I have a frustrating problem with my MX-900 and its ability to control my DirectTV HD-DVR (HR-20). Quite often it misses keypresses or doubles up on them. I have an RF base station (MRF-250) but I've eliminated that in tests and still see the problem. Batteries are fresh and I'm about 15' from the sensors. Is there anything I can do?

I feel your pain. I moved the flashers around which helped some but I ended up moving to a MSC-400 and using RS-232 to USB control of the box. Now it works everytime.

Thanks...I think I'm going to bail and go with a Harmony 900. For the time I spend programming this MX-900 to get it just the way I want it, only to have it botch the DVR commands all the time...it's just not worth it.

I have an MX-980 and an MX-5000 both both shooting RF to an MX-350 base station in IR mode (to an HR-20 DVR). The MX-980 works perfectly and the MX-5000 has the same problem you're having. Seems that some remotes work and some don't. I threw money at it and got an MSC-400 base station outputting RS-232 and everything is working.

Try harder... it works fine. I program this setup (with other URC remotes as well) all the time and it's not that hard.

Take your MRF-350 and turn down the pot the Sat emitter is plugged in to. In programming make sure you are using codeset 173 for DTV. Place emitter in front of sensor on DTV box and have it hang slightly. Make sure in programming you have the RF routing correctly set and the RFID set to anything other than 0. Done!

FYI.... it's not the remote that has issues. It's finding the sweat spot on the DTV box to place the emitter!!! Harmony will not help here.

As KVH mentioned, it is not the remote, it is the DirecTV box. The HR2x series are "famous" for being finiky to IR flashers. I use a stack blaster with mine and it works fine. Other options are to put a pin hole in a piece of electrical tape and place it over the sensor and the place the emitter over that.

Moving to a Harmony won't fix the problem, it will just give you a cheaper remote.

I love the HAVE IT HANG SLIGHTLY tip.

Is there a wiki page or general instructional somewhere for the rs232 to usb method? I would like to try it with my msc400.

I did download a .pdf from dtv a while back is that all I need?

There seems to be certain model RS232-USB adapters that work well and others that don't. I'm using an IOGEAR USB to Serial RS-232 Adapter GUC232A and then I picked up 9-Pin DB9 F-F Null Modem Adapter and it works perfect.

All the RS232 codes you need are in CCP.

This can be said for most DVRs on the market. Tivo boxes are easily overdriven by IR.

Well it happened whether I was using the RF or not so I don't believe it's just a flasher issue. It's too late though, I've had the Harmony 900 (my first logitech) now for a couple days and it works flawlessly. No more missed key presses or overshoots.

The program-ability of the MX-900 was nice but I have a relatively simple setup (4 components) so it was a bit overkill. I also never really liked the ergonomics of the MX-900. The Harmony was setup to do everything I need it to do in a little over an hour. The MX is going on ebay.