Anyone know how to get the MX-500 to learn from these 2 way interactive sony remotes? You know... The fancy touch screen ones that come with the Sony ES stuff? If I could just figure out how to do that this would be the perfect remote... Somebody please tell me this can done... :D

Barry: There are a couple of things you can do.

First, if you can turn off the 2-way response at the receiver, it will help when teaching the commands to the MX-500. If your model is one that can't be turned off, take the 2-way remote and the MX-500 into a different room (from where the receiver is located.) The idea here is that the receiver's signal response is interferring with the signals you need to learn.

The other thing is to go to Daniel's Tips and Tricks section. [Link: remotecentral.com] This area will help the teaching process quite a bit.

Lastly, if your budget can allow for it, use a One-For-All Cinema 7 (or it's equivalent for around $25 or so.)
The C7 can generate some generic Sony receiver codes that may help control your gear better. (Also, I have discovered that sometimes, the original Sony remotes don't send as "learnable" of a signal as the Cinema 7. For eg., plain old volume up & down seems to work better learned from the C7 than it does from the original Sony remote. At least in my experience.)

Good Luck!

Well. In the end the only thing that worked was using a couple of old learning remotes that had *some* of the Sony Codes, keeping the few that the MX-500 had right, and getting the remaining codes from a non 2-way remote at the Good Guys.

Tip: Bring the problem remote from your Home receiver with you to the store (Good Guys CC whatever). Find a receiver that it works on and use that receivers' remote to program your MX-500.

Hi - you might check my thread on the same issue with the MX-700. The MX-500 may have the same problem (codes have too many steps). The only way to get around it for me was to use my Slink-E, or if you know someone with a Pronto, maybe they have a shorter set of codes in one of the CCF files... Some of the codes are short (volume, mute), but almost all of the DSP codes are long (very long).

The DSP functions for these Sony receivers is made up of approximately 7 normal Sony signals, and the entire thing repeats, so it's near to impossible for learning remotes to figure out where the signal starts and ends, so most learning remotes time out before the learning step is complete.

Furthermore, though I have never seen the Sony remote in person, I have heard that it can be tricky to get it into the right send mode while trying to learn from it.

However, I come bearing good news, if you have a JP1 compatible remote, like the Cinema 7, and a JP1 cable you can use the Sony DSP protocol that I have written to create single iteration Sony DSP signals. Then you can use the Cinema 7 to teach the MX-500.

Rob.
http://www.hifi-remote.com