capnredfish,

It's funny but there have been times when IR control of the DTV boxes has worked flawlessly for me without my needing to do any workarounds.

I use both URC and RTI, when installing URC I use the URC-supplied emitters, with RTI I use Niles emitters. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the type of remote being used. I have had systems which have worked "right out of the box" with both URC and RTI, and have had systems where I had to do the workaround with both URC and RTI.

I don't know what the variable is with these boxes, I guess it's possible that boxes made on different manufacturing runs are using different components which lead to the IR flakiness. There may be other variables in my installations which I am missing.

What I do know for sure is RS232 control is rock solid with these boxes, so when budget allows I always use an RS232 capable processor.