Since yesterday, I am the lucky owner of a Harmony 525, which now takes the place of my settopbox, tv and media center pc remotes. So far so good!

Right now I have 1 activity installed: watch TV, and this one works fine (allthough when I shut down the TV while it is in HDTV2 input mode, the Harmony is not able to put the input mode to HDMI 1, where my settopbox is located... But I can live with that!)

I also have an Acer L5100 computer, which has Vista and Media center installed. It would be great if a couls somehow add an activity called 'Listen Music' that:

- Turns on the tv and goes to HDMI 2 input,
- Starts the PC, then opens Media Center, and scrolls to the My Music option.

My guess is that this is not possible due to the fact that the PC needs startup time and the Harmony is not able to wait that long with sending commands... am i right?

I would really like to know if there is some workaround to this...!

By the way, during my 'testing rounds' just before I gave up, I noticed that while the PC is on and in Media Center mode, the Harmony is able to control the menu, but my menu seems to be different than the Harmony expects, because while choosing the activity 'Play a video' the Harmony did not seem to know where the Video's menu was.. (Harmony chose another menu), how can you learn Harmony that the Video menu is for example 2 menu's up and 3 options to the right and then 'OK'???

A lot of questions.... but any help is greatly appreciated!!!!

Thanks in advance,

Robin Maas

Hi Robin

Basically you need more activities. When you want to go from TV to Settopbox you dont need to shut the TV down you just need a Watch settopbox activity that will select HDMI1. Obviously when you subsequently select TV again, it needs to select HDTV2 input mode.

With regard to the Media Centre you can always select your other new activity Listen Music a second time after the PC has booted etc. With regard to selecting Video (or Pics or Music), I dont think it needs to scroll the Media screen, there should be a button which goes direct to video etc (discrete). You may need to ensure you have the correct Acer device selected. In customise buttons have you checked there is a Video button, maybe in Additional buttons. Also you may need to add this command to Customise Buttons in Watch Video Activity.

You also need to decide (& action) your Power Settings i.e. Do you really want to Power off PC when you have finished with Music etc. I have similar to you and the only device I would allow to be powered down would be the TV.

I have a 555 but I am sure there is not a lot different.

Let me know how you get on (I am in the UK).

Cheers

Alan

Hello Alan,

Thanks a lot for your reply, the concept of activities is more clear to me now, and I have been able to make activities for switching on the PC, starting media player and open the music menu! Very nice!

Sometimes though, the Harmony seems 'confused' and doesn't switch to the correct input channel, or he shuts down the TV when its is not supposed to do that... But well, that just needs some more experimenting I guess!

Once again: thanks a lot for your help: I appreciate it!!!

Regards,
Robin

Hi Robin, glad to help, I have only had mine a few weeks and it takes a bit of getting used to. I have had some great help on this forum.



It is worth spending a bit of time on Power settings and Input settings. A lot of trouble seems to be caused by buttons that toggle. It may be that your TV POWER is the same button for ON & OFF. If you check in the additional buttons for your device you may see that it shows discrete commands for ON & OFF, in which case go through to Device>Power settings>want to turn off when not in use>button for ON and button for OFF> don't have Remote but know commands and change to the discrete ones you found.

Hope that helps

Alan

First go into device mode for each of your devices and test the commands and make sure that the commands actually work as true discrete commands and not toggle commands write down what command actually does and if they are true discrete commands change your setup to reflect these changes