JP1 Remotes

Here’s my situation. I have made various attempts at using JP1 over the past few years with only very limited success. I have a RS 15-1994, and many 15-1995 remotes that I got on clearance a year or two ago. I just finished a family room in the basement with a decent amount of A/V stuff, but given my past troubles with JP1, I have been relegated to juggling remotes. The thing that has brought me back here is that I recently got a good deal on an open box Zenith HD-SAT520 HD receiver with no remote. Signal strength can only be displayed from the remote.

I tried using a file for the 520 that has worked for others from the files section and bring it down to my 15-1994, along with other files for some of my other equipment. 1 of the 4 files worked partially, and the others not at all. I’m ready to give up, I may be just too dumb for this whole JP1 thing. I decided to look for a cheap, backlit, learning remote that would control at least this Zenith receiver and a DirecTivo out of the box. The URC-8810w seemed to fit the bill, and for $19 at Wal-Mart, what the heck. But after some research, someone told me that none of the OEI remotes will work the Zenith out of the box, but that I could mail in the URC-8810w and they will upgrade it to support it. It would be a hassle to mail it in and wait, but at least it would work and not take much of my time. What do you folks think? Another thing I thought of was that I can get a 15-2117 from my Radio Shack for $20. It sounds like it would operate all of my stuff, but not the Zenith. Maybe I could manage to get one file down correctly using JP1.

My stuff:

Infocus X1 Projector
Zenith HD-SAT520 HD Receiver
Hughes HDVR2 DirecTivo
Panasonic S31? DVD player
Pioneer VSX-D711 A/V Receiver


How well does that mail-in upgrade process work?
If I did get a new 15-2117 to work all of my stuff, would that make it easier to get my other RS remotes to work?
Anybody know of a remote that would work the Zenith out of the box?
Anyone have any other suggestions?

Maybe someone call tell me what I’m doing wrong to try and get these files into my remote. Here are my steps.

1. Dowload the .txt files for my devices to my PC.
2. Upload my remote to IR. Looks good.
3. Open the first file using KM by pressing the Load button.
4. I go to the device upgrade box and click the copy button.
5. In the IR.exe devices tab, I click add, and the code does paste.
6. Then back in the general tab, I change the code box to the device code that the KM program gave me.
7. I upload the file to the remote and try it with no luck.

Am I missing anything obvious? I am using the JP1 – Just How Easy Is it? Document as my guide. Thanks.

The first thing to verify is that the .txt file for the device you are opening with KM either matches your remote or is changed to your remote type on the setup tab of KM.

And second is that the functions from the functions tab are assigned to buttons on on the buttons tab.

Third is to make sure that KM did not create a protocol upgrade that also needs to be moved to IR. If so it will be in the protocol box below the device upgrade box on the setup tab.

Mark W. I didn't see your second post before I replied so I deleted my previous post since you had already answered my questions.

Nils made some good guesses at likely mistakes (things to check). But there are lots of less likely ones and we might not guess very well.

Before your step 7 you should save the eeprom image to a file on the PC so you know later exactly what you tested. If you post that file to the Yahoo JP1 group diagnosis folder and post its URL back here we can check a wider range of possible errors just by loading your eeprom image into IR.EXE.

That still leaves questions of whether the upgrade was right for your device and whether you tested it reasonably after transfering it to the remote. But those aren't too hard after we know exactly what you transfered to the remote.

Mark,

Between your step 3 and step 4 you need to select the remote from the drop down list: 15-1995 or URC-881x.

OK, I read through all your suggestions, tried it all again and made some progress! Thanks for your help so far! I attempted to take files from the files section and do the following:

AUX1- Pioneer receiver ***does not work at all***
AUX2- Infocus projector ***does not work at all***
CD- Panasonic DVD player ***works perfectly***
VCR- Hughes DTivo ***works perfectly***
CAB/SAT- Zenith HD Receiver ***seems to work mostly***

I loaded my IR file to the diagnosis area. It is named Mark1994HT. http://f2.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/wDv_QGTyQs ... k1994HT.IR

Any help with the Pioneer VSX-D711 and the Infocus X1 problems would be appreciated. Thanks,

Mark

Mark W wrote: AUX1- Pioneer receiver ***does not work at all***

It appears that you used KM to recreate the AUD/1023 setup code. I'm not clear on why. The 15-1994 has AUD/1023 built-in. It might be easier to patch it with a few KeyMoves rather than recreate it.

But KM seems to be doing it seriously wrong. Protocol 006A in the 15-1994 is not at all compatible with protocol 006A in the newer remotes, so KM should build the upgrade differently than it would for newer remotes. I haven't checked all the details yet (Rob knows how a lot better than I do) but I think KM is building an upgrade for the newer 006A even though the remote model is set to 15-1994.

Mark W wrote: AUX2- Infocus projector ***does not work at all***

Believe it or not, the JP1 software is fairly stable and not loaded with bugs.

Your .ir file seems to be an exception.

I tried to look at the Protocol upgrade for 005A in your .ir file because it makes no sense that this upgrade is present. Clicking on it in IR's Protocols sheet causes an access violation, which IR.EXE half recovers from but is then out of sync with its GUI, so I'm not really sure what is in there.

I haven't checked past threads on the Infocus projector, but it seems very strange that it would use a protocol upgrade for 005A in a 15-1994.

Also I notice you still have lots of learned signals on AUX1 and AUX2.

Normally learned signals override the device upgrade and/or KeyMoves, so you can't accurately test the upgrade and KeyMoves while the learned signals are still there.

If you have a protocol upgrade and learned signals in the same device mode (as you do) the behavior is even worse. The keys with learned signals won't work at all.

It's a good idea to keep an eeprom image file with your learned signals for later reference, but when you want to test device upgrades, use the Learned Signals tab in IR to delete all the learned signals from the device mode(s) in which you want to test upgrades.

Mark,

I uploaded a file here and that should make some headway. I didn't catch John's issue so Audio/1023 still probably won't work. Here were some other problems in that file:

You had many learned commands on Aux1 and Aux2. IIUC, Learned commands will always take priority over device upgrades. So the learned commands will still be transmitted regardless of your upgrade.

Somehow you had a protocol upgrade for $005A and it rendered the InFocus Upgrade useless. Also you had two copies of protocol $0041.

Basically, I didn't catch the protocol issue and just rebuilt your upgrades from scratch since I thought your remote had been corrupted.

You might just load my IR file from my 1994 in the zip file Mark1994HT-1.IR Mark1994HT-1.txt straight in to your 1994 and test. I found the KM files that you used for upgrades and included them in the zip so you can see the key map (what function is assigned to which keys) in the keymap tab for easy reference when you test.

I added several commands to the Zenith DSS receiver by assigneing them to butons: Power Toggle, discrete on, off, and the HD/SD toggle. The discrete power commands are assigned to the phantom commands Discrete On and Discrete Off that can only be used in Macro's. I assigned the power toggle to the power button and HD/SD to the Play command.

Keep in mind you must assign a function to a button. The functions in the functions tab are usually all the commands the person doing the upgrade found. Usually there are more commands than buttons so you select functions to be mapped to buttons in the buttons tab.

Wow, you guys are amazing, I really appreciate all of your help! Jon, it was super nice of you to do what you did, I really appreciate it and will try your file when I get home. I have a couple of questions for you to make sure I understand correctly:

1) Those learned commands are probably old, from past activities, so I will just delete them. Based on what all of you have said, could this possibly fix my problem, or will the protocol issues prevent that audio 1023 device from working at all?
2) I will take your advice and upload your file. So I just connect the remote, open my IR.exe, and upload your Mark1994HT-1.ir file to the remote, right? What is the .txt version of the file for?

I have other questions, but I guess it's better to wait until I try things again. Thank you all so much for your help.

p.s. This message board set-up is sooooo much better than the old one!

Mark W wrote:Based on what all of you have said, could this possibly fix my problem, or will the protocol issues prevent that audio 1023 device from working at all?

I can't see how that 1023 upgrade could work, but pending a response from Rob, I won't say I'm absolutely sure it won't work.

Why do you have a 1023 upgrade?

Try deleting that upgrade and see how much of the built-in 1023 does what you want.

Mark W wrote:What is the .txt version of the file for?

Since you're using a new enough IR.EXE, the .txt version is redundant with the .ir version. If you have both, use the .ir one.

Mark,

I changed the files for you to test -- the link is still the same. Audio/1023 does not work. I translated the commands from Audio/1023 to a device upgrade Audio/1013 that has the basic commands for your tuner. That has now replaced 1023. If those work and most should, then learn the missing commands that you want and upload your file and we'll figure out the most efficient way to do a device upgrade.

The discrete input commands in Audio 1013 are assigned to these numerals:

0 CD
1 VCR
2 CD-R
3 DVD
4 TV
9 Tuner

The rest of the commands vol+/-, power toggle etc. are pretty much where you would expect them. I put a little text file in the zip with the button assignments for Audio/1013 since I did the upgrade in RM.

Load the file Mark1994HT-1a.IR directly into your 1994.

For the future, John's advice regarding doing upgrades is very sound. Start with a 981 reset, then add device/protocol upgrades one device at a time, test then add another. Obviously, if this works you wouldn't do that or you would wipe out the upgrades, but that is how I started it.

Once you confirm that the basic functionality works, then we can concentrate on missing commands and macros. I added discrete power commands for both the DSS receiver and the A/V Receiver.

johnsfine wrote:I can't see how that 1023 upgrade could work, but pending a response from Rob, I won't say I'm absolutely sure it won't work.

Why do you have a 1023 upgrade?

Try deleting that upgrade and see how much of the built-in 1023 does what you want.

I just brought down a file for the Pioneer receiver with the model number closest to mine. If I try it from Jon's file and it doesn't work I will try deleting the upgrade, and see if that works. Thanks.