DirecTV Remote and Apple TV

I hope this is the right forum

This sounds complicated, so please bear with me here...

I have DirecTV and an Apple TV...and would like to setup the DirecTV remote to control the Apple TV.

I have researched and found that the Apple TV can be setup to use ANY remote control that you have by telling it to "learn" any infrared command...This is built in to the unit out of the box...GREAT!

So I switch my DirecTV remote to AV1, hold down SELECT and MUTE, wait for the flash and input the code 20533 for the Apple TV (it actually doesn't matter which code you put as long as you don't have the device for the code you are using)...

I then go into the Apple TV menus to "learn" the code from the remote. You have to hold the each button for about 3 seconds for the unit to learn the command...

Everything goes well EXCEPT when I go to learn the LEFT button - it doesn't fully complete.

It learns the UP command, then the RIGHT command, but I goto learn the LEFT command and it's like the left button stops transmitting after about 1 second.

I can use any other button (like the RED button) to work as the LEFT button - but with kids, it's just not practical...

Has anyone successfully gotten this to work? Any insight would be great here...

Thanks in advance!

-Mike

An update...

I retried last night to set this up and finally got it working.

I started over and this time when I got to the left button, I just kept pressing over and over and over as fast as I could (prob 25 times total) and it finally worked.