For 99% of folks this will be irrelevant but I thought I'd mention just in case. If you use a Harmony remote it may be worth reading.

I've made an occasional noise about my box crashing when trying to turn it on when it is recording in standby mode. I think I've figured out what is going on.

I use a Harmony remote to control my gear, and have programmed it to fire 3 'POWER' IR codes to the Humax during the Watch PVR activity. The reason for doing this is the well documented poor IR response of the box, particularly for the initial power on. I realised that because the box doesn't appear to react to IR codes during its boot phase, that if the remote fired multiple POWER commands then as long as one worked, the others wouldn't have any effect since it would be in the boot sequence.

What I've realised is that when running this activity when the box is recording, it is in a more advanced state of on than when completely in standby and therefore will turn on almost immediately. At which point the remote fires the 2nd POWER IR command so it turns off again and then finally gets the 3rd POWER command and tries to turn back on again. Clearly this shouldn't cause the box to crash but to be fair to Humax, it's not really designed to take a three-fold on/off hammering whilst recording!

If anyone has other clever thoughts on how to handle this wrt the Harmony programming, feel free to chip in. Better yet, perhaps the ever responsive Humax team could supply the discrete IR ON and separate OFF codes that they have hidden in the box firmware?! Actually, how about it Humax, perhaps you could add this in the update after the big one you are releasing within the next two weeks?

Program it to use any of the humax number keys as this turns the box on and repeating said number doesn't turn the box off

also if you use the zero button the box won't recognise 000 as a valid channel number so won't attempt to change channels when in recording mode
Last edited by GaseousClay : 04-09-2009 at 13:40

Fantastic, so obvious I didn't think of it. Have a virtual pint on me!

Cheers

Novel suggestion from GaseousClay.

I use a Harmony 885 remote. I actually find the Humax HDR responds to it better than the original remote which I rarely use.

Have you tried altering the remote power settings?

In the home page for my 885 the commands are under the Devices tab

Then select Humax HDR (or whatever you have called your HDR), Settings, Adjust the delay (speed settings)

This option allows you to tweak a the following settings (with my current values)

• Power on delay 800mS (default= 500mS)
• Inter-key delay 100mS (default value)
• Inter-device delay 500mS (default value)

I saw some debate recently that seemed to indicate that Humax probably does not have discreet ON / OFF codes implemented. I agree it would be a great improvement to have these available. Let us hope Humax consider either revealing the code to Logitech or updating the software.

As a fallback I have programmed power toggle command for my main devices into one of the control pages for my equivalent of Watch PVR.

Yes, I've been here before but thanks for the suggestion. The power on delay is a funny one really as 0.8 secs you suggest is probably about right for when the box resumes from full-power standby or whilst recording but redundant when the box is properly low-power standby as it takes about 30 seconds to become reactive to further commands!

Have you seen that Logitech have released a couple of new remotes in the last week, both with the colour buttons that are essential for UK consumers (unlike the Harmony One)? The new Harmony 700 might be a worthy replacement of my current and very old Harmony 655. The new 900 model looks stunning, essentially a Harmony One with the colour buttons but also with RF transmission and remote sender. You position the remote sender somewhere in front of your AV stuff, the remote transmits to it via RF and then the sender to the devices via IR, great for finicky boxes provided you can position the sender somewhere sensible. The only downside, £300!

--Mark-- Good point. My remote does take a while to send the Watch PVR command (8.5 seconds - TV on, HDMI selected, HDR On, Amp on, AV input selected) before it is ready to send new commands but nowhere near as long as my Humax takes to boot! I only tend to switch my system on once per day anyway so not an issue for me.

Thanks for the pointing out the new 700 and 900 models, I had not seen them. The 700 looks the business as you say with the essential RGBY buttons. I think the key layout of the Harmony One is much better than the 885/895 – especially the organisation of the transport keys and much larger and more logical buttons that everyone could use. The 885 series is a wee bit geeky in comparison!

I have just read some reviews for the 900 and there seems to be some serious doubt about whether it still supports Sequences – no significant reviews on the 700 yet. If this is true it is quite a backward step.

I will follow reviews on the new 700 with interest in coming months. Thanks.

BTW: I have programmed my 885 |<< and >>| buttons as a sequences EXIT+SCHEDULE and EXIT+MEDIA to quickly switch from whatever state the Humax is in to look at the Programme list or the Media list.