Hold to Repeat Not Working

[Aerobic Toad]

Just got two flircs yesteday and I've having problems.

 

First thing was to teach it some keys from the sony remote for my tv.  It worked great, including repeat on hold.

 

Then I tried to teach it keys from my tivo peanut remote and that seemed to work ok, except that holding a button down does not cause the keypress to repeat, unlike the sony remote.

 

I am using linux.

 

Here's what I did:

(1) Checked firmware.  Result: v2.3

(2) Upgraded firmware to v3.3  Result: No change.

 

(3) Got out my smartphone camera and looked at the IR emitters to verify they are transmitting.

    Result:  Yes they blink continuously as long as the button is held down

               - they also seem to transmit something extra when the button is released

(4) Tried re-recording the button without releasing it in case that end pattern was confusing things

    Result: No change

 

(5) Set interkey delay to 0.  Result: No change

(6) Set interkey delay to 6.  Result: No change

 

(7) Repeated the above steps with the 2nd flirc.  Result:  Identical behavior.

 

Any suggestions on what to try next?

 

My thoughts:

Maybe the tivo remote is sending 3 'events' - key down, repeating key held down, and key released.  Perhaps flirc is triggering on the key down signal but ignoring the key repeating (and key released) events.

 

Is there a way to put flirc in a debug mode that just dumps everything coming into the IR receiver to stdout in hex?

 

I'm attaching a picture of this particular model of the tivo peanut remote because there are more than one.  Inside the battery compartment there is silk-screened label that looks like a model number:  SPCA-00031-005A

Edited December 27, 2014 by Aerobic Toad

[Aerobic Toad]

Update:

 

The tivo remote is not a learning remote, but it can be programmed to transmit a couple of commands from other remotes by inputting manufacturer codes on the keypad.  So I programmed it to know the volume buttons for my denon receiver.

 

Then I tried a couple of variations:

(1) learn from denon, press-to-hold on denon

     Result: repeating works

 

(2) learn from denon, press-to-hold on tivo

    Result: repeating works!!

 

(3) learn denon code from tivo, press-to-hold on tivo

    Result: repeating works!!

 

So I broke out the smartphone camera and looked at the IR transmitters and this is what I saw:

 

When the denon remote transmits it blinks fast enough that the IR light looks almost continuous

When the tivo remote tranmits a denon code it blinks at about the same rate as the denon

When the tivo remote transmits a tivo code it blinks much slower, slow enough to see the on/off transitions

 

I looked at the IR blink rates on two other remotes.  Flirc does hold-and-repeat with both of them OK:

 

sony remote - IR light looks almost continuous

wdtv live remote - IR visibly blinks, but blinking is slightly faster than the tivo

[jason]

I'm working on a debug mode to help with this exact thing, but it seems like the tivo remote is just extremely slow. I'll try and pick one up if I can't finish my debug firmware.

[Aerobic Toad]

Any progress on this?

 

I tried firmware 3.6 and still no joy.

[Enigma]

Press to hold repeat works for me but only if the entire waveform is completely repeated. Some press and hold transmits only send a partial keep-alive style repeat command that doesn't fully distinguish it from a single press.

I have the whole waveform captured and can tell I am transmitting the entire code however flirc only recognizes the first transmit if the preamble isn't set to be 100% of the code.

[steve111]

Hi,

Is there any progress to this?  I love my Tivo remote and I love that FLIRC makes it possible to use it.

But I've always been a bit saddened that I have to repeatedly click click click to go up and down long lists and such, because auto-repeat does not work at all.

It makes my beloved Tivo remote somewhat (alot maybe) sub-optimal and there are times when I think I may be forced to give it up without auto-repeat working.

Another benefit if auto-repeat could be made to work on the Tivo remotes, is that us Tivo remote users could then take advantage of Kodi's 'longpress' function.  

So instantly, we could double up the number of buttons available to us.

I know I'm not alone in thinking the Tivo remote is one of the greatest ergonomic remotes ever made. 

Do you need a Tivo remote to test on?  I could mail you one if it would help.

Thank you

 

[yawor]

Tivo uses a modified NEC1 protocol. The repeat frame of NEC1 is being properly supported and Tivo's repeat frame is identical, but for some reason it causes issues. I don't have an original Tivo remote, but I've tested this with my universal remote and Flirc and it doesn't repeat most of the time - it does only from time to time.

I'm trying to identify what exactly causes the Tivo protocol to fail while the NEC1 works properly.

[steve111]

Thank you. Will it help you if you had an actual Tivo remote?  If so I can mail you one

[yawor]

I think my universal remote (Nevo C2) is able to emulate Tivo remote quite accurately, so I don't think that having an actual remote would make any difference at the moment, but thanks for the offer.

[steve111]

ok.

thanks for trying to figure it out