This section will feature quite a bit on the Infrared Control system I use to control the various components that make up my Home Theatre. For now it features a bit on the actual remote control I am using, as well as the following section on the Infrared receiver unit that I built to control my NAD T752.
Click here to read all about the DIY IR receiver unit.
When it comes to remote control selection for a hometheatre system, or just to control a TV, VCR and Hi-Fi unit, it is very much up to personal taste as to what works best. Many choose to go with units such as the Philips Pronto, but this gets very costly! I personally prefer my remotes to have tactile buttons, ie REAL BUTTONS THAT YOU CAN FEEL!
After a bit of searching on the web, I stumbled across the One For All range of remotes, and soon discovered that someone had reverse engineered a connector (Known as the JP1 connector) that UEIC (The company that makes the OFA remotes) uses to apply upgrades. This gives access to the internal EEPROM that stores all the learned codes, as well as any upgrades that have been performed on the remote. Needless to say, it didn't take long till someone put out a program to program the remote using a PC.
Much software has been written for so-called JP1 capable remotes, and you can do things now that even UEIC would not have contemplated. You need not worry whether the remote you buy will support your device - you can just learn the keys you need and use these to generate an update. Also, you can probably find other features (Such as discrete power on and power off codes) that the original remote didn't have! After looking on the web to see which remotes would be best for my use, I decided the URC-8811 was the one I was after. This is onl available in North America, so I camped out on ebay for a few days, and eventually found someone willing to ship one to New Zealand for a not-too exhorbitant price. I paid US$36 including shipping.
What follows here is the adventures I had whilst programming it to do what I wanted. If you wish to find out about JP1 and how it all works, I suggest you look on the JP1 yahoogroup and the JP1 resource site.
I have 5 devices that I want the remote to control, consisting of:
Philips 29PT6361 Television
Sony DVP-NS300 DVD Player
Sony HiFi VCR
NAD T752 Receiver
NAD 522 CD Player
This page (Once Finished!!) will be split into the following sections:
Learning each of the device's remote codes
Defining how I want the remote to function
Programming the remote to do what I tell it