It may seem silly for a company to try to avoid buying a $300 receiver, but the reality is we cannot own every piece of gear that Total Remote ever has trouble with. That said, sometimes you can justify these things if there is more than one purpose served, and I think I found it. Total Remote may have a problem with a particular IR coding scheme, and from analyzing CCFs that users have sent I have discovered the Scientific Atlanta cables boxes and the Yamaha receivers use the same IR coding scheme. So, having found good cause to investigate further I think I can either buy or borrow the needed equipment.
However, just for reference, I would point out a logical fallacy and corresponding pratical reality; just because a particular manufacturer uses a particular IR coding system more than once does not mean their whole product line is compatible (Sony uses a minimum of 4 just for televisions last I checked). My analysis of SciAt cable box protocols has shown me that much; of 3 different cable boxes that all used the "same" protocol only ONE cable box worked. While the overall signal structure was the same, the exact bitpatterns and timings were not. My only hope of fixing it is that the 2 "bad" cable boxes had signals that were mistimed by about 4/10th of a millisecond, so maybe that is the fault. 4/10th of a millisecond is just about enough time for the last few pulses to conceivably be in the wrong "timeslot" to produce the right bitpattern. This would not occur with most signals I have dealt with, as they use considerably longer timing. That would explain why a Sony receiver works and a Yamaha doesn't.
