Appending 2 IR codes

[Xavier De Donder]

Hi,

We are using IRTrans devices to control AV racks from software.
I would like to learn 2 IR commands and store them as 1 single combined command. Is that possible?
More specifically, I want to control a combi device (VHS + DVD), and have a single command to start playing a DVD. For this, the device expects a "select DVD" IR command, followed by the "play DVD" command.
For backward compatibility of our software, we want to append the 2 codes on the IRTRans server level, not in the controlling application. Is this possible in any way? Can I for instance manually edit the .rem file to create a combined command, based on the definitions of the 2 learned commands?

Thanks,
Xavier
Televic Education

[IRTrans]

Hi,
combining two IR Codes would only be possible with a very small delay between both codes (< 250ms). Most systems will not understand these codes.
Furthermore the total length of the code would be very limited. Therefore we do not recommend that.

You can, however, create a macro inside the .rem file. Please note that such macros are not suppored by the IR Database of our Ethernet devices.

Here is the syntax for such a macro:

[REMOTE]
[NAME]macro

[TIMING]
[0][N]5[1]152 2960[2]152 6112[3]144 9248[4]152 12336[5]144 15504[RC]1[RP]218[FREQ]455

[COMMANDS]
[ALLON][MACRO]5[IR][sony][1][1000][IR][sony][2][1000][IR][sony][3][1000][IR][sony][4][1000][IR][sony][5][1000]

You do not need to use a separate .rem file for that.

Marcus

[Xavier De Donder]

Thanks Marcus, this is exactly what I need.
Can I find some more info about the MACRO syntax somewhere?

1. I wanted to do some trial-and-error tests, but I get a "command not found" error when I add such a macro to the commands list of the remote.
I'm sending commands from DotNet code :
NETWORKSTATUS stat = m_irtrans.IRSend(device, command, 0, 2, bus);

2. About the syntax, can you correct me where I'm wrong?
[commandname] [MACRO] nr_of_commands [IR] [remotename?] [index in the command list for that remote?] [delay in ms?] ...

Thanks,
Xavier

[IRTrans]

Hi,
for testing you should perhaps start with the GUI Client (Send Dialog) to send your commands.

Please note that you will need to restart the irserver (or at least reload the ir database of the server) when changing .rem files manually.

Regarding the syntax:

[commandname] [MACRO] nr_of_commands [IR] [remotename] [commandname] [delay in ms] ...

Marcus

[Xavier De Donder]

Thanks again, Marcus. It works like a charm.
The "command not found" error got me confused, but of course this was related to the [1] index I used instead of the [commandname] inside the macro line.

[Xavier De Donder]

Hi,
for testing you should perhaps start with the GUI Client (Send Dialog) to send your commands.

Please note that you will need to restart the irserver (or at least reload the ir database of the server) when changing .rem files manually.

Regarding the syntax:

[commandname] [MACRO] nr_of_commands [IR] [remotename] [commandname] [delay in ms] ...

Marcus

Hi again,

We have been using above macro's for some time now. Unfortunately, it looks like this functionality no longer works after upgrading to IRTrans software version 6.2.59.1 (for installs on Win7) . Any thoughts ?

thanks,
Xavier De Donder

[IRTrans]

Hmm, in general we did not remove anything. However, perhaps we broke it by adding other new features.
What exactly is the problem you have with it ?

IRTrans

[Xavier De Donder]

Hmm, in general we did not remove anything. However, perhaps we broke it by adding other new features.
What exactly is the problem you have with it ?

IRTrans

Apparently it's the macro functionality itself which stopped working :

[COMMANDS]
[dvd][T]2[D]S1000000000010000111111
[play_1][T]1[D]S1000000000010100101100
[play][MACRO]2[IR][DVD_B][dvd][2000][IR][DVD_B][play_1][2000]

- sending separate IR commando's works (dvd = switch a combo device to DVD, play_1 = start playing the DVD)
- sending the macro which combines the 2 working commando's does not work.
- downgrading from 6.2.59.1 to 6.2.34.1 solves the problem.

With the working version, the LED on the IRTrans module flashes twice, with a 2 sec. interval. With the non-working version, there's just 1 very faint LED flash.

[IRTrans]

OK, we will check that and fix it for the next version.

IRTrans

[IRTrans]

Today we have uploaded a new version of the IRTrans SW that fixes this problem.

IRTrans