Remote controls - IR or RF?

trophytr5

Not strictly a YouView question but since, in the past, this community has been so helpful and knowledgeable, I thought I'd try asking the question here.

I have a HUMAX FVP5000P Freeview set-top box (yes I went to the dark side).  I recently acquired a One-For-All Evolve remote control in order to standardise the buttons between all my devices.

I had a problem getting the remote to talk to the Humax and after contacting OFA support (they were brilliant!! best support I have ever encountered and on a product that cost only £21), they suggested that it might be that the Humax was switched to expect an RF signal from the remote, rather than IR.

I knew that you could change "mode" on the remote, to avoid conflicts when you have more than one Humax box (which was what was causing the problem), but didn't know they could use either IR or RF.

Is this true and does anyone know how it is controlled?

Dave

Roy

@trophytr5

Can’t find a P. Is this a T?

But anyway, get its Humax remote, and look at the business end of it with the camera on your smartphone.

Press a button or three on the remote. If you see flickering, it’s sending IR.

if you don’t, it’s sending RF.

We must allow for the small probability that when sending IR, it is also sending RF, but this seems unlikely.

trophytr5

Roy, yes it is a 5000T (typo!)

I know that is sending IR because the OFA remote only does IR and the box responds to that.

However, the OFA people seemed to think that the box could be set up for either, but nowhere can I find any reference to it or how to switch between them.

Since all the OFA problems have now been solved, it was just curiousity that made me want to ask.

I assume that there is no simple way of detecting RF signals

And fyi, after a couple of years of using the FVP5000, I still prefer the YouView interface.  And the 5000 is just as temperamental as the T1000, T1010 and T2000 on start up.  However, the clunky interface is offset by having 3 tuners

monarchjock

Roy said:

Press a button or three on the remote. If you see flickering, it’s sending IR.

if you don’t, it’s sending RF.

Batteries in remote could be done too. 😉

Roy

@monarchjock

The context here was a little unusual though - the remote being tested wasn’t the one that wasn’t working.

But even a brand new remote can go wrong; I had a new Sony Trinitron set once where I put the batteries in the remote, set the TV up physically, picked the remote up to complete the setup - and dropped it like a hot potato, because that is what it seemed to have turned into. I had to put my gardening gloves on to get the batteries out before the damn thing set the house on fire…

trophytr5

The Humax remote is on its way to OFA so that they can capture the IR signals for all 6 modes and add them into their device database.  Oddly though, a Logitech Harmony 350 remote which the OFA is replacing (OK button failed) had no problems with a mode that wasn't the default

Roy

trophytr5 said:

The Humax remote is on its way to OFA so that they can capture the IR signals for all 6 modes and add them into their device database.  Oddly though, a Logitech Harmony 350 remote which the OFA is replacing (OK button failed) had no problems with a mode that wasn't the default

@trophytr5

Perhaps some kind soul had already lent Harmony their 5000T remote? 😛