[janderia]

I've got a DirecTV R16 DVR receiver. It's a recent "upgrade" from my personally owned receivers that I've had since 1999. The new DVR has been driving me bats because it turns on a screensaver and there's no way to disable it on the receiver itself. The screensaver comes on around 2 hours after the receiver has been powered on. I started to think of ways to get around this and was hoping there might be a way to send a signal to the DVR automatically (without my intervention) from a laptop or from a remote if a remote with that kind of capability exists.


Just in case anyone was wondering, I did contact DirecTV about this. They consider it a feature and I get the feeling they will never allow the screensaver to be disabled by end users...

Does anyone know of a way to send a signal at regular intervals to the DVR so that it doesn't put itself in screensaver mode?

 

[jautor]

I'll have to think about it - but if I can come up with something, I'll probably implement it too, as that bugs the crap out of me. Especially since the screen saver doesn't save any power or do ANYTHING useful for anyone with a display bought in the last 10 years...


I'm going to look at the SHEF API and see if there's a query or a benign keypress that could be sent periodically to keep it out of the screensaver or "wake it up". The issue I've seen in the past with trying to do similar things is finding something that won't change the state of the receiver or bring up an OSD element...

 

[janderia]

If this helps any, usually pressing the dash key in the lower left portion of the remote's number pad will take the receiver out of screensaver mode. That doesn't seem to change status on the receiver.

 

[janderia]

jautor, I didn't know about the SHEF API and just looked it up. That sounds promising and I hope that you're able to get something working. Unfortunately for me, my R16 DVR doesn't have an ethernet port - it's their bottom of the line standard def receiver.

 

[Matt L]

AS far as i know it's not a "feature" but a bug that is seemingly impossible to fix. It appears in various software updates then disappears only to rear it's ugly head again. Keep complaining to D, it has no value as a feature.

 

[jautor]



Quote:
Originally Posted by janderia  /t/1523021/is-there-a-way-to-disabl...mated-macro-by-remote-or-laptop#post_24495415


If this helps any, usually pressing the dash key in the lower left portion of the remote's number pad will take the receiver out of screensaver mode. That doesn't seem to change status on the receiver.

It doesn't, but if the 'dash' is pressed when the screensaver isn't active, it brings up a receiver status dialog box on the screen... So it can't be blindly transmitted every few hours and not be annoying. Rats. I couldn't find any remote key that would work - although I didn't try a discrete power-on.

 

[janderia]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt L  /t/1523021/is-there-a-way-to-disabl...mated-macro-by-remote-or-laptop#post_24496990


AS far as i know it's not a "feature" but a bug that is seemingly impossible to fix. It appears in various software updates then disappears only to rear it's ugly head again. Keep complaining to D, it has no value as a feature.

I've sent them a few emails now through their email page and I've called them twice. It's just so frustrating because I don't have enough time to keep calling them over and over. I don't get why their tech group can't figure this one out. It seems like it would be an easy fix for DTV to implement but then I'm not a developer...


Between the screensaver bug and the fact they won't allow me to watch HBO Go on my Roku, DTV has really been driving me mad lately!

 

[janderia]



Quote:
Originally Posted by jautor  /t/1523021/is-there-a-way-to-disabl...mated-macro-by-remote-or-laptop#post_24497663


It doesn't, but if the 'dash' is pressed when the screensaver isn't active, it brings up a receiver status dialog box on the screen... So it can't be blindly transmitted every few hours and not be annoying. Rats. I couldn't find any remote key that would work - although I didn't try a discrete power-on.

jautor, I know it's been a few days but I was just thinking about this... would a keypress combo work in this case? I know it isn't 100% benign but if you could send a "dash" signal immediately followed by an "exit" signal maybe within a half second of each other (or even faster), then the receiver ID box would pop up for an instant and then disappear. If your receiver does the same thing as mine, it's basically a semi-translucent blue rectangular box at the very bottom of the screen on the right side. It isn't pretty but it may be much less annoying than having the screensaver interrupt a show by blanking the entire screen and requiring manual intervention.


Initially, I thought of a "dash", "dash" combo but that probably wouldn't be optimum. If the receiver is in screensaver mode and the dash is pressed twice, it would probably bring the receiver out of screensaver mode and then bring up the receiver ID box. The "dash", "exit" combo would take the receiver out of screensaver mode and then send an "exit" causing a low volume bleep noise. For most instances, you may not run into the bleep noise since the whole purpose is to send the signals before the receiver goes into sleep mode. I'm probably over thinking this.

 

[jautor]



Quote:
Originally Posted by janderia  /t/1523021/is-there-a-way-to-disabl...mated-macro-by-remote-or-laptop#post_24530365


jautor, I know it's been a few days but I was just thinking about this... would a keypress combo work in this case? I know it isn't 100% benign but if you could send a "dash" signal immediately followed by an "exit" signal maybe within a half second of each other (or even faster), then the receiver ID box would pop up for an instant and then disappear. If your receiver does the same thing as mine, it's basically a semi-translucent blue rectangular box at the very bottom of the screen on the right side. It isn't pretty but it may be much less annoying than having the screensaver interrupt a show by blanking the entire screen and requiring manual intervention.

I'd be concerned about EXIT changing state elsewhere (apps, menus, other modes). Don't know if it would work in all cases... The combo I thought of was PLAY PLAY - but if you've actually paused the program when that hits, that would be bad...


Might be worth an email to the SHEF dev team to see if there's something that can be sent to pull the receiver out of screen saver mode. Why there isn't a simple menu option to enable/disable that "feature" (really - it doesn't save power, and displays that can benefit from a screen saver drop in numbers every day) is beyond me. Especially when it's been so bug-ridden since it was introduced.

 

[Solag]

Power On

I know this thread is a little old but I tried the Power On command from my Harmony as well as the DirecTV Remote app on my Windows Phone.
It doesn't show anything on screen when pressed and doesn't beep and will bring the DVR out of screen saver. That may be the button needed to make this work.

 

[Lingrlonger]

Found it!

This worked for me.

On the main genie box, not one of the remote receivers, hold the EXIT button down. The box will change modes from SD to HD or vice versa. Although I didn't notice much difference in the picture quality on my HD TV, if the box is in HD mode the screen saver doesn't kick in while watching live tv.