I think you should use the extender. I'm not sure what basic concept of extender macros you don't see yet. But I think it will come together pretty quickly once you have the basic concept.
I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a discrete ON function, so leaving it on all the time is the usual answer.jon9 wrote:Ok, for example I want to click the home theater button and have the cable box turn on (or should I leave this on all the time motorolla 5100)
So either you must change that (plug the TV in differently) or you must switch the CBL on/off even without discrete codes.jon9 wrote:which the tv is auto switched on by the cbl box,
If you always use that one remote, not switches on the CBL box nor another remote, you might find that the ToadTog protocol in the extender is good enough to use in place of discrete On/Off (ToadTog lets the remote remember whether the device is on or off).
Those things also depend on what sort of discrete input select codes or sequences you find for those devices.jon9 wrote:then I want the receiver to turn on to video 3 then switch to tv mode to go to the vid 1 input
That's a simple feature of the extender, which should be pretty clear in the extender documentation. (With certain restrictions is also possible without the extender, using VPT. But I think you'll want the extender anyway.)jon9 wrote: then switch back to cbl mode but have the volume controlled by the AVR.
I'm pretty sure it has neither power discretes nor input discretes. You can kludge the video 1 input discrete by sending a channel change followed by the next input function.jon9 wrote: components have to have discretes then ,correct? I don't think my tv does older toshiba cf35f50.
An important extender feature is the macro speed. Even without the sped up macro the remote may be too fast to give two sequential commands to the Toshiba in a macro. With the extender, it is certainly too fast. You'll want the macro arranged to interleave commands to other devices between the commands to the TV. Without the extender, the device select commands you'd need in such a macro will be slow enough that you'd need to keep the remote aimed an annoying amount of time after pressing the key.