I know the RCT4 McIntosh unit will act as a repeater
system without teaching it different brand IR
so I feel sure that this is not the problem.
The RCT-4 will act as a repeater, but it doesn't do well over distances like a Xantech would. In the last system I did like this, an Escient Tunebase and a SatTiVo were distributed throughout the house on a CR12. The original remotes shot at the Mac keypads would work about 1 out of 10 times, and the programmed Prontos containing the same codes wouldn't pass at all.
In the end, the only solution was to lay out all the McIntosh codes the RCT would translate (about 22 in total) and assign them to codes on the Escient & TiVo remotes and teach all that to the RCT. I remember for the TiVo, I needed 24 codes, so I had to eliminate the thumbs up & down.
Then, I taught the correspoding Mac codes to the TiVo & Escient buttons on the Prontos. That worked reliably. Good thing too... there was NO running new IR lines in this house.
So, try to teach the DN codes to the translator & use Mac codes in the remote rooms to access them.
Doug @ HomeWorks