Am thinking of buying the MX-500 and I'm a bit of a newbie to universal remotes. I want to program a "watch TV" macro that will turn on AV receiver, turn on TV, turn on cable box, and set appropriate inputs when everything is off. However, I want the same "watch TV" macro button to switch over from DVD to TV if I've been watching a movie. In this case, it would have to power off the DVD player, turn on the cable box, and leave the TV and AV receiver on. While my receiver has separate power on and power off buttons, my DVD and cable box only have one power button. Is there a way to do this (with discrete codes for instance)? If so, where do I find these codes and how do I implement them? Thanks,

Tim

Assuming you found the codes you wanted, I believe implementing them would require using IR Clone (http://www.irclone.com/) which means spending another $80 bucks or so.

Or look here [Link: remotecentral.com] for info on using a One-for-All - that might be an option.

Dana

This message was edited by Danabw on 06/13/04 00:12.

I would macro the MAIN "ON" button to discretely power on your TV and AMP. Plug your DVD player into the switched outlet of the amp (if it has one). And in the power macro, issue a play command from your DVD player after about a 2 sec delay. This will depend on the brand of DVD player, but most wake up with the play command. Now program your device macros to switch TV and AMP inputs only and you wont have to worry about the long power up sequence everytime you want to change sources.
This can be done with the 500 but would be much easier with the 700/800, because of the PC interface.

I agree here. Turn on the system first with the on button with a macro that turns on your discrete items and push play on the dvd. Also have the discrete input for receiver and tv set to where it needs to be for cable box. Then have the macro end on the cable page. SO thats the main power on button. Then make one of the lcd buttons also a tv command and set all your discrete inputs there too. This way a user can be anywhere in the system, press main, then press tv to get to watch TV.

As for your cable box, I have had two (one HD and one digital) in my rack turned on for at least 2 years. Leave them on. Only time you will have trouble is after a power outage you will have to manually verify its on by pushing the power button the front. Some advanced cable boxes have automatic turn on at a certain time commands that you may also be able to use. One of mine has this and i have it set to automatically turn on at 5 am every day. If its already on, then it stays on. If its off because of power outage, it turns on.

Have fun,

E. J.

I have done exactly what you are talking about. Bought the MX500 from BLUEDO.Com and it comes "packaged" with a URC-8811 and JP1 cable (this was before IR Clone). I was able to find all the discrete on/off and video1, video2, tuner, etc codes thru various web sites and used the JP1 applications to program the URC remote with those codes (not as hard as it sounds). Then I used the existing remotes to program most of the functions on the MX500 and the URC to program the discrete codes in. Set up some macros on the main device page (to switch from function to function directly) and it works great. Want to watch TV, go to main and hit the TV button. Watch a DVD, go to main and hit DVD. Doesn't matter what state any of my equipment is in - its all set properly. I programmed the system off macro to turn everything off, and the power button to toggle whatever equipment the remote is set to, but I don't ever use the power button to turn anything on (because it's all done thru the main screen macros).

The JP1 stuff is here [Link: hovisdirect.com] with the discrete codes being a link off of the hifiremote page (which is the first link). Hopefully you can find your equipment and it supports the discrete codes you want (mostly on/off).

The IRClone stuff looks interesting, but I haven't used it - might make everything easier to get going. I would think you still need the discrete code info which is found with the JP1 stuff above.

So you can do exactly what you want without having to have all your equipment on all the time, and worrying about resetting stuff after a power failure.

Hope this helps.

What cable box has discrete on and off commands? JP1 or not, I have never heard of any cable box with discrete power functionality.