Anyone figure out how to do this?? Commercial skip button . . . press to set timer for 30 secs press again to increase by 30, etc. Surf the channels and at the end of the timer go back to the channel you were on?? My TV has this feature, but unfortunately my cable box does not. It's handy for flipping to another program and not getting too entrenched in it to remember to switch back to the one you were watching when the commercials are done . . .

Any suggestions??
- john

John
Since Pronto has no timer command I cant think of a way to acomplish it. Sometimes we just have to convert back to our uncivilized barbaric ways. :)

John,

Think I can. I already have a genereic (hidden) button labeled Delay 2.5 Seconds made by just inserting delay 2.5. You could do the same. You can also make the button anylength that you would like (10secs, etc). I also have a button on my TV guide favorite screen that scans a list of favorite channels.

I think all you would need to do is create a button, alias to the scan button, alias the delay buttons the number of times you would need to to round out the 30 secs or 60 secs. Wouldn't be able to add an extra 30 secs though, cuz once you're firing a macro, you're running it ONLY until it is finished.

Pretty good idea you had! Maybe include a "mute" so one could visit with his family?

HTH
Carl

I might offer a helpful suggestion in implementation:

Commercial breaks are to my knowledge always at least 2 minutes these days, so once you figure this out you might want to go ahead and program your initial "skip" for 60 second increments.

I think the problem that the initial poster is not going to be able to overcome is that, after the 2 minutes of channel surfing is complete, the Pronto will not be able to automatically return him to the channel he was watching to begin with.

I've seen this implemented on some new TV's where the TV knew what channel to return to. However, unless the Pronto Programmers really out do themselves in future software, I can't see the Pronto ever being able to figure out the last channel selected. The software would have to allow some kind of marking of buttons to tell the pronto they are channels and then the software knowing to go back to the last channel button pressed.

Chris,

You are correct about not being able to return to the place you started...but you could put a jump to a panel of your "TV Guide."

In the future (I hope) there could be a global varible for "starting panel". This would not take very much memory (I don't think) and the varible could be added to a macro string like an alias.

The use of a few well thought out global variables would make it possible to display vaious screens (panels) during a macro, return to places where you started from, and to keep track of device states for equipment that does not have discrete power capability.