I ran into something yesterday that seems like a big design limitation on how the 980 works with the 350.

I have an MRF-350 in a completely enclosed equipment room. I am using the IR outputs of the 350 to link to individual components and use the Blaster 1 output to reach a Graphik Eye on the wall opposite the equipment rack.

In CCP, for RF you can set the IR output port on the 350 by device. So for each device, I would choose Port X on the 350 to talk directly to that device. The IR output options are ALL, Port 1-6, and Blaster 1. All works fine when using individual device pages.

I next created a "Watching DVD" activity page where I added macros to the screen buttons to alias commands from several devices. This did NOT work. It seems the 980 was using the RF output setting for the "Watching DVD" entry and not the RF output setting for the device each alias was coming from.

I thought I could fix this by just picking "ALL" for the "Watching DVD" entry to send commands to all ports on the 350. This worked for the most part, but the ALL setting does not appear to include Blaster 1 which I need for light control on that page.

Am I missing something or is this how it is suppose to work? It seems wrong to me that the 980/350 output is restricted to one setting at a group level which implies only one device can be controlled on one page, especially if you are using the Port 1-6 output settings.

I am trying to have a "Watch DVD" page which has DVD controls, via an IR Output of the 350 tied to the DVD player and a set of Light buttons on the same page which needs to use Blaster 1. I can't get this combo to work on the same 980 page.

Thoughts?

Robert

Note: Edited as I originally used "page" for the RF setting versus device/entry.

Have never run into this. If it worked like this it would be useless. There's got to be something in your programming that's wrong.

So in your program, you have the DVD device with lighting commands on the same page? Did you set up a separate Graphic Eye device?

Here is the actual setup:

* Devices
    - DVD (base station set to RF / Port 1)
       - Page 1
          Button X on this page is an IR command from IR Database

    - Lights (base station set to RF / Blaster)
       - Page 1
            Button Y on this page is an IR command from IR Database

* Activities
   - Watch DVD (base station set to default of IR)
         - Page 1
            Botton A is a macro that does:
              ALIAS(DVD/Page1/ButtonX)
              ALIAS(Lights/Page1/ButtonY)

When I press "Button A" nothing fires in the equipment room. When I go to the DVD page and hit Button X it works fine and when I go to the Lights page and hit Button Y it works fine. Thus my confusion.

Robert

The highlighted part is confusing to me. Can you explain what that means? I have never used the blaster so I do not know if there is a limitation in macros with devices using it. I would hope it would act just like port 1-6 in programming meaning it would be assignable and act the same way in aliases. But I may be wrong. Let us see what URC says.

Here is a picture of my RF page:

Can you post your file or screenshots of the macro(s) in question?

Sure, here it is, my fancy toilet break button. :) Pause DVD and bring up the lights to dim.



It seems the commands are always using the RF setting for the "Watch DVD" entry on the RF Program page. If I keep this set to IR like I show in the picture above, the Pause does not even work. If I change the "Watch DVD" to "ALL" on the RF page, the Pause works but the lights still do nothing.

Robert

You could start by simplifying things by getting rid of the "Watch DVD" device. You already have a '"DVD" device that you jump to when you're actually doing the activity, right? If you need a Watch DVD button on your home page, drag it in from the image gallery and label it "Watch DVD."

The "Watch DVD" device is the user-friendly, bare bones typical items needed when watching a DVD. It also includes buttons to control lights.

The regular "DVD" device is the power-user (think Dad) page where all of the original DVD remote buttons are exposed. All of the entries under "Devices" are meant to be simulations of the original remote and only used sparingly. All the devices under the "Activities" menu is where 95% of the usage happens with the most common buttons for the majority of the family.

Robert

You guys may do it differently, but I'm the only POWER USER.  Everybody else is getting what I want them to get.  And what I want them to be able to access, is the everyday buttons that they need to enjoy the system, and not screw up my work.  I would keep it simple.

Watch DVD jumps to DVD device with the normally used buttons on hard buttons, and some of the not-so normally used on 1 page.  IMO that's all they need. Open it/Close it...play, etc....They don't need the angle button.  Hide them.

Your problem is your Watch DVD Activity page is set to IR only, not IR + RF...or at least that would seem to be an issue to be dealt with first in my opinion

The Watch DVD activity setting was buried in an earlier post.... here is a recap.

What is odd is the macro step Alias(DVD/Page2/Pause) works fine if the Watch DVD Activity is set to RF/ALL but will not work if set to IR. This goes back to my original design issue that the alias command is not using the RF setting from the target button, but from the current device. This seems wrong IMHO.

I have not tried the IR+RF. I will give that a try.

Robert

Watch DVD needs to be set to (port 2 DVD), that's the first thing I see. I've never used the blaster so can't help with that.

I have run into odd macro behaviors recently, and the fix was setting IR Output to "ALL". My problem was the System On/Off macros not firing, but device pages worked as programmed.

If possible try posting the file.

It should not matter what the device "Watch DVD" is set to in the RF/IR setup. When aliasing from other devices, the remote will send the proper command via the mode for each aliased device. For instance, I usually put a TV ON and TV OFF button on my iPod pages for docks with video GUIs. The TV may be controlled and set to IR only in the setup. The iPod is set to RF only. But my macros for the TV ON and OFF alias the IR commands from the TV device. Works perfectly, as it is designed to do.

Either the blaster is different, or there is a glitch. I assume you are using the latest CCP update? There was for a while an issue with macros and the 980 and was worked around by changing some of the settings to ALL or adding delays in macros....just a thought.....hope you figure it out..

On the other hand, can you get a CAT5 to the GrafikEye? :)