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Topic:
A few MX-980 and CCP issues
This thread has 86 replies. Displaying posts 1 through 15.
Post 1 made on Saturday July 7, 2012 at 19:53
TwistedMelon
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Here are some issues I've come across over the past year - none of them have been resolved with any updates to CCP (current as of this past week).

I'm using the MX-980 with an MSC-400

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Plain IR out of the MX-980:

IR Settings -> Repeat While Pressed -> Minimum Repeat When Pressed doesn't work. On a quick tap of the button, the repeat is always the same, though it varies between different protocols.

RC5 seems to always repeat 3 times. NEC always seems to repeat 5 times (the NEC one-time plus 4 dittos).

The TEST button in CCP works, but for some protocols it still repeats an incorrect number of times. For RC5 setting repeat to 1 seems to be correct, but for NEC it always repeats +1 times. Setting 1 send 2 repeats, 3 sends 4, etc.


If the "repeats" setting actually represents a count on top of the initial one-time part of the code, then it should allow a setting of 0.

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Setting the repeat on a SERIAL command in a Smart Macro on the MSC-400 will not repeat the correct number of times when triggered from the MX-980. It works when tested from CCP with PC connected directly to the MSC-400. Setting repeat of 1 will repeat 2 times. Adjusting the delay (ramp start) makes no difference except changing the amount of time between the two commands.

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MSC-400 seems to be badly grounded/shielded. Sending IR to any port produces noise on a serial cable connected to any of the serial ports. This can be heard on the pre-amp connected to the other end of that serial cable.

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Setting an activity on the MX-980 to send IR+RF will cause the remote to send bogus Pioneer protocol IR codes (it's consistent and valid Pioneer, not noise) when you press buttons that should be sending only RF (Smart Macro on the MSC-400 for example). This will cause potential failures in the smart macro because that bogus IR may interfere with IR being send/blasted from the MSC-400.

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Sending an RF command from the MX-980 shows trace RF interference for a few seconds after the command should have ended. This can be seen by a residual flicker of the RF LED on receivers connected to the MSC-400

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RF from the MX-980 to MSC-400 is slow. Sending IR data over RF introduces far too much lag to be usable in many circumstances. Not usable for transport controls or menu navigation on my SageTV PVR for instance (uses RC5 codes).

Trying to do individual commands on smart macros on the MSC-400 is still far too laggy when triggering from the MX-980 in this circumstance - it might work for other devices where timing isn't as easily perceived.

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The CCP RF settings for MX-980 don't allow addressing ports 7-12 of the MSC-400. Only ALL and 1-6 are available. Plus something called "blaster 1" which is undocumented as far as I can tell.

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I'm still looking at a few things and will update later.

Last edited by TwistedMelon on July 7, 2012 20:02.
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Post 2 made on Saturday July 7, 2012 at 22:37
MattBrotzge
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There is an easy work around for addressing ports 7-12. Add a mrf350 as a device in your file. Your not actually installing a mrf350 your just using it to give you the ability to assign 6 more devices in the system. Re-label it something like msc ports 7-12. Set the rf ID's of the msc and the mrf350 to two different ID's. Then go into the mx980 and set assign all of your or settings and you will be good to go.

Been a long day, I can send you some more ideas for the rest of your posts tomorow.
Matt Brotzge
Post 3 made on Saturday July 7, 2012 at 22:42
MattBrotzge
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Oh and by the way on the MRF 350 ID settings port 1 on the mrf350 will control port 7 on the msc400. Port 2 will control port 8 on the msc400 and so on. And if any of them are using rs233 you can just leave them alone.
Matt Brotzge
Post 4 made on Saturday July 7, 2012 at 23:44
piker
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If you set the MSC to rf ID 10 for sure and i think it works on 11 as well (I use 10 on my configurations) then you can assign all 12 ports and blaster 1. This definitely works, I use it this way in my own system with 3 PVRs that all use the same ir codes on ports 7, 10 and 11 with an MX980, MX6000 and KP4000 and have no problems controlling the unit that I am trying to control and no others. I haven't experienced any of the other issues you mention so I can't comment on them.
OP | Post 5 made on Sunday July 8, 2012 at 10:13
TwistedMelon
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Thanks for the suggestions! I set the MSC-400 to ID 10 and it now displays all available ports in the MX-980 RF window. As far as I'm concerned this isn't simply a work-around, it's a necessity to properly set up the MSC-400 because it's also the only way to see the port's labels from the RF assignment window.

FYI (for anyone else) it's RF ID 10 in HEX (0x10, so don't set it to 0x0A) :)

So does anyone know what "Blaster 1" is?

I can get by without addressing those ports specifically from the MX-980, but I might as well have the ability just in case I do need it. I have multiple sets of LED lighting controllers that all respond to any and all NEC codes, regardless of device ID, so they have to be routed individually.

I'm still disappointed the RF performance is so slow/laggy and that the reception isn't absolutely 100% even with two receivers in a 15 x 13 foot room. BUT... That could be just due to the issue of residual RF I mentioned in my first post and more common with the second or subsequent commands sent.

However, with only a single receiver, placed up near the ceiling on one end of the room, the reception was poor even sending a single command, depending on the position/angle of the MX-980. Keeping the remote oriented vertically worked well, but IMO, that's kind of a PITA.

Last edited by TwistedMelon on July 8, 2012 10:26.
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Post 6 made on Sunday July 8, 2012 at 11:26
kgossen
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Have used quite a few MSC-400 and found none of your issues. I have a SageTV setup and find zero lag on transport controls. Are you sending the IR from the remote to the MSC-400 or doing it the proper way and just sending a Trigger? Your SageTV device should be in the MSC and NOT the 980. Then you drag the triggers form the MSC to the buttons on the 980. I never put any IR codes onto the remote unless they're absolutely needed.

The position of the 980 should have zero effect on reception. I have a customers 4 story 7000 sq ft house using 1 antenna on 3 floors with zero issues. The only codes in any remote are for the TV and everything else is a trigger.

I wonder if the residual RF you speak of is interference? A 15 x 13 room is small, at my house I had 1 antenna for the entire house with no issues.
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Post 7 made on Sunday July 8, 2012 at 11:36
Duct Tape
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On July 8, 2012 at 11:26, kgossen said...
Have used quite a few MSC-400 and found none of your issues. I have a SageTV setup and find zero lag on transport controls. Are you sending the IR from the remote to the MSC-400 or doing it the proper way and just sending a Trigger? Your SageTV device should be in the MSC and NOT the 980. Then you drag the triggers form the MSC to the buttons on the 980. I never put any IR codes onto the remote unless they're absolutely needed.

The position of the 980 should have zero effect on reception. I have a customers 4 story 7000 sq ft house using 1 antenna on 3 floors with zero issues. The only codes in any remote are for the TV and everything else is a trigger.

I wonder if the residual RF you speak of is interference? A 15 x 13 room is small, at my house I had 1 antenna for the entire house with no issues.

you send triggers for single IR commands?  that sounds like it would be laggy, and take longer to program.  I've never tried it like that.  I've always just routed single ir commands to the appropriate ir port and just used triggers for macros.

rs232 commands are obviously a different story, as all these commands must be smart macro triggers.
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Post 8 made on Sunday July 8, 2012 at 12:07
kgossen
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On July 8, 2012 at 11:36, Duct Tape said...
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you send triggers for single IR commands?  that sounds like it would be laggy, and take longer to program.  I've never tried it like that.  I've always just routed single ir commands to the appropriate ir port and just used triggers for macros.

rs232 commands are obviously a different story, as all these commands must be smart macro triggers.

Yes. I find it works much better as I'm only sending the trigger. Zero lag, does take a little longer to program but it's only a few extra minutes per remote. Always done it this way and don't have any issues. That 7000 sq ft house has 2-MSC-400's, 9-MX900's and a MX980 controlling 12 TV's and a projector with 4 cable boxes and 6 satellite receivers. For 9 of the TV's we had to use the ir out of the remote for turning them on but everything else is a trigger. Haven't had a single issue in over 2 years and even from the top floor controlling the receivers is instant.

With sending an IR over RF it's a longer command. The triggers are short and fast. When I took the training with Jeff years ago this is what he had suggested and have been doing it ever since. If we had wired the house all the TV's would have been controlled from the MSC's but in this case we couldn't as the original installers didn't run the proper cable.

Last edited by kgossen on July 8, 2012 12:15.
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Post 9 made on Sunday July 8, 2012 at 12:16
MattBrotzge
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Oops forgot about using rf id 10. The way I mentioned doing it will work, but the other way is the correct way to do it.

I also can't say that I have run into any of the other issues that you are having. But I will say that whenever things just don't seem to be working like the way I programmed them that many times it's the result of rf interfernce.

Are the antenna's just flickering after you hit a button on the remote? I would check to make sure both of the antenna's aren't flickering when your not sending any codes to them. Sometimes you have to look at them real closely, the flickering can be very subtle. You might need to repostion the antenna's a little more. If you do have a lot of interfernece I would suggest trying the "I" version of the remote and antenna's, but if your an end user and not a dealer that's not very easy to do.

You might also try adjusting the ir output level for the SageTV. There are trim adjustments on the top of the MSC400 for each ir device.
Matt Brotzge
Post 10 made on Sunday July 8, 2012 at 12:34
kgossen
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On July 8, 2012 at 12:16, MattBrotzge said...
You might also try adjusting the ir output level for the SageTV. There are trim adjustments on the top of the MSC400 for each ir device.

Matt's right. If you're using the SageTV extender they are so sensitive to IR that you could be overloading it. I would always set IR repeats to 1 for these. With Crestron I was able to specify how long to send the command for, .1 second, which makes them super easy to control but don't think CCP has this ability.
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Post 11 made on Sunday July 8, 2012 at 12:37
Duct Tape
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to clarify, you can use id 10 or higher if you have ir devices connectedt to ports 7-12.  it doesn't only have to be id10.
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Post 12 made on Sunday July 8, 2012 at 12:38
Duct Tape
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On July 8, 2012 at 12:07, kgossen said...
Yes. I find it works much better as I'm only sending the trigger. Zero lag, does take a little longer to program but it's only a few extra minutes per remote. Always done it this way and don't have any issues. That 7000 sq ft house has 2-MSC-400's, 9-MX900's and a MX980 controlling 12 TV's and a projector with 4 cable boxes and 6 satellite receivers. For 9 of the TV's we had to use the ir out of the remote for turning them on but everything else is a trigger. Haven't had a single issue in over 2 years and even from the top floor controlling the receivers is instant.

With sending an IR over RF it's a longer command. The triggers are short and fast. When I took the training with Jeff years ago this is what he had suggested and have been doing it ever since. If we had wired the house all the TV's would have been controlled from the MSC's but in this case we couldn't as the original installers didn't run the proper cable.

i will give it a try on my next project. thanks.
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Post 13 made on Sunday July 8, 2012 at 14:30
kgossen
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Forgot to mention, for outputs 7-12 make sure you're using the URC sleeved IR emitters!
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OP | Post 14 made on Monday July 9, 2012 at 14:19
TwistedMelon
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Thanks again for all the followups. I'm using all sleeved IR emitters on ports 7+

There is zero IR interference detected by either RF receiver when I am not pressing buttons on the remote. The RF light doesn't flicker even a tiny bit. When sending RF it blinks as one would expect and then the tiny residual flicker fades away.

It's possible (I suppose) that my MX-980 is damaged and not stopping the transmission immediately.

I described the lag situation fully in my first post. Using traditional relaying is extremely laggy. That is, sending IR data over RF. I wasn't planning on doing that at all, but tested it just to confirm.

In documenting the issues I first mentioned, I tried to be as specific as possible. With regards to the noise/interference over serial, it's possible this won't be heard on another pre-processor and that mine is also badly constructed to as not to filter out noise introduced on its serial port. That will be getting replaced later this year so it's not of huge concern right now.

But the extra Pioneer codes transmitted when an activity is set to IR+RF is bizarre to say the least. I don't have any equipment in this room nor added to the MX-980 using Pioneer formatted signals.

Sending only triggers to the MSC-400 for single IR commands is also laggy. But let me put it into context. It's relatively quick, but compared to straight IR, the responsiveness isn't even close. I'll do more testing with the IR output levels, but even though I would expect the performance to be a lot better, I'm not being unrealistic and I fully expect that a trigger would not be as responsive as native IR. There's simply more work happening and it's always going to take longer. The goal however is that the extra amount of work should not produce a perceptible difference.

Currently, with triggers, operating the SageTV extender's skip commands (short and long skips) it's easy to notice the delay in starting the operation, plus if holding down the button and letting go, there's a delay before the operation stops. Not a pleasant experience.

Also, is everyone else saying they don't see the issues with repeats I've mentioned? Is it just that your equipment doesn't show that the repeats aren't correct or have you verified (scope) the output of the MX-980? I've scoped out the IR coming from the MX-980, so I know exactly what it's transmitting, base code (one-time) and repeats (dittos, sustains). The settings in the current version of CCP most definitely do not work. I'd seen this mentioned before on the forum but was under the impression it had been fixed.
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OP | Post 15 made on Monday July 9, 2012 at 14:49
TwistedMelon
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Here's what I just tried:

Changed the repeats to 1 (from 3) for all the transport commands in SageTV Smart Macro group on the MSC-400. This is the only place I can see where one can change this.

Modified my activity to trigger these smart macros from the transport buttons.

With the IR output POT for the SageTV port all the way counter-clockwise, this produced the most lag. I had to back the pot off a bit because if turned firmly all the way, it simply didn't work at all.

With the IR output POT turned all the way clockwise, this produced the least amount of lag.

While it's not monumental, it's easy enough to tell the difference between full clockwise and full counter-clockwise on the output. I'm assuming counter-clockwise reduced the output, even though this isn't mentioned in the documentation specifically.

There's a side-benefit to having the audible interference I previously mentioned. I can hear when the MSC-400 starts doing something with the signal and compare...

With the triggers on their most laggy (counter-clockwise IR output adjustment), I can hear noise, then a noticeable delay before SageTV registers anything. With the least amount of lag, that delay is smaller. But there's still an unresponsiveness when letting the button go after holding it down for a bit that's not there when doing straight IR. Seems like a half second at least, which with quick repeats means you won't be able to stop where you'd expect to when skipping.

When doing straight IR via the MSC-400's simple IR routing (IR input port which blasts IR out to all ports), there really are no perceivable delays. I can hear the interference noise and immediately SageTV responds. I need to note that with full counter-clockwise, even backed off a hair, straight IR relay doesn't work. The IR output must be turned up somewhat more for relaying to work reliably.

I repeated the tests with additional buttons, including the 4 direction buttons. It shows that this method is not usable at all, as the perceived legginess when navigating the UI is even worse than when using the transport controls. There are definitely two stages to the lag.

Pressing a button on the MX-980 for a trigger reacts slowly. You can see that the RF LED on the receiver does not light up until a split second after the button has been fully depressed. This is confirmed with the audible interference on my pre-amp which happens immediately when that LED lights up. Then SageTV doesn't respond for another split second, all together making it very awkward to use.

It's also impossible to quickly press a button multiple times as the MX-980 and MSC-400 will not respond fast enough. For instance, pressing UP three times very quickly will only register a single UP in SageTV. It seems that the MX-980 picks up two presses, but the MSC-400 only one.

Using the serial connection on my pre-amp, the MSC-400 seems to be able to pick up both of the MX-980's transmissions - again, even though I'm pressing the button 3 times.

While it's not as responsive as I'd prefer, at least the MX-980 doesn't buffer all the presses like some other products do and then spit them back in slow motion in what seems like a never-ending loop (Harmony remotes for example, yuck).

Last edited by TwistedMelon on July 9, 2012 15:23.
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