call their tech support for help. The same goes for the "key mover" features.

From a JP1 perspective, learning the IR signals is the first step in determining how to create a new setup code. IR.exe can decode the learned signals and tell you the information you need to proceed. This is why it was suggested that you try to learn the commands in the other thread you posted.
gstrickland wrote:
...I have taught many codes to my 2116, then loaded it into IR.exe, but I don't see anything in 2116 that a I recognize as being results of my training/learning.
If you have learned your original remote's commands, and they are working and operate your TV, then IR's Learned Signals tab will show each one of the buttons you have learned, which makes this remark particularly puzzling:
gstrickland wrote:
Mine shows zero (0) "learned signals" and zero (0) "protocols", for example.
There should be a number of buttons listed in the left-hand box. As you click on each one of them, detailed information is shown in the other boxes. You are really only concerned with the top box, where it shows the protocol, device, sub-device, OBC, Hex Cmd and Misc. This is the information you need to create a new upgrade.
gstrickland wrote:
Why is it that when I upload from my 2116 to IR.exe that I don't see a window which lists 360 settings for 360 buttons? I guess I would expect -- or at least I would understand anyway -- to see a table which shows 360 rows with columns for the label, state (vcr, tv, cbl, etc.), action, and raw (hex?) code.
If all the commands were to be stored as learned commands (like the MX-500, etc.), then this expectation would be realistic. There would simply be 360 slots where something could be blindly stored by the remote. Storing a learned command for playback does not require complex analysis of the signal by the remote. It basically just records it much the way a tape recorder records audio, i.e., the tape recorder does not know anything about the audio, but it can reproduce it.

But UEI remotes don't work that way. Setup codes are a highly compact way of storing the information needed to reproduce known commands, and are the result of human analysis of each individual code. Like most methods for compacting data, it needs to be encoded for storage and then decoded when utilized. This is what the JP1 tools do. You give them the needed information, and they encode it for storage in the remote. While this may sound a little tedious to you, it provides a great deal of flexibility. JP1 remotes can do things that learning-only remotes cannot.

Since IR cannot access the built-in setup codes, it cannot do any more than show you the setup code type & number that is assigned to the device buttons. Even if it were to gain access to the setup code data, in order for it to break all of that into your 360 slots, it would need much more information than it has available.
_________________
Mike England
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
johnsfine
Site Admin


Joined: 10 Aug 2003
Posts: 4766
Location: Bedford, MA

                    
PostPosted: Mon May 31, 2004 8:40 am    Post subject: Re: The Simplest Possible Question Reply with quote

gstrickland wrote:
No need for JP1 or IR.exe there. The JVC is pretty old, but with some help in this forum, I found a RDF which I could make work. The Replaytv was a common project and I just followed in others footsteps.


I don't follow that. I don't know whether you really mean "RDF" or you mean "upgrade", so I don't know whether this is the explanation for the upgrade you apparently already had, or unrelated to the current question or what.

gstrickland wrote:
"learned" (taught?) every button on my Sanyo remote to the 2116 in its TV mode. Some buttons were problematic. For example, I couldn't teach the power button to the power button


So you really do mean what we would mean by that.

gstrickland wrote:
Having learned all the codes as said, I uploaded (downloaded?) the codes from the 2116 to IR.exe


That gives me a guess about the problem. But it would be rather bad news. If you told IR.EXE to "upload" (to the 2116) when you meant "download" (from the 2116), that destroyed all the learned signals and you would need to learn them again.

gstrickland wrote:
"now that I've learned (taught?) the Sanyo power button to the '+100' button on the 2116, how do I move/map it back where it's supposed to be?"


In the learned signals tab in IR it is possible to change which key a learned signal is bound to. But that is not the best way to handle your situation. Instead you should look at the decodes of the learned signals and construct an upgrade based on those decodes.

gstrickland wrote:

Again, I apologize if it appeared that I was complaining or being ungrateful.


It didn't appear that way. I'm sorry I made it sound like that was what I understood. It did appear that you were using your own assumptions about how a remote like this would work rather than reading the available documentation about how it does work. That's what I was trying to comment on.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
gfb107
Expert


Joined: 03 Aug 2003
Posts: 3411
Location: Cary, NC

                    
PostPosted: Mon May 31, 2004 8:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe The WHAT and WHY of JP1 would provide the information you want.
_________________
-- Greg
Original RemoteMaster developer
JP1 How-To's and Software Tools
The #1 Code Search FAQ and it's answer (PLEASE READ FIRST)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic       JP1 Remotes Forum Index -> JP1 - Beginners All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


 

Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
Top 7 Advantages of Playing Online Slots The Evolution of Remote Control