JP1 Remotes

[foobar989]

I've been away from the JP1 groups for a while. Long enough so that I was temporarily stumped by why I couldn't post a message to the Yahoo Groups mailing list and didn't know about this BBS...

Anyway, I got some new gear and brushed the dust off of my trusty old JP1 interface, and downloaded the latest IR.EXE and keymap-master spreadsheets from the http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jp1/files address. Hope that's the right place to grab files from? If those aren't the latest, I apologize...

Anyway, everything worked fine and I've got the gear all working (thanks very much to the chaps who posted the protocol definitions for the Tivo HDVR2 and the Samsung 160 Highdef receiver), but I had the following two issues, and I'm wondering if anyone can help:

Issue Number 1, "Key54 and Key55":

My Ratshack 15-1994 is a hardware-hacked version where I've swapped the wires so that the SCAN button is Key54 and the SLEEP button is Key55. That way, they can behave like normal buttons instead of with the funky default behavior. Note that I did this in the days before Nicola descended upon the JP1 group and started writing cool machine language protocols for everybody. I'm sure you can override scan and sleep with software now, but at the time you could only override them with a hardware hack.

Anyway. In the Key Move screen, older versions of IR.EXE would offer me Key54 and Key55 in their drop-down lists, so that I could assign functions to them. This version of IR.EXE does not. If I load up an old file that's got those keys assigned, then I can use them, but I can't create a key move "from scratch" that uses Key54 or Key55. Was this an oversight because so few people did that hardware hack? Let's say I have a carefully assembled program for this remote and can't go back to an old file that contains Key54. How do I get Key54 into this new file?


Issue Number 2, "learned keys don't play atop HDVR2 protocol":

From the above-mentioned URL, I got a file called "Hughes-HDVR2.txt" which is a programmed protocol for my Tivo. Opened it in keymap-master, copied the two necessary segments into IR.EXE, and it all seemed to work. I can control my Tivo with it. Assigned it to "Aux2" (since VCR is already taken by a real VCR) and off I go.

But there were a few keys I wanted to do differently (ie, totally non-tivo), and I was out of key-move memory. In the past, for every other time I'd run out of key-move memory, I did a "learned" key instead. In fact, my 1994 programs are always a careful balance of Learned keys and Moved keys, so that I distribute the memory usage between these two small pools of memory.

For every other device except the HDVR2, any learned keys always worked fine. For instance, on the Samsung_SIR-TS160 device, which I put in place at the same time using the same method, I could do a learned key to make the "4s" key toggle Bass Boost on my amplifier. But on top of the HDVR2 device, none of the Learned keys work. Only Keymove keys work.

And I'm talking the SAME functions. For instance, that thing I described about the bassboost... I do that on every single one of my devices. On the TV button, 4s does bassboost. On the VCR button, 4s does bassboost. On the CD button, 4s does bassboost. On the Sat button (the new Samsung protocol I just inserted), 4s does bassboost. And I can do all of the above with either a keymove or a learned key, it doesn't matter, they both work equally well.

But for the HDVR2 protocol, only keymoves work for that, not learned keys. Why is that? Anyone know? I've worked around the problem by shuffling things around and trading keymoves for learned keys in certain spots. So I've got it working now. But I just wondered why this happened?

[johnsfine]

[johnsfine]

[Nils_Ekberg]

[The Robman]

Nils is right, the hex is $36 and $37, but I'd say forget about being consistant and just enter the button names like this...

SCAN=54,
SLEEP=55,

Just be sure to delete the current entries for SCAN and SLEEP.

You should also probably delete the following entry from near the beginning of the RDF as it's meaningless with the SCAN key hacked:

FavKey=$14, $01A, 15, 3

As for the question of whether all 15-1994 RDF's should have these entries, I'd say no. Very few people have hacked the 15-1994 like this, especially since there are now software ways to fix it. Those that have hacked their remotes should also hack the RDFs to reflect those hacks.
_________________
Rob
www.hifi-remote.com
Please don't PM me with remote questions, post them in the forums so all the experts can help!

[foobar989]

[mr_d_p_gumby]

[jamesgammel]

The bug in the 1994 is such that whatever device KEY you are using the upgraded protocol on (NOT device upgrade), will typically fail to properly learn. if you need to learn a PILE of signals for IR to decode so you can make a device upgrade, there's several solutions. One is save the configuration first, then delete the protocol upgrade, do the learns/decodes, and reload the protocol upgrade. Another option *should* be to temporarily reassing that device key with the protocol upgrade to some other setup code that uses a native upgrade; do the learns/decodes, then reassign that device and protocol upgrade codes back to aux2. If you have JUST a device upgrade (that didn't require a protocol upgrade) on a device key, the bug doesn't kick in.

If you find you have to use some learned keys because you're constantly out of keymove room, the obvious solution is to use one of the extenders which wipes out learning, but doubles keymove space. If you then have to learn a new device to make an upgrade, simply temporarily remove the extender, and reinstall/activate it after making the upgrade. You mentioned running out of keymove space, but never mentioned how much upgrade space you're using/have left. You might pick up some keymove space by making upgrades so you don't require so many keymoves. a 1994 should have enough room for about 10-14 device upgrades. If you make all upgrades cable or vcr type, that maximizes the number of keys for upgrades and reduces the number of keys that are defined as keymoves. the 1994 don't care if you have every device key defined as a cable or vcr device.
are you confusing device upgrade with protocol upgrade? protocol upgrades can be seen and entered on the protocol tab in IR, device upgrades can be seen in the "devices" tab. In this discussion of the 1994, it's what's on the protocol tab, and the device key that's using that protocol upgrade.

I also suppose you could "unhack" those keys since that hack isn't required anymore, then use the regular 1994 rdf.

Jim

[The Robman]

Actually, I think the learning process works just fine, so if your reason for learning is just to see what the protocol, etc is, then you shouldn't need to remove the protocol upgrade.

IIRC, the bug is in the playback routines. For some reason, if there is a protocol upgrade associated with a particular device button, the remote doesn't know to look for learned signals.
_________________
Rob
www.hifi-remote.com
Please don't PM me with remote questions, post them in the forums so all the experts can help!

[foobar989]

[foobar989]

Oh, and let me just thank you great folks for keeping this whole JP1 thing alive. It's great to be able to come back after being gone a year or two, and to still see everything going strong, and to have protocols for my new gear ready and waiting for me. Very cool. High five to everyone!

[johnsfine]