Harmony remote with Comcast DVR

[Tungsten06GT]

Hey guys, I recently purchased the Harmony 1100 remote (waiting on delivery) and I was reading how it sequences devices to turn them on and off. Well, when a recording is in progress on my Comcast DVR and if I want to power it down, it only has 2 options: leave box on or cancel recording and turn box off. Thus, the tv shuts off but the box is left on, leaving it out of synch with the next time I hit the "all on" button.

So my question, is the Harmony remote aware of what is on or off and it won't send a command to turn the DVR on if it already is? Or, will it just send a power command to everything and turn on the tv but turn off the box? If that's the case, how do you work around it, other than always leaving the DVR on (not too sure I want to do that).

Hope that made sense; thanks!

 

[highfigh]

Hey guys, I recently purchased the Harmony 1100 remote (waiting on delivery) and I was reading how it sequences devices to turn them on and off. Well, when a recording is in progress on my Comcast DVR and if I want to power it down, it only has 2 options: leave box on or cancel recording and turn box off. Thus, the tv shuts off but the box is left on, leaving it out of synch with the next time I hit the "all on" button.

So my question, is the Harmony remote aware of what is on or off and it won't send a command to turn the DVR on if it already is? Or, will it just send a power command to everything and turn on the tv but turn off the box? If that's the case, how do you work around it, other than always leaving the DVR on (not too sure I want to do that).

Hope that made sense; thanks!

The Harmony will "remember" what was turned on or off but it can still go out of sequence when a Power toggle command is sent. That's why they put a Help button on them- so it can "re-learn" anything that it misses.

If the cable box code set doesn't include a discreet ON and OFF, it's not a bad idea to leave it on. There's no way to teach the remote that it's recording and this will keep you from stopping a recording in progress. You can program it to leave some devices alone when turning the system on/off or when switching from one activity to another.

Also, you'll want to look into the sequences aspect of the 1100- the 1000 does those but the 1100 doesn't, AFAIK.

 

[Tungsten06GT]

The Harmony will "remember" what was turned on or off but it can still go out of sequence when a Power toggle command is sent. That's why they put a Help button on them- so it can "re-learn" anything that it misses.

If the cable box code set doesn't include a discreet ON and OFF, it's not a bad idea to leave it on. There's no way to teach the remote that it's recording and this will keep you from stopping a recording in progress. You can program it to leave some devices alone when turning the system on/off or when switching from one activity to another.

Also, you'll want to look into the sequences aspect of the 1100- the 1000 does those but the 1100 doesn't, AFAIK.

Right right that all makes sense. I guess I'm just annoyed that the default option when you try to power down the box doesn't say "turn off box after recording." Instead, you're either questioned to do nothing and leave the box on or cancel the recording and shut off.. doesn't seem right. I wonder if any newer boxes have that corrected.

 

[Hi Ho]

All Comcast boxes use the same (rather poor) software and they all have this same problem. The only reliable way is to just leave it on. It is not using more or less power either way. You can tell the Harmony not to mangae power for that device and it simply will not attempt to turn it on or off.

Dish and DirecTV have this all right. They have discrete codes and you can turn their DVR's "off" while they're recording. I don't understand why Comcast has such crappy software.

 

[highfigh]

Right right that all makes sense. I guess I'm just annoyed that the default option when you try to power down the box doesn't say "turn off box after recording." Instead, you're either questioned to do nothing and leave the box on or cancel the recording and shut off.. doesn't seem right. I wonder if any newer boxes have that corrected.

Can't you set it to shut down using the cable box menu/preferences? They may have a power saving setting, too.

What the boxes are capable of is probably different from the way the manufacturer designed/built it. Time Warner uses the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HDC and according to the tech person I spoke with at SA, it can be operated using discreet ON/OFF commands but in Time Warner's finite wisdom, they program them to work with a power toggle command, making it one of the banes of CI existence. Time Warner is evil and I'm sure glad Congress de-regulated the cable industry.

 

[Tungsten06GT]

Can't you set it to shut down using the cable box menu/preferences? They may have a power saving setting, too.

(

Unfortunately no... I scoured the menu up and down last night ha. Not a single option I could find. I did hear that too that the box uses the same power whether on or in standby (DCH3416). I guess I'll have to make that adjustment on the remote...

 

[NapaDRB]

I leave my comcast box powered on all the time. Just program the Harmony to ignore the box power during power down or activity changes.

 

[96cobra10101]

Comcast seems to be more negatives than positives lately. Do you have there latest box? I have Fios(Verizon) and they sent me new boxes last year. The only time they don't record is if they are unplugged. A lot of people use the boxes as there off and on switch for there tv's, seems there would be a lot of missed "DVR'd" shows and Comcast would get a lot of complaints.
Also, even though mine records if on or off, I always just leave mine on. I would also recommend that if you have a newer tv you don't use your cable box as an on/off switch. Its almost the same as using a light switch to power your PC on and off.

 

[Tungsten06GT]

Received my remote yesterday and got it set up to a point. First thoughts: very cool. I was slightly intimidated at first but found a few tricks and was able to customize it to my likings. And let me say, the remote is fully customizeable.

Once I realized you can "learn" any command from your old remote by making a new command, pressing the buttom on the old remote, and storing it in the Harmony. Then, you can select that command to be placed anywhere on any of the screens for the activity of your choice and even name is whatever you want. This came in handy when I needed to make a "My DVR" button.

Also, it was neat to see the remote troubleshooting sequencing on the fly. I set it up so that it would leave the cable box on all the time. However, "watch tv" would turn on flawlessly, but turning it off would leave the receiver on. Well, it asks if everything's ok and you just go through the motions to allow it to see what's turned on and it adjusts timing in order to have everything turn off properly. This happened a 2nd time and after that, all of my sources turned on and off as expected. Very cool.

This remote is definitely not for the faint of heart, as it takes a bit of learning of not only the software for customizing it, but even using it. But once you understand what's going on, you'll love it.

One question though, is there a different way you add a device depending on whether you have a ps3 alone or with the harmony adapter? Because it I got the adapter but it looked like there's only one ps3 device option. I wasn't sure then how you can automatically start a blu ray if you make an activity like that. As it stands now, if I "watch a blu ray" it will start up the ps3, but then I have to manually scroll over and start the disc. Does this have to do with setting up macros at all? Thanks!