Trouble capturing IR with IRIS: Ambery CATV tuner LCDT5, CR-16 remote

fogled@mizzou

I've run into this once before. I called AMX and they walked me through putting the IRIS into a special mode to capture tricky IR. Now I don't remember, and can't find any notes on what I did. I bet the info is here on the forum somewhere, but I couldn't seem to come up with the relevant search term to find it. Can anyone help me out? Either a pointer to the instructs if you know it, or an IR file for this critter if you happen to have one?

Thanks!

Joe Hebert

fogled@mizzou wrote: »

I've run into this once before. I called AMX and they walked me through putting the IRIS into a special mode to capture tricky IR. Now I don't remember, and can't find any notes on what I did. I bet the info is here on the forum somewhere, but I couldn't seem to come up with the relevant search term to find it. Can anyone help me out? Either a pointer to the instructs if you know it, or an IR file for this critter if you happen to have one?

Thanks!

Tech Note 127 wrote:

To get into the special mode you must press the "UP" button and the "SEND" button at the same time. The display will flash SP and then 01 & the LED that is inside the "UP" button will be illuminated. It is then ready to capture codes.

Or you can find the same info in the IRIS manual which can be found here:

http://www.amx.com/products/IRIS.asp

DHawthorne

Before you mess with "special mode" (which is really quite a pain to use), try the following:

1) Try to be a certain as possible you are holding the button down for less than a second, and for as exactly the same length of time as humanly possible. A quick, solid push seems to be the best ... hold it too long, and it may start repeating, which the IRIS doesn't handle well. Too quick, and it may capture but still be wrong.

2) If the above doesn't fly, many remotes have a parity bit (most notoriously Marantz). That means every other push is different. So, hit the button once, aim it away from the IRIS and hit it again, then point it back at the IRIS for the confirmation push.

I haven't needed special mode in years ... the above almost always do the job for me.

fogled@mizzou

Ha, imagine that: RTFM provides the answer! Thanks, I won't misplace that info again. Just for kicks and grins, here's the reply I just got back from Ambery about the IR stuff:

Unfortunately the remote controller of our LCDT5 model is different than those home AV devices. It uses a different proprietary code so this remote can not be programmed or integrated with other control consoles you may have in the setup.

Sincerely,

Support/Ambery Corp.

Of course kicking the unit into SP mode seems to work OK to capture the codes. I haven't driven the thing far enough to actually test the resulting IR file to drive the device from a controller yet, but I'll report back when I do.

Thanks all!

DHawthorne

Yeah, well that is another thing about using special mode ... it may "capture" but you can't guarantee it's going to work.

fogled@mizzou

So far, no luck. For the amount of labor I've sunk into this POS, I could have purchased a high-end serial controlled tuner that I already have working code for. But... wasting our people's time in an effort to be cheap is the standard here.

I could always go with a cheap composite-out tuner and a scaler, I just hate using 2 devices for 1 function. Anybody got recommendations on an inexpensive CATV tuner with XGA output that is known to work (IR, serial, I don't care) with AMX equipment?

Thanks,