GetIr and Desay DS-5701

[digitalray]

I'm just a newbe at all of the JP1 stuff so please excuse me for being long winded and if I don't state everything exactly correctly.

I bought a Desay DS-5701 DVD player from Radio Shack when they were on sale for $20 a couple of months ago. To say that it is cheap is an understatement, but being so narrow in width, it fits my AV cabinet perfectly. The biggest problem I've had with it has been having yet another remote to keep track of.

I have a ReplayTV 5508 with its JP1able, extended remote which the family uses for everything else so I ask myself, why not just put the DVD on it as well with a device upgrate. After googling "Desay code" it turns out that there doesn't seem to be any UEI code yet (and some people seem to be quite upset by that).

Not having any sort of learning remote yet (I've just ordered the HTPro to get RF), I decide to see what else I can do to try to "learn" the codes the remote uses and came across Haggis's GetIr (an IR reader for PC's) and decided to give it a try. The local Radio Shack had all the components to build the hardware (substituted 276-0640 for the IR detector) - $10 and 1/2 hour of soldering later, I plug it into my laptop's serial port.

After installing the GetIr dll, I start up Excel, load the GetIR worksheet, push the GetIr button, push the remote's power button a bunch of times until GetIr returns with values in the data column, push the DecodeIr button and voila! it tells me that it is using: protocol NEC1, device 0, subdevice (-1), OBC 20. I work through getting all the rest of the OBC's, enter them manually into KM using VCR 0100 (the Replay remote doesn't allow any device types but TV and VCR), generate the device upgrade, paste it into IR, assign it to the DVD device, set up a macro to use it (shift 3 - there's no device buttons on the remote), upload to remote and everything works perfectly.

What suprises me by so few posts regarding GetIr, is that no one seems to use it and the general lack of info about it. I know that learning remotes are pretty cheap and available, but it was pretty easy to just push the remote buttons a few times then write down the OBC's and then manually enter them into KM. Although I haven't used a learning remote to get the codes to do an upgrade yet, I think GetIr may be easier since you don't have to worry about filling memory or clearing memory or downloading the remote a bunch of times to get all the keys.

Anyway, thanks Haggis for a great program, Igor for the simple hardware and of course thanks to the JP1 hackers in general for opening up the remotes. My familily really appreciates the efforts the JP1 community has made.

-Ray

[johnsfine]

protocol NEC1, device 0, subdevice (-1), OBC 20.

-1 is a special return value from DecodeIr indicating that this piece of information isn't included in this signal. So the above means that there is no subdevice. Most programs that use DecodeIr understand that, so if DecodeIr returns -1, they show the user no subdevice rather than showing the -1. I guess the program you used does show the -1.

It sounds like that didn't intefere with what you were doing (though from your description it wasn't clear why it didn't cause you a problem).

[The Robman]

What suprises me by so few posts regarding GetIr, is that no one seems to use it and the general lack of info about it. I know that learning remotes are pretty cheap and available...

The local Radio Shack had all the components to build the hardware (substituted 276-0640 for the IR detector) - $10 and 1/2 hour of soldering later, I plug it into my laptop's serial port.

Congrats on building the device and getting it to work, now to address your question...

First off, the majority of people here actually do have a learning remote, so there's no need to build a second learning device, other than curiosity. Secondly, we've got a large library of upgrades here, so chances are good that we have an upgrade for most people's devices, and when we don't, we can usually find a CCF file for it or something similar. Therefore, the only people that would need a learning device are people that (a) don't have a learning remote, and (b) have unusual devices for which there isn't a ready made upgrade.

Plus, the cost of the parts is $10 whereas you can buy a URC-8810w from Walmart for under $18 and it doesn't need any soldering.

[digitalray]

You know, I wondered about that myself and even checked that -1 = 255 in KM (same fixed data) and decided to just go for it anyway. I planned on trying it with no subdevice if it hadn't worked at -1.

-Ray

[digitalray]

Yes, and thanks Rob, your description of who and when GetIr would apply fit me perfectly, as I said I don't have a learning remote (yet) and there's no CCF or LIRC or upgrade info that I could find for Desay.
-Ray

[johnsfine]

-1 = 255 in KM (same fixed data)

I should have thought that through before. Of course KM treats -1 the same as 255, and having the device number (0 in this example) and the subdevice number add up to exactly 255 is the same (in NEC protocol) as not having a subdevice. So I should have realized why it would work out. But for other uses of GetIr you might not get lucky again.

[The Robman]

Hey Ray,
Could you post a copy of your KM upgrade into the file section please. Not only will it be helpful to the next poor soul who buys a Desay DVD player, but I think both John and myself will be curious to see what the OBC codes are because NEC1 device 0 is becoming a very popular device code, especially for DVD players. It will be interesting to see if the OBCs are similar to those for any existing DVD players.

John put together a spreadsheet at one point that cross references all the NEC1 dev 0 codes and upgrades.