Control and integration

Pronto hex

The universal IR code format

Pronto hex is the universal way of writing down an infrared command, because it describes the waveform rather than naming the protocol. The Diva code list gives you both forms.

Pronto hex is the interchange format Philips created for its Pronto remotes in the late 1990s, and it has since become the format almost every control system will accept. A code is a string of four digit hexadecimal words. Word 0 states the format, with 0000 meaning a raw modulated code. Word 1 is the carrier as a divisor rather than a frequency: the carrier in hertz is roughly 1000000 divided by the product of that word and 0.241246, so 006D works out at about 38kHz, the usual consumer infrared carrier.

Words 2 and 3 count the burst pairs in the once sequence and in the repeat sequence, and everything after them is those pairs: a time with the carrier on, then a time with it off, each counted in carrier cycles rather than microseconds so that the code stays correct at any carrier. Writing the waveform out in full is why a pronto string is long, and why it works on a system that has never heard of the device sending it.

Pronto hex in the HDfury Diva code list

The Diva codes are NEC format. Each entry in the list gives the NEC address and command bytes as two hex values, written for example as NEC 0x7a 0x4e, followed by the full pronto hex string for that same function. If your remote or control system takes NEC device and function numbers directly, those two bytes are all you need and they are far more compact. If it wants raw timings instead, use the pronto hex.

One property of the list is worth planning around. Codes come in pairs wherever a setting is a toggle, with a separate code for on and for off rather than one code that flips the state. That is deliberate, and it is what you want in an automation, because a macro can put the unit into a known state without having to know what state it was in.

Infrared reaches the unit through the IR window built into it, or through the IR RX jack with the supplied 9ft sensor cable when the Diva is hidden in a rack, or through the wired input jack from a controller that can send infrared electrically. The complete list is rendered as a searchable table on the IR control page, it is downloadable, and a copy travels as a text file inside every firmware update package.

Before you import a few hundred codes

The code list has already been submitted to Logitech Harmony and to iRule by the community, so on those platforms the device may be listed for you. Check that first: it saves naming a couple of hundred functions by hand. Nothing is exclusive to infrared either, so the same settings remain available over IP, over RS232 and from the web server.

All glossary terms