This is a rather bizarre problem.

I have a Pioneer Elite KURO 141 plasma, a Pioneer Elite SC05 receiver, and a Pioneer BDP51 (non-elite) bluray player. I am trying to program a Universal Remote Control MX-980.

On each of my three Pioneer products, there is a feature called KURO Link. It is also called HDMI Control. I have that featured turned on for each component. I believe the idea is that when the KURO LINK feature is turned on, you can control multiple components from one remote control.

Of course, because I am using a programmable remote (and not any of the Pioneer remotes), that feature does not seem to be particularly beneficial.

Nevertheless, because I thought there may be some other benefits to leave KURO Link on, I left it on.

So now I start to program my MX980.

I have DirecTV and it is connected to the receiver via HDMI 1.

So to program the "Watch DirecTV" button, I enter a macro that turns on the TV, turns on the DirecTV box, and turns on the receiver and sets the input to HDMI 1.

But when I use the remote, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't work two bizarre things happen. First, I will watch the receiver and it will turn on, select the HDMI 1 input, AND THEN MYSTERIOUSLY SWITCH TO THE TV/SAT INPUT. I swear there is nothing in the macro that even comes close to the TV/SAT input. I've tried changing the order of the items in the macro, I've increased the delay between each command. I even deleted all of the commands of the macro except for the receiver on and HDMI 1 input, but the same bizarre behavior occurs.

The second weird thing is that sometimes, the receiver will turn on, select HDMI 1, and then TURN ITSELF OFF. I'm not kidding.

So late last night I decided to see if the KURO LINK had something to do with a weird interaction between the TV and receiver. So I turned it off completely on the TV, but left it on on the receiver. (I dare not touch the Bluray).

And now, all appears to be working OK. The question is what is going on??? What are the benefits of KURO LINK beyond using a single remote to control multiple components. Before I turned off KURO LINK I was able to see the receiver volume on the TV. Now I cannot. Is there anyway to get that to work again? Are there other benefits I'm missing from not using KURO LINK?

Has anyone else had strange experiences programming a non-pioneer remote with KURO LINK on.

Well, don't you just love these modern innovations :-).

I believe this is the same thing that Mitsubishi has/had over firewire in it's TV's (NetCommand). I tried it out, and found it was easier to just use the remote LOL. There is a short blurb over on wikipedia under the HDMI section which might be worth reading.

At any rate, I think I understand "some" of what you are seeing. Your TV and receiver take a while to turn on, then once they are up, they respond to what they "think" you are trying to do. So, for instance, in theory, if the DirecTV box supported AV Link (generic term, which I don't think it does), when you turned it on, the receiver and TV would both turn on and set themselves to the appropriate settings. Then if you turned on the Blu-Ray, the receiver would switch to that. Some TV's (like the Mitsu) provide a GUI to control the other devices (which is hideously tedious). So, in your case, probably you set everything up, the reciever or TV sees something on one of the inputs and decide that's what needs to be done...

I think you will be much happier without the "Kuro Link", though you will lose the ability to see the volume (unless it has a GUI like my Denon).