"Universal" (brandname) remote RF 30 not learning correctly (1 Viewer)

[BigJim]

I picked this up at Fry's as it seemed to have the features I want, and the price was OK, but I'm a bit disapointed.

1. The Dealbreaker is that it doesn't seem to be "learning" correctly from my other remotes. It won't do the numbers correctly from my Toshiba TV remote, even though it was able to re-learn some of the other keys. And it won't do the 'List' button on my DirecTivo. The 2nd one is not a big deal, because it's only two button presses to get there by going to the Tivo menu first, and I could probably make it a Macro. The first one is critical because for some reason when selecting inputs and selecting the screen format for the TV, you can't use the up/down arrows to go through the list, you have to enter a number.

2. The interface is somewhat clunky. I don't see a good way to create a macro for "watch DVD" and have that visible from the main menu. I guess I could map it to like Key1, but then we have to memorize that #1 is watch DVD, #2 is watch Tivo, #3 is listed to CD, etc. Maybe I could overwrite the devices I don't use with my Macros? Or, maybe I can add another screen to the Main menu, and add my macros there, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

3. You can't change the devices around on the Main menu screens. 3 of my devices are on the first screen, but DVR is on the second, and there's 4 devices on the first screen I don't care about. If I could move DVR to the first screen, that would be great.

4. I've set up my On/Off Macros to power the DVD, TV and Amp, but it seems that the Macro is enabled even when I'm supposed to be in an individual device mode. So if I want to turn off the DVD player, I can't without turning off the whole system.

If I can't past issue #1, I think, I'm gonna return the thing, and order a Harmony.

 

[BigJim]

Well, I sent this list to their email tech support, we'll see what happens.

 

[Stephen Tu]

I do like the Harmony better, easier to find discrete codes & work around devices w/o discretes. But the URC should be able to handle the issues you state above.

 

[BigJim]

Sounds like I can deal with everything, except that it didn't properly learn some buttons. Oh yeah, in their tech support they suggest that I mail in both remotes, so they can transfer the commands. Yeah, like I want to go a week or so without any remote... :rolleyes

 

[Stephen Tu]

You can search for the AUX 155 thing in the www.remotecentral.com "universal remote control inc." forum. The other thing you will want to check is if you have a "punch-through" activated for the channel buttons, that could also be the problem. Check the manual, "punch-through" the TV device to itself to clear it.

 

[BigJim]

That fixed it, thanx Stephen!!!

 

[BigJim]

...but it's still not 'learn'ing correctly from the DirecTivo remote. It learns some keys but doesn't seem to do it on others.

For instance, I can do FF, REW, and Pause on the hard buttons from the Main screen, but not Play. They work after selecting DVR though.

And again, it's giving me the feedback that it learned it so it's not a problem with my aiming the remotes correctly.

 

[Stephen Tu]

Even though it flashes "good" or whatever doesn't mean that it won't work differently when holding down the key on the teaching remote a different amount of time. It learned *something*, but maybe not enough of the code for the DVR to recognize when played back. It's important to try longer presses, shorter presses. Just because you got feedback doesn't mean it successfully learned the correct code, it just means the remote recognized & stored something that might be the code.

 

[BigJim]

Thanks, that makes sense. I'll play with it some more.