I took apart two SA8300HD boxes and attached the IR emitter on the inside of the boxes. This works except I feel like the proximity is overloading the sensor and it's just too sensitive. When I hit a button (0-9) or channel, etc it registers 2-3 times making precise control impossible. I have tried with 0 repeats and without sustain and have the same issue. Does anyone have any tips to get more reliable and accurate IR performance with these boxes and IR emitters hidden inside?

Just turn down the IR port's level at the proccessor.

Turned them down all the way.

Move the emitters away from the sensor in the box. They may be reflecting in the box or out of the box and back in.

I taped over the emitters with electrical tape to prevent any reflections, etc. In front of the IR eye on the cable box is a thick piece of clear plastic (prob 1/4") which the IR signal would normally travel through. My emitter is not going through this and is to the side of the eye. Could this be this issue?

Try it on the outside and see if it works, then try putting it further away from the sensor in the box. You can also put more emitters in parallel to reduce the level. Use blinking emitters, as they use more power.

I was talking to a buddy of mine about this, he said the SA8300 boxes have an IR 1/8" input port on the back panel. He said he has never been able to get this to work, I don't even recall seeing it. Is he right and if so has anyone used this?

this is for IR out and is always disabled on these machines anyway. don't know why they even bother.

put the emitter on other side of display or take some 22/2 and take 20ft and extened the wire of emitter. We had the same thing happen to us a few months ago .

We have had this issue too, 3 SA8300HD boxes in a rack, ch +/- would go up 1 then skip 2 or 3 channels every few presses, moving around the guide same thing. This only happened with an XP-8.
We ended up adding an RP6 just for the cable boxes.
Then I was given a possible solution, I haven't tried it as I had already moved way too many buttons over to the RP6.
Create a system macro in the XP-8 for CH +/- and other buttons that may be having problems.
If you try this let us know if it works, I think it should.
Cheers,

Never had a problem with SA boxes. I use niles flashers. Did have a similar problem working an apple TV thru a crestron processor. Set properties at no sustain and 3 repeats, Now it works perfect. Keep trying.

Ive had this issue with other equipment. try putting a small sheet of thin paper between the equipment and the emitter. or blocking most of the emitter from seeing the box, (i.e. tape up edges of the emitter before sticking)

No go with thin paper, put them back outside the box. I have an RP-6 but I dont want to use it for the cable boxes only as I had planned to use it in a different part of the house.

I have not tried the macro idea yet as it happens with every button from time to time and I would have to create a macro for each command for the remote multiple times for the multiple cable boxes.

I am going to try different emitters this week as well.

On a side note the old system was RP-6 only and never once had an issue with the cable box. Is this something RTI knows about?

The Macro idea came from someone at RTI. It does make for a lot of system macros so I would try CH+/- first to see if it works as they claim.
Supposedly only an issue with SI boxes and not all of them.
We spent hours dealing with this issue, what made it worse - we had 4 T4's, 4T2-C and a bunch of RKM1's. I changed all cable commands to an RP6 (3 boxes used for TV and music channels in different zones) before I was told that I should have tried macros on the XP8. For a project like this the macros would have made things easier.

The thing that bugs me about doing system Macros is that I am doing 3 cable boxes and therefore have to do every button 3 times in macro form for each specific port.

Can I tie the RP-6 to the XP-8 so I don't have to do multiple antennas?