OK, this sounds good if I don't need the TV to
record on the DVR. But I often flip through the
channels and find something and thus the TV needs
to be on when I start recording. Thus, assume
I am watching TV and decide to tape something
on the DVR.
To have the TV and PVR on you must be in an activity that includes them both .... maybe something called "Watch PVR". So you now set the PVR recording.
I hit the PVR Recording activity
that I set up but that will turn off the TV and
Receiver that I am currently using. Does the
situation I am describing make sense?
Correct ..... which is exactly what you want. The PVR on and the TV off.
If so, does this mean what I want to do (just turn off
certain things and have the remote understand
that) can't be done?
It is not advisable to do it via device mode ... it actually works much better if you can do it via activities so that the remote can correctly keep track of what is on and off.
This confuses me..if I did indeed turn something
off using the Device option, I would have to turn
it back on using the Device in order for the remote
not to be confused?
Bingo ... this is exactly the problem.
When I first got my Harmony I had a situation very similar to yours where I was turning some devices off overnight. The problem was that the following day I would often forget I had turned the devices off via device mode and would have to spend some time getting the devices back in sync with the chosen activity.
Once I realized that what I was actually doing was actually running a specific activity overnight and set up the remote appropriately things worked much better - especially the following day.