JP1 Remotes

I haven't used a JP1 remote in a while but since you guys are extremely knowledgeable I thought I'd ask a question here...

Is there a difference in IR protocol speed?

For example, is the NEC1 protocol slower than RC5? (or whatever)

I know that hardware can make a difference (both the transmitter in the remote and the receiver in the device), but it seems like IR is often very slow compared to RS232 or IP control.

I'm interested in using a neat device called Flirc that translates IR signals into USB HID (keyboard) commands, but I want it to respond as fast as I can press buttons on my remote control and it seems like IR protocols do have different speeds.

Hard to say exactly what you mean by speed. An IR-command normally does not carry a payload, even thought it is conceivable, so speed (bits/s ?) is not really a parameter.

A NEC1 command takes 108ms nominally, an RC5 command 114ms, in both cases counting the trailing silence.

A good typists types 10 or somewhat more keys per second on a keyboard, but you will hardly reach that with a "clicker".

You can of course also design your own IR protocols, for example to be used with Flirc.

BTW, if you master JP1, AFAIK, Flirc does not give you any advantages, since it just translates arbitrary commands to MCE commands effectively. If you master JP1, you can just as well have the remote to send the MCE commands.