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Original thread:
Post 31 made on Sunday January 22, 2012 at 13:06
RandyWalters
Long Time Member
Joined:
Posts:
December 2006
97
On January 18, 2012 at 10:24, FargleBargle said...
One point I've noticed on the R40 is the "My Favorites" buttons. I originally thought these were just the standard colored buttons seen on other remotes, and I could use them to store additional macros. I now see that they have been labeled with favorite channel categories "Sports", "Music", "Movies" and "News". This seems a bit odd, considering it's being marketed as "My Favorite Remote". These categories may be somebody's favorites, but they're certainly not mine. What if I want "Educational", "Sci-Fi", "Porn" and "Reality" instead? What if I have some other way of organizing my favorites, or want to use the buttons for something else entirely? It seems a bit odd that a "universal" remote would impose this kind of arbitrary organization scheme on users.

Yeah it is odd that they'd label these four buttons so specifically when they don't know the owner's viewing habits. Something like A B C D or even having no labels at all would have been better. I don't use the favorite channels feature at all as i have all my channel numbers memorized and just do directly to them (or scroll through my Tivo's and 8300HD's guide to select a channel).


Can these buttons be used for something else, or are they only for favorites? If they are just for favorites, I'll probably use different categories than theirs, so I guess I'll find out how durable the lettering is on the labels. Does anyone have more information on what you can and can't do with these buttons?

You don't have to use them as favorites. I use them for either macros or learned commands, depending on which device i'm in. One example is when i'm "Watching Tivo" mode, i created a macro on the far right green/News button to switch my TV to the 8300HD's input and leaves the R40 in "Watching 8300HD" mode. To switch back to Watch Tivo mode, i press the far left yellow/Sports button which activates that macro. But when i'm in Panasonic Plasma TV mode (using the TV's internal tuner over antenna), i use these buttons for learned commands (Sleep, Input, Viera Tools) instead of putting them on the 6 screen buttons where i'd have to press the button twice to send the command.

I'm kinda using these four Favorites buttons like my MX-500's M1/M2/M3 macro buttons, but the difference is that on the MX-500 the M buttons are "global" and performs it's macro regardless of which device i'm in. But with the R40 these Favorites buttons only perform their macro when i'm in particular device, they're not global. For instance, for my far right Tivo-to-8300 green/News button's macro to work, i have to be in Tivo mode. If i press this button while in 8300 mode it does nothing. Same goes for the far left button - when i'm in Tivo mode it does nothing. It could be like this because i created these macros while in Tivo mode and 8300 mode and there may be a way to create the macros from the "Main" menu where they would operate globally. I haven't experimented with this so i don't know if it's possible. But actually like them being device-specific for now. I may do some global vs device-specific macro experimenting when i set the remote up to run my bedroom TV setup.
Randy
URC MX-890, MX-780, MX-450, R40, MX-500, Sony XBR-55X900E, Panny TC-P55ST60, Tivo Roamio Pro & Premiere & OTA, TWC Arris DVR, Onkyo 333 AVR, Roku Express 4K, Panasonic Blu-Ray


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