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

Apex DT250 Volume Buttons
Goto page 1, 2  Next
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    JP1 Remotes Forum Index -> JP1 - Protocol Decodes
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
stevewahl



Joined: 07 Nov 2008
Posts: 12

                    
PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 1:39 am    Post subject: Apex DT250 Volume Buttons Reply with quote

I'm sorry, I didn't completely read the instructions before I uploaded, So I don't meet all the criteria. If you need more from me before you can help, let me know.

I'm trying to make an upgrade to represent the APEX DT250 DTV converter box. Most everything comes out as NEC1 Device 12 Subdevice 251, but through multiple learns the volume buttons only come out raw.

What I up loaded has the volume up and volume down buttons from the APEX remote learned onto my 1994, in BOTH the vol+/- and Channel +/- buttons, so you have the results from two learns each.

http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload.php?action=file&file_id=6275

Can this be made to work? At first I was thinking, "doesn't matter, I won't use the volume buttons anyway", but they're also the left/right arrows, so menu traversal would be, um, difficult.

Thanks for any help you might offer.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
johnsfine
Site Admin


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

                    
PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've never seen that protocol before.

Are you sure the signals used for Vol are also used as left/right?

Do the learned signals work?

Are you planning to use an extender or is there some reason you can't just use learned signals for those two function?

When a device has a small number of strange signals mixed with a large number of ordinary signals, it is simplest to create an upgrade just for the ordinary signals and handle the strange ones some other way.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
stevewahl



Joined: 07 Nov 2008
Posts: 12

                    
PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

johnsfine wrote:
I've never seen that protocol before.

Are you sure the signals used for Vol are also used as left/right?

The remote has the channel and volume buttons arranged in a diamond pattern, doing dual duty for menu selection when in the menus. Not that unusual, I think; our samsung TV uses the same arrangement.
Quote:
Do the learned signals work?

Ah, good question. I forgot to try it. I was sitting at my computer that does Jp1 stuff, with the learning remote and the original remote, in a different part of the house from the DTV box.
Quote:
Are you planning to use an extender or is there some reason you can't just use learned signals for those two function?

When a device has a small number of strange signals mixed with a large number of ordinary signals, it is simplest to create an upgrade just for the ordinary signals and handle the strange ones some other way.


I do intend to use an extender eventually. This is a DTV settop box, and I have a modulator that puts TIVO, DVD, and VCR on 3 unused analog channels to the whole house merged with the broadcast signals. For regular TV watching, the DT250 box will have to be on, but for watching TIVO/DVD/VCR, the DT250 will have to be off (analog passthrough mode). Unless I find a discrete on/off for the DT250, I believe I'll need to use an extender to keep track of the on/off state of the box.

Since I did have to retry a few of the buttons to get a good NEC1 decode, and the volume buttons are the only ones I wasn't able to get a good decode for, I think I'm going to test for the possibility that there are button codes within Nec1/Dev12/Subdev251 that do the volume function, using an exhaustive button code search. Maybe the volume buttons are fooling the learning process somehow.

Thanks again for your help!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
johnsfine
Site Admin


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

                    
PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 2:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevewahl wrote:
I think I'm going to test for the possibility that there are button codes within Nec1/Dev12/Subdev251 that do the volume function, using an exhaustive button code search.


I suggest testing whether there are OBC numbers in NEC1:12.251 that do the left/right functions. That is what you really care about and that may be more likely to exist than Vol.

I don't know anything specific about your set top box, but in general I expect a set top box remote to be programmable by type of TV and by default to send the Vol commands for the programmed model of TV rather than for the set top box itself.

So when I see Vol commands learned from a set top box remote that are a different protocol from the rest of the code set, I usually assume they are not signals for that set top box.

The fact that they perform left/right in the set top box menu tends to contradict that theory.

But the fact that you did a bunch of learning in a different part of the house from the device increases the chances that the signals you learned don't do the functions that you think they do.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
stevewahl



Joined: 07 Nov 2008
Posts: 12

                    
PostPosted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 11:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Questions first, then additional info:
I still am going to make a upgrade code that reflects what I have so far (without volume/left-right control) and upload for others to use. Should I just pick any old device setup code, or is there someone that assigns these? Since I didn't do the exhaustive search through existing setup codes to see if one already worked, is there a way to look and see if any existing setup code(s) uses NEC1:12.251? I could try those and see if I'm duplicating anything, unless nobody feels there's a need to do that.
johnsfine wrote:

I suggest testing whether there are OBC numbers in NEC1:12.251 that do the left/right functions. That is what you really care about and that may be more likely to exist than Vol.

I think I get what you're saying; The left/right buttons in the diamond on the remote ARE the volume buttons, but that doesn't mean there are no other left/right codes.

The box in question does not come with a programmable remote, opting instead to let you change the volume as the signals pass through the box. In this case, even with the box set at 100% volume, the box is noticeably quieter than broadcast stations, which is disappointing.

Anyway, Here's what I've learned since my last post:
* The learned volume functions I posted do work with the box; they were learned propperly, or at least well enough that the box recognized them.
* A quick upgrade thrown together with NEC1:12.251 did work just fine with the box, as far as I could tell.
* An exhaustive OBC search: a) is appropriately named, it is tiresome and error prone Smile, b) did not turn up any codes for volume up/down (or mute, which seems to be another one in the funny protocol set, sort of makes sense that it is grouped with them), and c) did not expose any discrete on/off codes either; not that I expected it would.

In retrospect, I did the exhaustive search with the unit powered on, but without the menu up. I'm not sure what a LEFT or RIGHT button code that was not volume would do outside the context of the menu being up, perhaps nothing, so it is still possible that there are separate left/right codes lurking in there somewhere. Will I do another exhaustive search? I'm not sure.

I stopped to consider how I want to use this box. I want the volume on the box left at 100% (using the TV's volume from my jp1 remote), and the functions in the menus accessed with the menu and arrow keys are not necessary for day to day operation. Therefore, I think I can get by with an upgrade code that leaves out the volume and mute buttons. This probably applies to anyone else trying to use a JP1 remote with this unit as well, so the resulting upgrade could be useful to others.

[As a sidebar, I'd love to see a description of what kind of engineering decisions get made that cause any of these "small number of strange signals mixed with a large number of ordinary signals" situations. In this case, if the volume buttons controlled only volume, I could see a separate IC or ASIC library lying on the same IR reception bus resulting in this kind of thing. But in this case, the main microcontroller must still intercept these volume commands and divert them to being menu traversal actions when the menu is "up", so you'd think it'd have been cheaper / easier for them to just use conforming codes for volume.]
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
The Robman
Site Owner


Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Posts: 21211
Location: Chicago, IL

                    
PostPosted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 5:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The following CBL/SAT codes use NEC1 12.251:
0149, 0749, 0819, 1052, 1749 (0749 and 0819 are in the 15-1994)

When you tested that the learned signals worked, did you just check that they changed the volume or did you also check that they worked at left/right arrow buttons?

Did you try one of the existing Apex DT250 upgrade files? The following file also uses NEC1 12.152 and it includes all 4 arrow buttons:

http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload.php?action=file&file_id=6253

Comparing the OBCs in that file to those in CBL/0749, the numerics and CH+/- match, but the others are different.

If you say that the search for missing OBCs is exhaustive, you must not be doing it right. How did you go about it?
_________________
Rob
www.hifi-remote.com
Please don't PM me with remote questions, post them in the forums so all the experts can help!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
stevewahl



Joined: 07 Nov 2008
Posts: 12

                    
PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rob,

I move slow, and my free time comes in small increments. I don't think those DT250 upgrades existed when I decided to do this, and I forgot to look back when I finally did the learning. I'll try them.

From a previous message,
Quote:
I did the exhaustive search with the unit powered on, but without the menu up. I'm not sure what a LEFT or RIGHT button code that was not volume would do outside the context of the menu being up, perhaps nothing, so it is still possible that there are separate left/right codes lurking in there somewhere


That may explain why I did not see the left / right buttons, I may not have had the unit in propper context.

I do the exhaustive search by pressing "P" 0 0 0, "P" 0 0 1, and so on up to "p" 2 5 5. Many times I repeat the same code twice if I'm not sure I did it right. If there is a better way, I'm all ears.
Quote:
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
The Robman
Site Owner


Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Posts: 21211
Location: Chicago, IL

                    
PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevewahl wrote:
I do the exhaustive search by pressing "P" 0 0 0, "P" 0 0 1, and so on up to "p" 2 5 5. Many times I repeat the same code twice if I'm not sure I did it right. If there is a better way, I'm all ears.

That's how we used to do it before JP1 and yes, it can be exhausting.

JP1 users do it by creating "dummy" upgrades that include all of the OBCs that are otherwise un-accounted for, then we load the upgrades into our remotes and test all the buttons. In the event that we find a button that does something, we re-try it to confirm that it really does what we think it does, then we go back to the KM or RM files that we used to create the upgrade to see which OBC it is.
_________________
Rob
www.hifi-remote.com
Please don't PM me with remote questions, post them in the forums so all the experts can help!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
cougar97201



Joined: 09 Mar 2004
Posts: 25
Location: Portland, OR

                    
PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Robman wrote:
stevewahl wrote:
I do the exhaustive search by pressing "P" 0 0 0, "P" 0 0 1, and so on up to "p" 2 5 5. Many times I repeat the same code twice if I'm not sure I did it right. If there is a better way, I'm all ears.

That's how we used to do it before JP1 and yes, it can be exhausting.

JP1 users do it by creating "dummy" upgrades that include all of the OBCs that are otherwise un-accounted for, then we load the upgrades into our remotes and test all the buttons. In the event that we find a button that does something, we re-try it to confirm that it really does what we think it does, then we go back to the KM or RM files that we used to create the upgrade to see which OBC it is.



just to save you some head scratching. i was playing around with a few obc's/efc's and thought
i found right arrow. nope. in the menu where right arrow is expected, "ok" works too
so i refound "ok", not right arrow.

i picked up a DT502 (the update to the DT250) which i think
has the same remote. so yeah, the right and left arrows are really
what i would like. I don't really care about Vol+, Vol-,Mute.
i have not exhausted myself yet though. Smile

fyi: comparison info on dt502 vs. DT250:
http://dtvfiasco.com/apex/apexdt502dt250tests.html
_________________
Phil (one of many)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
stevewahl



Joined: 07 Nov 2008
Posts: 12

                    
PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My remote has 50 or so buttons; do you typically make 5 devices worth of upgrades, so you can get 250 different codes? Limit your search space to those "close" to the known original button codes?

Making the upgrade with KM seems nearly as tedious, but maybe you keep them around and just change the protocol / device ids?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
The Robman
Site Owner


Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Posts: 21211
Location: Chicago, IL

                    
PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When you start up KM it provided you with a default list of function names, and when you enter codes for them you'll find that many of them are already assigned to buttons. It's easy to create lists of sequential numbers in Excel, so populating the list of OBCs isn't too hard.

Rather than testing all 256 possible OBCs, you would want to remove all the known OBCs from the list first, which will reduce the number of buttons to test. Then yes, you would create as many upgrades as it takes to cover all of the test OBCs. Most JP1 remotes have at least 6 device buttons, and many have 8 or more, so you can assign each of the dummy upgrades to device buttons. Then to test an OBC you have 1 button press, rather than the 4 presses that you were using, plus you can test the buttons in OBC order rather than EFC order (which is what you were doing by going P-000, P-001, etc). OBC order is preferable because the functions are much more likely to be in OBC range 0-31 than OBC range 225-256. Plus, retesting a button is just a single press, whereas you would need to do another 4 presses to retest. (Retesting is important to differentiate between Discrete-Off and Power-Toggle, or VIDEO1 and INPUT, for example).
_________________
Rob
www.hifi-remote.com
Please don't PM me with remote questions, post them in the forums so all the experts can help!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
cougar97201



Joined: 09 Mar 2004
Posts: 25
Location: Portland, OR

                    
PostPosted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Robman wrote:
When you start up KM it provided you with a default list of function names, and when you enter codes for them you'll find that many of them are already assigned to buttons. It's easy to create lists of sequential numbers in Excel, so populating the list of OBCs isn't too hard.

Rather than testing all 256 possible OBCs, you would want to remove all the known OBCs from the list first, which will reduce the number of buttons to test. Then yes, you would create as many upgrades as it takes to cover all of the test OBCs. Most JP1 remotes have at least 6 device buttons, and many have 8 or more, so you can assign each of the dummy upgrades to device buttons. Then to test an OBC you have 1 button press, rather than the 4 presses that you were using, plus you can test the buttons in OBC order rather than EFC order (which is what you were doing by going P-000, P-001, etc). OBC order is preferable because the functions are much more likely to be in OBC range 0-31 than OBC range 225-256. Plus, retesting a button is just a single press, whereas you would need to do another 4 presses to retest. (Retesting is important to differentiate between Discrete-Off and Power-Toggle, or VIDEO1 and INPUT, for example).


In case it is of any use to anyone...
I built 6 fairly generic RM upgrades to assist in finding useful OBCs.
I don't know if it is appropriate to upload to the site, or if so, where.
Those upgrades and an IR image for an extended 881x are at:

[link deleted...PM me if you want the zip via email...include email addr]

I kept them pretty simple so they could be easily used with non-extenders.
An explanation is in the 1st upgrade.

In a derived version I clobbered out the known Apex DT-502 OBCs and used it to look for "right arrow".
I did not find it.
_________________
Phil (one of many)


Last edited by cougar97201 on Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:47 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
stevewahl



Joined: 07 Nov 2008
Posts: 12

                    
PostPosted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 7:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rob,

Well, I downloaded your DT-250 upgrade, and it did not work well at all for me. There are a lot of wierd mappings between the functions and the buttons sheet. But at the end of the day, no left / right button codes are really there.

I uploaded my version. I left it as CBL/2000 because I didn't know what I should really do.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
The Robman
Site Owner


Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Posts: 21211
Location: Chicago, IL

                    
PostPosted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I will delete my file then as yours is obviously the more accurate, and if I get a chance I will try to write a new protocol for the volume buttons.

Just FYI, the buttons that you included are an exact match for SAT/1749:
http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload.php?action=file&file_id=6304

The strange thing is that the SAT/1749 code includes a few additional buttons. Apart for the 4 arrow buttons, it also has INPUT, EXIT and PREV. I'm guessing these are for a different Apex model.
_________________
Rob
www.hifi-remote.com
Please don't PM me with remote questions, post them in the forums so all the experts can help!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
stevewahl



Joined: 07 Nov 2008
Posts: 12

                    
PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's a few button codes I did not have in the version I uploaded. Call me scatterbrained. I guess I forgot that I did a quick, "test it out" version the other night.

I'll upload the second, then delete my first try.

27 of 30 original buttons are mapped in this new version, before I was missing Fav/Fav-/Fav+, Signal, zoom, MTS, maybe a couple others. Now the only things missing are the volume and mute functions.

Like I said, I'm guessing that most jp1 remote users are not going to use the volume and mute functions of the box, instead opting to "pass through" and make the volume buttons control the TV or stereo directly. With the additional info from cougar97201 (namely, you can use OK instead of right arrow, and I think you can use exit instead of left arrow), I don't think there's anything you can't get to besides the volume functions.

THEREFORE, DON'T SWEAT the volume protocol on my account!!!

UPDATE: I'm guessing you have to do the deletion of my old version, else I just can't figure out how. Please do so, OK? Thanks!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic       JP1 Remotes Forum Index -> JP1 - Protocol Decodes All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 
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