Harmony Remotes

[Mark Dallimore]

Hi everyone, Firstly as with any newbie post I'm sorry if this question has been asked time and time again....... Started playing around with the remote, and set up Turn TV (hurray I hear you cheer) ok, so if that is my main activity how do I then get other activities to start without turning off already on devices, most importantly my AV Amp which all the sound comes through one input, I have an automatic audio switch in place so I don't need to tell it to change input. It seems, and of course I'm wrong, that for example if I want to switch to my Apple TV, and tell the remote the sound is going through my amp that it wants to switch on the amp, but its already on, so that command will in fact turn the amp off. Any hints and tips on how to get around this issue would be great. Last question, well for now anyhow, in my start up sequence, I want my system to go Plasma, pause 5 secs, Amp pause 5 secs, and Sky HD.......then move to a certain channel. I have this kind of working but not sure I understand the software 100% where you change the Poweron settings for each device. On my old Marantz, (trusty old fellow he was too) I was able to put pauses in between the macro commands. I can see the the various options in the Software for the Harmony but not sure I'm quite getting this right in terms of the MS delays...... Thanks for your help in advance. Mark

[rhachey]

That is the beauty of using Activities, When you start one Activity, such as Watch TV and you decide to go to another Activity, say Play a DVD, any devices already on and needed in the new Activity will stay on, any devices needed in the new Activity and not already on will turn on, any devices not needed in the new Activity will turn off, unless you set those devices to be always on.  If your Activities are setup correctly and you have devices that use a Power Toggle command rather than discrete power commands, the device should not turn off.  If it turns off, then you must have added additional power commands to the start up of your Activity  Even though your original remote only has a Power Toggle button, the Harmony database may have discrete power commands available.  The same may also hold true for input commands. For those pause commands, you will have to contact Harmony support to add those pauses in your setup

[Mark Dallimore]

Thanks so much for the reply.

So, I've checked my set up and my Pioneer amp has a Power Toggle selected, yet, when I change activity to DVD say it swithces off the amp?

Any thoughts why this would be?

Many thanks,

Mark

[rhachey]

My Pioneer Amp has discrete power commands available in the database, even though the original remote only has a Power Toggle button.  Put your Harmony remote in Device mode, select your Amp, then look for power commands on the LCD screen.  Test each twice to be sure that they are true discrete commands.  If you find working discrete commands, in the software, select Device, select your Pioneer, select Settings, select Adjust Power, select I want to turn the device off when not in use, then on the next page select one command for on and another for off, on the next page for Power On, select I don't have the original remote but I know what the command is, from the drop down list of commands select PowerOn, do the same for Power Off selecting the PowerOff command,  When done update your remote.  As long as you did not use any other method to power on the Amp such as powering on by using the power button on the device or by using another remote to power it on, the Activity should work using the Power Toggle command and if the amp was turned on via the use of an Activity, and you start another activity, that includes the amp, then no power command should be sent and the device should remain on.