I'm trying to set up aliases so when I go to program a remote all I'll have to do is learn the commands, cross reference to the alias and than C&P the correct buttons to the panels. Is my thinking correct on this? This is all fairly simple to do but quite time consuming and than you come to the channel alias and the task becomes daunting to say the least! Especially when you take into account cable, Dish and Direct. Is there an easy way to do this? If you could do it on a spreadsheet and than transfer it as a CSV would be too simple!

"Best" way to setup your remote is to create code pages with simple buttons. Keep these pages either in the their own device, or hidden within the device they control. Normally these pages are never seen, they're just a database. Learn to these buttons and alias everything else in your ccf to them. Makes trouble shooting a bad code easy. Get a new DVD player? Learn the new codes right over the top of the old, all aliases are preserved. The only thing you might have to do is reprogram to handle any additional features of the new device.

Jim L

That's what I thought but is there an easier way than button by button? If you take into account all the viewable channels from the 3 sources your looking at close to 400 to 500 channels and there are people that subscribe to both cable and either Direct or Dish so these all need to be put into the data base! What I was thinking as far as hierarchy codes real Pronto panels, aliased to master button set aliased to the real IR code panel. But the channels get more complex. The customer selected channels, the data base aliased to the base panel and than the base aliased to the real device IR panel but all those channels from both aliases is huge more than 600 entries!

Guess I misread your original post. I now assume you're trying to build a "stock" solution for the three possible sources so that you can just program the customer's combo with a few simple jumps to the right device??

I guess you could build such a solution. Say a stock ccf with three keypad panels, one referenced to each of the 2 Sat or the cable provider in your area. Assuming you want channel icons there would have to be a set of each channels for each keypad as well. From the main menu you could jump to whichever keypad/channel icon combo(s) you need. Seems rather large however.

Better bet might just be to build two smaller "masters". One for Dish/cable, and one for DirectTV/cable. If you layout the devices properly you could cover all combos with one of these two layouts. I.e. if a customer only had Dish, don't provide the "jump" to the cable device. You would still have to invest a lot of time initially.

I really don't think there's an easy solution. You run into the same conundrum with does he or doesn't have a laser disc, cd, 2nd zone etc.

You could look in the files area, but I'm unaware of anything that let's you PROGRAM with a spreadsheet or similar. Several utilities let you dump your ccf out to say csv, but not program.

Jim L

I found such a setup, for DirecTV, in the files section quite some time ago, and have used it since.

It consists of logos, each with its own macro, and a panel with numbers. To change from one device to another, I add a panel copied from my satellite device, then alias the numbers on the number pad to the codes for the receiver I am using.

This way, all the logos always have reference to the number panel that came with them, and I can copy it from system to system and just alias new number codes when changing brands.

You would have to do the same thing for Dish and cable. And then pray that they never change their channels. Remember when USSB got eaten up by DirecTV and ALL the channels above 199 changed?