Just wondering what others have done to set a specific surround sound mode in Activities?

My Sony receiver has about 20 differenct surround sounds which just toggle through. I also have 3 movie modes. These use a separate button, but that is a toggle also.

I believe my receiver turns on to the last surround sound mode, so I was thinking of some way to get it back to mode #1, that way I know how many toggles I need to get it in say DolbyPrologic MV.

Any help would be appreciated.

I usually aways use the Automatic Format Decoding (AFD) mode on my Sony AVR, to get the sound the way it was intended. The only exception (so far) is when the sound source uses only the mono center channel. Then I switch to Stereo mode. I have mapped the following commands to my Harmony 680 Sound button: AFD (discrete), Stereo (discrete), and ModeUp/Down (cycling).

My problem is my AFD button is really just a toggle. I think it even worked that way on the original remote. So I would have to leave it on that setting all the time. Which I can do, however for movies I usually use one of the movie settings as recommended by the manual.

I would like to play around with this some more. For example there is a "night time" mode, which compresses the sound. But I only know how to change this by going into the receiver menu and changing it. It would be great to program a sequence for it.

Then do so - something like Menu> surround modes> down> down> Select. If it takes more than five commands just split them into a sequence of sequences and the Harmony shouldn't notice any pause between them.

I think it's futile to create specific sound mode activities. When you watch a movie for example, it could be in mono, stereo, DD/DTS 5.1, etc., and in each case, you could apply any one the 20 different sound modes. You would have to create 1001 activities. The best approach, it to map the most convenient sound commands to the LCD keys, and press the desired one on the fly. If you have an Harmony model with the Sound & Picture buttons, then use the Sound Mode button configuration.to map the desired sound commands.

You should also try all the commands in device mode. You might find the "NightMode" command is already in the dataset for your ARV device. It is for my Sony STR-DA5ES.

Or you could set it and forget it. You really don't need all those special sound modes, regardless of what the receiver mfrs tell you. Same with the picture controls. There is an optimal setting for each one that gives you pure, clean sound and picture without artificial enhancement. I calibrated my system for picture and sound once and I don't touch it. You just have to get past the mental block of thinking that you NEED to modify it continuously.

You can't call a sequence from another sequence

I have activities set up with different inputs on my AV reciever depending on the device I am using. I have those inputs set up as AUTO on the receiver so that it senses analog/digital automatically. I am using basic surround modes(Pro-Logic/Dolby Digital/DTS) not any of the extra modes that my yamaha receiver provides. The receiver will automatically distinguish between Dolby Digital/ DTS so I don't have to fuss around selecting surround modes.

If I use watch OTA tv activity, it puts the receiver on the TV input in auto mode. I have a optical digital cable going from my TV out to the receiver input, If dolby digital is present it will decode it, if not it runs pro-logic. Same for all my other activities, very little messing around unless it is something out of the ordinary.

One way would be to give each sequence a button and then press them in sequence which would be better than a whole lot more button presses.
The other would be to set up various activities and add the appropriate set of sequences as additional actions to the start of the activities - but that would result, as jlet says, in 1001 activities!
I think akirby's "solution" is the best though.
Just let the sound -and picture - come through as the original source provided it.

You can't run a sequence from a startup activity you can add the separate commands that were used in that sequence to your startup for that activity

Yes, my error, and too much hassle that way.
Another reason for forgetting about these controls.