[topprospect]

Can someone explain what happens on the DirecTV remote when you hold FF for 3 seconds? Does it put a gap in time after 3 seconds before it sends another FF command which the HR20 understands as a command to skip to tick? Or does the DirecTV remote send out a different IR command all together if FF key is held for more than 3 seconds?

If so, it would be cool if we could train our universal remotes that different IR command so that we don't have to send FF for 3 seconds (seems like a waste to me...)

thanks!

 

[topprospect]

From what I have been told it is a different IR signal sent.
But until I get the IR code dump from DirecTV... I won't know for certain.

Any idea when you'll be able to get that? In the meantime, I'll try to start fast forwarding and then send each of the 254 possible IR codes to see if it skips to tick. Super fun for a Wed. night!

 

[topprospect]

Any idea when you'll be able to get that? In the meantime, I'll try to start fast forwarding and then send each of the 254 possible IR codes to see if it skips to tick. Super fun for a Wed. night!

The bad news:
No one-button-skip-to-tick. I tried all 254 possible IR combinations and none produced a skip-to-tick. I tried them while on normal speed and also while fast forwarding.

The good news:
There are better FFWD, RWD, repeat, advance, and play codes than the ones that the DirecTV remote emits. Numerous people have reported that if they use a universal remote to learn the codes for these five buttons, the universal remote doesn't act exactly same as the DirecTV remote. Specifically, holding down the FFWD button on the universal remote is not enough to make the HR20 skip to tick. You have to hold it down for 3 seconds, let go, and then quickly tap FFWD again. So what's up with this?

I have a Pronto, so once I learned the ProntoHex for these 5 buttons, I used IRTool to decode the hex sequence. This results in the following LEARNED codes:

Play is function 48 (learned set)
RRWD is function 51 (learned set)
FFWD is function 52 (learned set)
Repeat is function 54 (learned set)
Advance is function 55 (learned set)

Remember that these are the codes that don't work exactly like the real DirecTV remote. Well, in my code hunting excursion, I found that there are another set of functions that seem to do the exact same thing as the 5 functions above. The second set is:

Play is function 58 (second set)
RRWD is function 60 (second set)
FFWD is function 61 (second set)
Repeat is function 63 (second set)
Advance is function 56 (second set)

At further inspection, however, I found that this second set of functions actually performed better than the learned set. For instance, sending function 61 for 3 seconds really did skip to the next tick, just like the DirecTV remote FFWD key. Sending function 58 for 3 seconds causes slow-motion, just like the DirecTV remote's play key.

I can't explain why learning the keys results in the first set since this set doesn't seem to work too well. The second set is definitely superior--now my Pronto works just as well as the real DirecTV remote! I can skip to next tick, previous tick, beginning, or end.

I would appreciate it if someone could try to replicate my results, especially with something other than a Pronto. Let me know if it works for you.

If it helps anyone else, the ProntoHex for the second set is:

Play is function 58 (second set)
0000 006C 000A 000A 00E7 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 0017 002E 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 0017 0477 0073 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 0017 002E 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 0017 0477

RRWD is function 60 (second set)
0000 006C 000A 000A 00E7 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 0477 0073 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 0477

FFWD is function 61 (second set)
0000 006C 000A 000A 00E7 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 002E 0017 002E 002E 0017 0017 002E 0017 0477 0073 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 002E 0017 002E 002E 0017 0017 002E 0017 0477

Repeat is function 63 (second set)
0000 006C 000A 000A 00E7 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 002E 002E 002E 002E 0017 002E 002E 0017 0477 0073 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 002E 002E 002E 002E 0017 002E 002E 0017 0477

Advance is function 56 (second set)
0000 006C 000A 000A 00E7 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 0017 002E 0017 0477 0073 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 002E 002E 0017 0017 0017 0017 002E 0017 002E 0017 0477

 

[topprospect]

And for those of us with Harmony remotes what do we do? Thanks for your efforts!

So you can't program specific codes on the Harmony via some sort of GUI? I don't know much about them. It seems like there should be some way to generate custom codes.

JP1 users should be able to take the function numbers in my last post to create codes for their devices.