One other thing that continues to bother me even as my excitement over my b-day present grows....... why did they COMPLETELY get rid of the use of a wireless blaster like the RFX6000 (or at least make it backwards compatible)??? It certainly appears to me that there would still be a need for such a device in certain people's (or clients') home theater configurations. I'm not sure about others, but I don't necessarily look forward to having to paste emitters on my equipment in plain view. Like I mentioned earlier, I am also going to have a helluva time figuring out a good way to run my lighting system without the use of a blaster. Don't get me wrong, I am still quite excited about taking on this new project (actually obsessed with it as I find myself planning my configuration whenever I have a free minute), but I guess I was hoping that I wouldn't have to rethink my current light switch/controller locations.

I have never used a blaster, but i understand why some people do,

Re your lighting control, you will find with the new remotes the IR output is so high you can control your lights if the dimmer is in the same room, i do this with my Lutron graphic eye, the grafic eye is behing me in my lounge and yet it still responds o the IR commands even when its pointing the other way :)

One of my IR scene controllers is in my media room so no real problem there, but I have another one located in an adjacent room where my equipment rack is located that I use just for intermission lighting scenes. It is there where my RFX 6000 will be missed.

you could make your own blaster using one of the port on the RFX :)

True. I believe someone else mentioned that earlier. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

I use a SpeakerCraft IR Blaster SCIRE50 in conjuction with a RFX9400 extender for my plasma display. Works very well. Detailed description of this product is shown below. It can be purchased from various places online for $31 presently and is even available at certain Best Buy locations for just a couple dollars more which ends up being cheaper as you save on shipping. If you check EBay periodically you'll also find them for even less as seen here.

"The Speakercraft IRE-5.0 IR Blaster is a unique wand-shaped device containing two very high output IR emitters. The Blaster wand is designed in such a fashion as to allow the correct overhang (installer adjusted) for control of a stack of A/V components. It can be mounted above or below the components, or both, to ensure good coverage. It may also be located up to 35 feet opposite the controlled equipment for across the room operation, where conditions permit."

Thanks for the info Lowpro. That certainly sounds like a cheap and viable solution.

Oh and thanks for the replies to my pm's. If V1 has the same functionality as V2 (at least for my needs), I may end programming with V1 as you suggested and use V2 only for downloading purposes. Whenever you get some spare time to send that file would be fine. No rush.

If you want to maintain the structure of my DVD management activity you'll need to use PEP v1. If the "Reusable Macro" feature offered by PEP v2 allows you to reference a reusable macro from another reusable macros action list you could actually replicate the structure of my DVD management activity in PEP v2 though it would be a "considerable" amount of work and I'm not sure if you'd eventually run into some type of limitation per the number of reusable macros that could exist. Hopefully not. Expanding the activity down the line per PEP v2 would also require using the merge function, since the activity would no longer be self-contained within a single device like it is in PEP v1. That being said, I don't have access to PEP v2 right now, but can confirm if nesting reusable macros is possible. It would be great actually to see Philips reintroduce the "link" action per PEP v2. I can't imagine there is a technical limitation involved in doing so. The true power of the link action in PEP v1 and prior editors is that you can you use it to nest action lists within other action lists to the uptenth degree. This is how I've structured the disc loading macros within my DVD management activity for instance. This allows for updating all 400 disc loading macros at once from the setup page rather than having to update each disc loading macro individually. I follow this same principal throughout my configuration file. I should also point out that nesting is not possible via ProntoScript, i.e. you can't execute the ProntoScript contained on button "b" from button "a". Sure, you can use executeActions() to in essense link to the action list of another button, but that only replicates the "link" action in its most simplest form. Having the ability to simply link to the action list of any button in your configuration file from a given button has always been one of the strongest features of the Pronto editor. Was truly sad to see this feature dropped with the introduction of PEP v2.

*Update* Checked last night and you can reference a reusable macro from another reusable macros action list so that's good for PEP v2 users.

Okay, I have my new 9600/RFX9400 combo up and running. I ran into a problem with my system page that took some time to figure out, which brings me to my first question: I planted global commands such as Vol (Up/Down) and Lights (Bright/Dim) on the system page. I used the database for these commands. I was able to get my other components to respond (which is another story of which I will get to later) but the "Busy" lights on my extender would not work when trying to use these buttons. After moving my emitter around and placing the extender in different locations, it finally occurred to me that the system page functions were not using the "wireless" designation that was placed within my Receiver device. It was using standard IR instead. After looking for a way to change this, I finally used direct links to buttons in my Receiver device instead of using the database and now everything works as intended. My question is: How is this situation remedied when using V2 since there are no links to buttons? I was just curious.

Secondly, I am having an issue with operating range between the remote and extender. Originally, I configured the system in network mode and it showed that both the extender and remote were successfully added to the network. Unfortunately, my range was disgustingly short. My extender is located in an adjacent room, through 1 wall, and maybe 20 feet from my primary seating position. It would not respond to any commands unless I got up and walked to within 6-8 feet of the extender. My router is located directly above the extender, 1 floor up. There should be no problems whatsoever with my router's signal being too weak. So, I decided to try the remote in stand-alone mode. This didn't work well either. I actually convinced myself that stand-alone mode only worked when the remote and extender were in direct line of sight to one another. I then moved the extender into the media room where I sit (and obviously where the remote is located) and now everything works well. I did some digging today and confirmed that the remote and extender in stand-alone mode operate in their own "network" space, so a direct line of sight should not be mandatory for them to work together. Are there any tricks/ideas/or flat out fixes to the problems that I am having. I haven't had as much time to troubleshoot as I would like, so it is possible that I have missed an obvious fix to the issue, but I have looked at my XCF up and down and I don't think I missed something in that regard. It should be noted that I have no problems with my wireless signal for my laptops, media server, PS 3, and tablet pc as they all show a very strong signal, even when in my basement where the media room is located.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

The communication method is set at the device level in PEP v1 just as it is in PENG/PPENG. That being said, the "System" device does not allow for setting the communication method as can be done with the "Home" device and devices that you can create. (Note that when going to the properties for the "System" device there is no "Settings" tab.) As such, any IR codes being executed directly from the "System" device are going to use direct IR. This is why direct IR was being used when dragging your volume IR codes directly from "My Database" to the "System" device. Linking to the same IR codes in another device instead, then resulted in the communication method for that other device being used. So irrespective of whether you are using "My Database" or not in PEP v1, you should always create a dedicated device for each IR codeset. Said device should be used for the sole purpose of storing your IR codes for the given codeset with the communication method set accordingly. You then simply link to those IR codes from the rest of your configuration file.


In PEP v2 the communication method is not set at the device level. The communication method is set to the IR codeset itself via the "Building Blocks\Equipment & Codes" tab.

Per your extender(s)...
I'd suggest performing a forum search. I'd imagine there will be a number of posts that may help you in this regard. I've not had any issues with my extenders per se. That being said, I'm running both of my RFX9400's in Stand Alone Mode versus Network Mode as I have no activities which need to access my home network or the Internet. I find Stand Alone Mode much more reliable as well and am frequently operating the remote up to 60 feet away from the extenders without issue.

Got some spare time this weekend and decided to start from scratch. Unplugged and removed all emitters and re-located the extender. Not sure what was wrong the first time around but after I plugged the emitters back in and powered on the extender; everything worked perfectly!! All commands respond without a hitch, even at long distances. I decided that it is easiest to operate in Stand-Alone mode as I also have no need to connect to my home network. Thanks to everyone for your help and suggestions.

Lowpro, I didn't hear back from you during your vacation about the dvd management migration. Send me a PM if you are still willing to help me out.