JP1 Remotes

johnsfine wrote:I've been in a bunch of Walmart stores in the last month, in a few different states. Some of them still had a shelf label for that remote with the price of 17.86 but none of the stores had any of the remotes.

Damn.

I've called three Walmarts that are within a reasonable driving distance from my house, and none of them have it. They all have the same three URCs, and none of them are anything like the 8811.

I'm checking around other local stores. I really don't want to have to get it shipped remotely, but I may have no choice.

Best Buy has the URC-8910 for $36. How does this compare with the 8911?

If you mean compare to 8811 I think it is pretty much like it with an added LCD Display. Look at them both here. http://www.ofausa.com/product_support.php I think the 8810 and 8811 are more popular because less price. The pix there is of older style, bluedo and surfremotecontrol has pix of the new style 8910.

enchant wrote:I've called three Walmarts that are within a reasonable driving distance from my house, and none of them have it. They all have the same three URCs, and none of them are anything like the 8811.

Make sure you were asking for the URC-8810w, not the URC-8811. An even better idea would be to ask for the "One For All 8 device universal remote" as the URC-8810w model number is in very small type.

The only units that Walmart carried were URC-6131, URC-4021 and URC-3021.

I did get the 8910 model at Best Buy. The way I figured it, to buy it online from a reputable dealer and add in shipping, it wouldn't be much under $30. And for an additional $6, I've got it in my hands today, and if I don't like it, I can just walk back into the store, rather than pay more shipping.

My first impression is that it does some things better and some worse than my old unit. It has a few keys for learning (very cool), and it knows the codes for every device I own. But on my old unit, I was able to program a sequence into the Theater mode Power key. Can't do it with this. You have to use one of the reserved macro keys. Also, it seems a little fussy with my TV. I don't know if it's an aiming issue or if it's not always sending out a signal, even though the red light blinks.

It'll take some getting used to.

UPS truck drove up a few minutes ago. I was briefly excited that my JP1 cable had arrived early, but it was something else (no toys).

It sounds like you believe, based on the manual, that you can only learn to certain buttons and only certain buttons can have macros. Even without JP1 and just using an unmodified remote this is not true. You can learn to almost any key and you can put a macro on almost any key. There are limitations based on which remote you have, but most things you can do.

I tried playing with that and found that you are correct. However...

I'd like to make my remote as simple as possible. The "Theater" mode does that for me for the most part. Unfortunately, you can't program a macro to the Theater mode Power button. I *was* able to program macros to the individual power buttons, but that's no good, because there will be times when I want to control those units individually.

Since Theater mode has some restrictions, I was thinking of using an unused device, like AUX as my theater mode. I could use the Key Mover function and program each specific key to do what I want. It would be a massive amount of programming at the start, and I'd probably take my own life if the batteries ran dry and I lost the programming. But I guess that would be one of the side benefits of having the JP1 cable - being able to backup my work.

JP1 enabled remotes have EEPROMs that store the programming, and therefore don't lose the programming when batteries are removed or run down, even for extended periods of time.

As implemented in the stock remote, Theater Mode has too many restictions such as this that make it not very useful. You'd be better off installing an extender, which will give you much more complete control over how your remote behaves, including macros on ANY button.

gfb107 wrote:JP1 enabled remotes have EEPROMs that store the programming, and therefore don't lose the programming when batteries are removed or run down, even for extended periods of time.

Ah - my mistake. The remote that I used (before my current old one) would lose everything it learned if the batteries died completely. I just assumed that this was true across all remotes. Good to know.

As implemented in the stock remote, Theater Mode has too many restictions such as this that make it not very useful. You'd be better off installing an extender, which will give you much more complete control over how your remote behaves, including macros on ANY button.

Hmm... Now I'll have to learn what an extender is.

enchant wrote: It would be a massive amount of programming at the start, and I'd probably take my own life if the batteries ran dry and I lost the programming. But I guess that would be one of the side benefits of having the JP1 cable - being able to backup my work.

I was a long time user of an OFA-6800 before I started using JP1. I had it programmed pretty much to its limit. I was quite frustrated every time the programming got trashed. JP1 is absolutely important for backup.

As Greg pointed out, the programming is fully protected against loss from having the batteries dead or removed for too long (unlike my OFA-7200's that kept programming only for a short time without batteries).

But there are plenty of other glitches wandering around looking for the chance to trash your eeprom contents. If you put a lot of effort into programming it, you're nuts not to get the cable and back it up. (Yes Rob, that applies to someone who resisted your initial suggestions to use JP1 and waited quite a while before joining).

johnsfine wrote:If you put a lot of effort into programming it, you're nuts not to get the cable and back it up. (Yes Rob, that applies to someone who resisted your initial suggestions to use JP1 and waited quite a while before joining).

How many "Dear John" emails did it take???