Will the MX-500 (or any remote for that matter) be able to do the following in a macro:

Go into the device's (TV) menu and select sub functions?

More specifically, I have a 4:3 television and when viewing DVD's I use the TV's menu to select a 16:9 mode. Getting to the function of changing the TV's aspect ratio is several commands within the TV's menu.

Thanks!

Sure - the macro can do basically whatever you want, as long as you have the buttons programmed somewhere for it.

David
www.BlueDo.com

Depending on your particular model, the TV menu system may require some planning to get a macro to work effectively. For example, does it come up in the same mode every time or is it where you last exited it? If it's where it was last exited, a macro may not work properly every time. Also, you may need to add some delay time after the menu command if it's one that doesn't come up immediately. Run through it with the regular commands and look for some of these potential problems.

Mike
www.SurfRemoteControl.com

I have a friend that does EXACTLY what you're wanting to do with his 4:3 XBR Sony. He uses a macro to change to the correct video input, then go into the menu to set it to do the "squeeze" for his progressive DVD player and it ends up at the DVD player page 1 for player control.

(BTW, why didn't Sony set these TV's to automatically do the 16:9 squeeze when presented a progressive signal? Percentage-wise, how many 4:3 progressive images are there anyway???)

Some of the Sony's you can do this with discreet codes as well.

Bob

I have my MX-500 set up with the discreet aspect ratio codes for my Sony 34XBR800 TV. I got those codes from the Pronto hex codes here and converted them to MX-500 format using the CCF2MX program and then copied them to MX-500 using the IRClone.

However, the problem with the discreet codes I found was that there are not discreet codes for each of the 4 zoom/stretch modes (which are Normal (4:3), Full, Zoom and Wide Zoom. Rather, there is a code for Full and a code for Normal. But than the other codes are toggles. One is for Full/Zoom toggle and another for Normal/Wide Zoom. So in order to get to a particular aspect ration, you may need a series of commands.

There is another way to handle it, at least on my tv. The set lets you choose a default aspect ratio that it will go to whenever the input source is switched. On mine, that's set to Wide Zoom.

So if you have the discreet input codes set, you can start a macro with an input command (like switching to the DVD input). That will switch to the DVD input but also switch the aspect ratio to whatever the default is. You can then program in a certain number of regular aspect ratio commands to cycle through to the desired aspect ratio (which will depend on what the cycle is on the tv).

Thanks to all!