I sure wish DirecTV had an actual instruction sheet for the RC71. The thing they call instructions is a one-page illustration just naming the individual functions of the buttons. And I say individual because Mute + Select is NOT a function of an individual button. In another thread ([Link: remotecentral.com]), it's pointed out that RF programming is done by holding Mute + Enter, not Mute + Select. Gee, that would have been in an instruction document, right?

I got some RC71s to have on hand and messed around (with IR only, of course) with my Pioneer plasma and HR24. For the Pioneer, you'd hold Mute + Select. Also, the RC71 doesn't program anything except TVs, with a weird situation -- sometimes when setting a TV code, the LED on the remote flashes red. This doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong, because it did that with the last code given for Pioneer TVs, which works mine.

Also, when you hold Mute + Select and then enter a 1, the remote flashes green twice... four more digits and it flashes again. But it behaves the same way with other initial digits, too, which implies to me that the remote is not programmed to respond to those digits, and is responding randomly; or perhaps that other functions are programmed in there but we don't have the proper instructions.

For instance, when you start with a 3, it looks like it will take a code. All of the Audio codes start with 3... and it doesn't seem to me completely necessary to have a slide switch... why couldn't a remote be made where, when you program it and the first digit is a 1, you program a TV; and when the first digit is a 3, you program an audio device; and when the first digit is a.... see how that could work?

I've already quizzed edmund about this. He no longer has DirecTV and he doesn't have an answer for this behavior.