Has anyone else noticed the following problems with firmware 3.7.7 (for the ProntoProNG TSU 7000)? I haven't seen complaints for all of these issues, so maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Issue 1: Beep duration does not function properly in macros. Specifically, macros that contain play the beeps much too long. If the beep is set for 0.1 seconds and the delay is 10 seconds, the beep will play for 10 seconds. The "end beep" function does not seem to be working properly.

Issue 2: When a button is depressed, the image only switches to the "pressed state" image for a brief instance, even if the macro lasts several seconds. The was not the case with previous firmware, allowing for a "Please Wait" image to be displayed while the macro executes. The user knows when the macro is complete when the button switches back to the normal "released" state.

Issue 3: The "Normal Actions" under Device Properties / Actions do not auto-execute when switching to a page. As I understand it, "normal actions" can be set to send several commands and then jump to another page. This would cause the page to be displayed temporarily while a command completes, then jump to another page. I can't get this feature to work properly. "Normal Actions" do not seem to work at all. How are they supposed to be used?

Issue 4: 0.4 second mandatory (non-configurable) delay between commands for hard button presses. [Link: remotecentral.com]


Missing Feature 1: Button backlight activation via the pick-up senor or via the depression of a hard button is still missing. The button backlight time-out is not configurable either. These are features that were incorporated into the TSU6000 but omitted from he TSU7000. Ideally, the TSU7000 would add the capability to use the pick-up sensor to activate the touchscreen and/or the button backlights. Separately, depression of a hard button could be set to activate the button backlight and/or the touchscreen backlight (please don't require double button presses for this). Finally, the duration of the button backlight could be adjusted, independent of the touchscreen backlight.

Missing Feature 2: Timers. The 7000 still doesn't have the functionality of the 6000. Not a big deal for me, but others have complaind about this.

Anyone else experience these issues?

Never experienced this. May be a bug.


The 7000 has NEVER held the Please Wait image until the macro finished executing. I think you have your facts wrong. Maybe it's not holding the image as long as before but as I said before, it has never functioned as did the legacy remotes where the image was held until the macro finished executing.


Not a bug. Working as designed. Device Action Lists on the 3000/7000 NG remotes are only invoked when selecting a device from the Device Overview page. This differs from the legacy remotes in that the legacy remotes invoked the Device Action List when the device/macrogroup was selected from the menu.


Has to do with the fact that the ActivityStatus Icon has to be redrawn. Use a smaller icon or remove this from the System page and things run much faster.


Agree. This would be nice feature.


Timers ARE available on the remote but not yet in software. However, a timer can be set on the remote and then the user can upload the PCF to save the timer values across multiple downloads.


Carlton, I personally thought that you have been in the Marantz camp. If so, why now, are you jumping ship and moving to the 7000 camp? Is it because Marantz has been slow to offer firmware updates and open up the other 32MB of RAM on the remote? If you've been with the 7000 all along, why now, are you writing a monologue entitled "Bugs" when, IMHO, 2 of the 4 issues you report are Working as Designed?

Re: Issue 1.

I have not used beeps on macros for some time.
Have you tried to use a 0.1 sec Delay
followed by a 9.9 second delay as a
work-around?


Re: Issue 2.

Interesting,
I have never seen this pressed state
work properly on the TSU-7000.
The pressed state would only
display as long as you held
that button down. I would
normally just have the pronto
jump momentarily to a full-screen
"Please Wait" page and then return
back to the page with the macro
button. This is tricky to do as
macros generally don't allow page
jumps to themselves. A macro
button is actually created
somewhere else on the pronto and
a link is made to that button on
the user's page.


Re: Issue 3.

I am not too worried about this
since my configuration is optimized
to be fully automatic and I'm sure
a simple work-around could be
implemented to accomplish the same
task. I have not tried to
make this work.


Re: Issue 4.

The latest Pronto Pro Edit should
make this a non issue. You can
adjust the IR duration using this
editor. My IR controlled Lutron
Dimmer (MIR-600 Maestro IR MIR 600)
requires a press and hold of the "Off"
button for >5 seconds to get a nice
long and very smooth fade to "Off"
like it does in a commercial theater.
This Lutron dimmer is very cool
and was purchased at Home Depot for
about $40.00. It operates with many
discreet codes, very nice indeed.



Re: Issue 5.
(I added this one)

Macros don't complete if the macro
button is quickly double pressed.
When a pronto user accidentally
presses a macro button lightly
sometimes it registers as two
pressings and the macro sequence
will halt somewhere halfway. If
the macro sequence involves several
page jumps the user may become
stranded on (for example)
page jump 3 of 7. If you don't
provide a way out or if the page
they got left on does not have any
buttons they may have to reset the
Pronto to get back home. I placed
an "abort" button on such pages in
the event a macro fails to complete
during page jumps.



Re: Missing feature 1:
Now, this is one of my biggest things
that bothers me. The early Prontos
Managed the backlight options much
better than the TSU-7000. The buttons
I use most in my pitch-black screening
room are Volume and the navigation
hard buttons. It would be fantastic if
whenever a hard button is pressed
only the hard button back-light would
come on. A separated timeout delay
adjustment should also be available
in the settings menu in the Pronto.
The current Timeout is
WAY TOO SHORT! The pick-up sensor
could also be set to activate the
hard button backlight and/or the
touchscreen backlight via the
settings menu.


Re: Missing feature 2:
OK, I have not experimented with
this even though I see it there in the
"Tools" menu on the Pronto. This
could be useful for CRT projector
Viewers who frequently fall asleep
with their static DVD menus burning
into their tubes. A turn Off Timer
could prevent this damage.
House sitting applications may also
apply. I may explore this soon
because I am getting a little intrigued.



info:

TSU7000 v2.1

Application version App. 3.7.7
Database version v3.52 U
Boot loader version BOOT V4.25
Free memory 92%

I've never had a Marantz, only Philips products. First a 1000, then a 6000, and then a 7000. Thought about a Marantz but then the 7000 came out. I'm re-doing my PCF and finding all of these issues that I just can't get around; that's why I posted the question regarding bugs. I didn't find answers elsewhere in the forum. Sorry, not trying to post a monologue or anything.

As far as the beep problem, it just will not go away. I tried command-beep-pause-command2, command-pause-beep-command2, etc. and it always gives me one long beep that stutters a little between each command. This only happened after the latest firmware upgrade, no problems before. Not sure what happened to cause it. I have not tried double pauses; I'll give it a try.

For the depressed button, I guess I never noticed it because the beeps gave me a status update. I finally had to turn them off because they were not working, and then I couldn't tell if my 30 second macro was finished or not because I removed the status update from my screen (as suggested). That's when I noticed the depressed status changing back "too quickly". Guess page jumps would make more sense given this limitation.

I was expecting "normal actions" to behave differently. What is the best way to do page auto page jumps in macros?

As for the timers, I didn't realize that they could be retained by uploading and re-downloading. I stopped using them. Thanks for the update.

Regarging button backlights, that feature really needs to be added back as it is in the 6000 and newest Marantz. Talked to one of the programmers from Belgium yesterday at Cedia about it.

Carlton,

Just curious. Which Philips programmer was @ Cedia? Email me @ addy on profile if you don't want to post that info here.

Lyndel

Hi Guys,

Carlton, I guess I would question the use of such a long macro and maybe suggest you find another way to handle a macro of that extreme length? What is requiring that length of time?

Secondly, most folks would put up another full graphic, stating please wait and all of that for macros of that length, instead of relying on the pressed state to assist. Do a jump to another page with the "please wait" concept on it for extra-long macros and leave it on the screen until the macro completes.

Dave

Please disregard. Marsht already emailed me.

Thanks,
Lyndel

Dave, it's not really that there the maco has a bunch of steps, but rather that it has about a 25-second pause while the projector warms-up before accepting commands. The macro did give out a short, high-pitched beep every 5 seconds and then a low-pitched long beep at the end. After I upgraded firmware, it was just continuous beeping for about 30 seconds. When company started asking "what's making that sound" or "what's wrong with your remote", I knew I had to figure something out. It could be a corruption issue with my PCF. I'll play around with it more and send it to one of the contacts at Philips when I learn a little more about the problem.

As far as a "please wait" screen, what is the best way to do that? I tried to revert to that as a solution to the beep problem. Maybe I was doing something wrong. What's the preferred method?

Remember, unlike the original Pronto the NG can have as many page jumps in a macro as you want.

So, as the first step of the macro, jump to a "Please Wait" screen, run all the macro steps, then once everything's done jump to the end screen. If you have a particularly long macro you may wish to make multiple jumps as it is completing, either displaying screens with a bargraph with percent completed or remaining seconds countdown.

Lyndel
If you recall, I sent you some info on a related problem to #2.
When a button was pressed that had a long macro, if you tapped it quickly, you could get the macro to hang, and cause the 7000 to lock up. For some reason, it only happened with pcf's from imported ccf's. If you created the same macro in the 7000 editor, from scratch, it didn't happen. With the last two upgrades, I had hoped it would be fixed. It got better, at least it doesn't hang the 7000, but the macro doesn't execute. The button will flash back and forth between pressed/unpressed until it catches up with the number of times it was pushed, and then do nothing else. Also, with the latest software and the same macro, sometimes the please wait screen will flash pressed/unpressed and then execute, or maybe not! If you then hit it one time, it will execute, please wait screen and all.
Why would someone want to repeatedly tap a button? What I had found was that some of my senior users, with shaky fingers, or those with a very light touch, kept causing these lockups, requiring a reboot. When I finally watched them long enough, I caught it. All my longer macros had a please wait screen jump before the macro executed IR, and a jump when done.
In the old 1000/2000/6000 series, once the same macro was started, there were no further inputs accepted, no matter what, and no lockups.
If you opend a fresh new pcf, and then imported the the ccf into it, it still did it. Merging that problem pcf into a new pcf, also didn't help. I've since just redone all my older pcf's from scratch as a new pcf, and the hang problem is gone, but still see this problem of not completing a macro if hit to quickly.
I've since made a few new templates so I don't have to import any of the older ones, except when a customer upgrades. I then rebuild it from scratch. Less painfull than call backs and angry customers!
Thanks for listening,... again!
Dan

I finally got the beep problem to go away by placing a delay before AND after the beep command. No idea why this is now required with the two latest versions of firmware.

Dan, I was not discounting your issue, only reporting that the behavior Carlton spoke of where the pressed image remained until the Macro completed execution was never available on the 7000, only on the legacy remotes.

For everyone else, the behavior Dan is describing is cause by the fact that screen presses are buffered. What this means is that if:

on Page #1, you have a 50x50 button at location 10,10 and it causes a jump to Page #2.

on Page #2 you have a 50x50 button at location 10,10 and the action jumps back to Page #1.

If while viewing Page #1 and you quickly tap the button 2 times, you will see a jump to Page #2 followed by a trigger of the Button on Page #2 which causes a jump back to Page #1.

If you don't do a page jump on Page #1, what happens is that the Macro is supposed to be cancelled (this is what Dan's problem is). The way around this is to put a Page Jump to an intermediate "Please Wait" page while doing a long Macro. As soon as the first press occurs, the Macro begins and since there are no buttons on the next page (intermediate page), a 2nd press does not occur.

Sorry if this is confusing. Hopefully Peter D or others will shed some additional light on the issue.

This is exactly what I do with long macros. For example I have a long macro that does several page jumps:

Jump to WAIT SCREEN 1,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 2,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 3,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 4,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 5,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 6,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 7,
BEEP 0.2 Sec
DELAY 2.00 Sec
Jump to HOME PAGE

Sometimes it works as intended, but most of the time it will execute the BEEP and DELAY first then continue with the screen jumps. So when executing the macro I first get a beep then it goes through all 7 screens. By that time, the 2 sec delay is about done and it jumps right to HOME. I tried to add 0.1 sec DELAYS between each screen jump but that made no difference. If I put the BEEP after the DELAY then I get the beep somewhere around WAIT SCREEN 5 because it first does the DELAY, Starts to jump through the screens then it beeps after 2 seconds.

I could make a work around (make the DELAY 5.0 sec then the BEEP will happen after the page jumps are done) but the problemis it doesn't do this all the time. Sometimes it works like it should, but most of the time it does not.

Another example:
Jump to WAIT SCREEN,
Link to IR code,
Link to IR code,
Link to IR code,
Link to IR code,
Link to IR code,
BEEP 0.2 sec
Jump to Cable TV

Same thing here, the BEEP and jump to WAIT SCREEN seem to happen about the same time, then sends all the IR codes, then Jumps to CABLE TV. Again, this happens most of the time, but not everytime.

I am using the latest firmware v3.8.14 and PPENG v2.1.4.0

I also tried:

Jump to WAIT SCREEN 1,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 2,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 3,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 4,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 5,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 6,
Jump to WAIT SCREEN 7,
DELAY 0.1 sec,
BEEP 0.2 Sec,
DELAY 2.00 Sec,
Jump to HOME PAGE

I thought the delay before and after the beep would help. Didn't work. When I hit the button the first thing that happens is a beep, then it goes through all the wait screens then jump right to HOME.

I did further experiment with the beep problem. Everyone should be experiencing this as I created a brand new, blank PCF and created one button with an IR code from the database and it had the beep problem. I don't remember exactly, but it was something like:

Command
0.1 sec beep
5 second pause

and I got a 5 second beep. The only way to fix it was "pause - beep - pause". Not exactly ideal, but it was a fix for the long beeps. I guess many people just don't use beeps during macros and didn't notice.

I haven't tested the Dec-2005 firmware yet. Maybe the problem is resolved. I did report the problem to Philips, and they did request a sample PCF, but they have been slow to respond in the past.

I just tried it too.

Link to RECEIVER - VOLUME UP
BEEP 0.1
DELAY 5.0 Sec

When I hit the button, the beep never stops. After about a minute I reset the remote.

Then I tried:

Link to RECEIVER - VOLUME UP
DELAY 0.1 sec
BEEP 0.1
DELAY 5.0 Sec

That worked ok.

As I stated before, the problem I have is that the beeps and delays that are at the end of a long macro seem to get executed at the beginning of the macro instead the end where I have them. I wish I could find a work around for that.