Sony Protocols and 2117.

[Capn Trips]

I'm breaking this out of an earlier thread to solicit specific Sony protocol expertise.

I am building an upgrade for a Sony HT-1800DP HTS (consisting of a DVP-NS725P DVD player and STR-K751P HT receiver). Learned all of the signals from the OEM remotes and decoded them. After I was through, I had functions using Sony12:1, Sony15:48, Sony15:121, Sony15:176, Sony20:26.73, and Sony20:26.98! Two of these are used for a SINGLE command!

Having never before done Sony, it was back to the protocol "readme". Again a very helpful document. I'm telling you, though, I thought that grappling with the bizarre concotions that Pioneer manages to come up with was hard, but Sony puts them to shame!

Thanks to (the other) Rob's super Sony website, however, I have a pretty exhaustive list of functions and codes within all of the protocol/device combinations above and hopefully I'll be able to use the discretes listed therein to tailor this upgrade.

Now for the questions -
(1) It seems like I could combine all of these into a single protocol upgrade using the Sony Combo protocol, but would have several Device upgrades to get the DVD and HTS button mappings uniquely assigned. I can do this and only end up with ONE protocol upgrade and TWO device upgrades that call on the same protocol upgrade, but ... Is this efficient?

(2) Or is it potentially more efficient to build several independent upgrades, a couple for the Sony20 codes and/or a couple for the Sony12/15 codes and KeyMove as necessary to cross-talk? It appears if I do this, I will have only Device upgrades, but NO protocol upgrades to upload.

(3) According to the Sony20 protocol notes, I can combine a single Sony12 device in such an upgrade. Does this mean specifically a "Sony12" device or either a Sony12 or Sony15 device, as elsewhere the documentation makes clear that Sony12 and Sony15 have no overlap in their device codes? The reason for this question is, if I go the route of separate upgrades, and the Sony20 protocol will only accomodate an additional Sony12 code, but not a Sony15, then I will have to make four separate upgrades rather than three - perhaps an argument for going with the Sony Combo now that I think about it.

(4) Ultimately, I intend to install the Extender, as well, for fast macros, LKP, and other better functionality. Does that affect any of these decisions?

I suppose the bottom line is it all boils down to my personal preference, but I'd appreciate input from those who have gone before to see what benefits/drawbacks there are to some of my possible courses of action.

Thanks guys - I'll be lucky if I finish this before Christmas, but regardless, I'll definitely upload my results.

[ClaudeS]

A couple of quick comments.

It sounds like you're getting too many protocols for just an HTS and DVD. Make sure your learns are good. It takes a little experience to consistently get good learns, and bad learns will report the wrong protocol. Try learning the same original remote function on several keys of the 2117, then check what IR reports for all of them. Once you're getting the same thing over and over on all those keys you can start trusting your learns.

On trying to cram everything into one upgrade. There are only so many keys on the 2117....not enough in my opinion, so trying to do a single protocol to handle both a HTS and a DVD is going to leave you with very few keys unless these are very low end devices with few functions. It ends up being a personal preference issue and thats the wonderful thing about JP1 you can do it your way. But, I would really suggest starting out doing one upgrade for the DVD and one for the HTS to get started.

If you really end up having lots of protocols after triple checking all your learns, the device combiner protocol I think will handle it (someone who's more familiar with it correct me if I'm wrong). In order to set up the device combiner you'll have to temporarily set up each protocol in KM to get the hex info for that protocol so you might as well test those functions using an simple upgrade of only Sony12, or Sony20, etc to get started anyway. Once you've got that working, you can use the device combiner to make things more complicated.....

[mr_d_p_gumby]

Two of these are used for a SINGLE command!

I've seen this before on a couple of Sony remotes. It turned out that it was sending the same OBC to more than one device, and the device being controlled needed only one of the commands. This is Sony's way of being universal within it's own product line, since many of their products can be set to different "remote codes" (i.e., device numbers in JP1 terms). For example, some Sony VCRs can be set to 1 of 3 different code sets, some receivers to 1 of 2 or 3 sets, etc. If this turns out to be the case for you, then you might be able to get rid of some of your different devices.

(1) It seems like I could combine all of these into a single protocol upgrade using the Sony Combo protocol, but would have several Device upgrades to get the DVD and HTS button mappings uniquely assigned. I can do this and only end up with ONE protocol upgrade and TWO device upgrades that call on the same protocol upgrade, but ... Is this efficient?

Your question is a little confusing. It's not likely that you would be adding a Protocol Upgrade, since all three protocols are in most UEI remotes these days, but even if you were, it would not contain the actual device numbers. Those go into the Device Upgrade. Which protocol you decide to use with any particular upgrade depends on what you need to accomplish. If you are using VPT with the DVD upgrade, then you only need the 26.73 Sony 20 for the DVD, but if you need the volume buttons to be available within the DVD upgrade, then you'd need to have the 48 Sony12/15 device available as well.