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Strato C & Harmony Elite

Ironman1718

Well-known member
Authorized Kaleidescape Dealer
Hello,

I'm having an issue with the strato C not turning on when i start my activity. Anyone have similiar issues? Everything goes to the right input but the "C" does not turn on. I have the "C" downstairs in the living room and the "S" and terra server in the movie room if that makes a difference.

Thank you,
Mike
 
Does it wake up if you send a command (like down arrow or menu)? This is what I do to wake it up.

John
 
So, I'm having trouble getting the Strato to respond properly to the Harmonmy Elite. I just got a Strato C and Co-Starred it to a M500. Previously, i had full contro of the M500 through Harmony Elite - that means full navigation through the player's menus and full control while a movie ois being played (e.g., fast forward / rewind / pause / stop).

Now, I can only do basic menu navigation e.g., start / resume a movie, scroll through movie list one line at a time) and I have no control once a movie is played. So, at that point, i can't stop, forward, rewind pause - nothing. If someone got this working can you share which devices and associated configurations you created within the Harmony activity? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Joe
 
I've been meaning to contact support about it, but I think something very similar happened with my Control4 setup earlier in the year. Everything worked fine, added the Co-star switch (not even necessarily the Strato at the point it started) and suddenly the control gets funky once the content starts. Takes at least 5-15 minutes before it will take a command again, so I usually just use the Second Screen app for navigation.
 
I'm using a Harmony Home Ultimate to control a Strato that is Co-Star paired with an M500 with no issues. However, I'm controlling the devices via IR commands with a hard-wired IR connection going from the Harmony hub directly to the Strato's IR input port. Has Harmony finally implemented IP control for Kaleidescape gear?

Remember that in a Co-Starred setup, *all* control commands should be sent to the Strato. Once an M-Class player is paired with the Strato it can no longer be controlled directly.
 
I'm just using a standard 3.5mm mono male-to-male cable with a 2.5mm male to 3.5mm female adapter to connect to the hub.
 
I'm using a Harmony Home Ultimate to control a Strato that is Co-Star paired with an M500 with no issues. However, I'm controlling the devices via IR commands with a hard-wired IR connection going from the Harmony hub directly to the Strato's IR input port. Has Harmony finally implemented IP control for Kaleidescape gear?

Remember that in a Co-Starred setup, *all* control commands should be sent to the Strato. Once an M-Class player is paired with the Strato it can no longer be controlled directly.
Just to follow up and emphasize what John said -- in a Co-Star system, all control commands should be sent to the Strato. If you're sending any commands to the M-Class player, it will absolutely not work properly. (The player will ignore commands when it is Co-Star paired to a Strato.)
 
Ok, this is all very interesting. I really appreciate all your insights on this.

So, I am able to move around on the Covers page and on movie lists. I can even start / resume movies - but i lose control at that point. What's really weird is that I thought the Strato responded to flashers, so I have one of the two flasher cords from the Elite hub sitting in front of the Strato C. I didn't even think to check if that was a valid setup - just figured it was. So, I wonder how it's even responding at all, given I'm not using any kind of direct connection. very weird.

So, given the Elite only has two connections, and I have a bunch of gear across two cabinets already being serviced by flashers - I will need to get some kind of IR extender in order to support the Strato C and it's direct connect IR plug. I basicallyu need a third plug into the Elite hub, which only supports two connections. If any of you have run into that, I'd certainly love to hear what gear you used to make that all work - besides the 2.5mm cable itself.
 
So does it work perfectly with the Kaleidescape remote?

John
 
Excellent question, John! Yes, please advise on the answer to that question.

Using an IR emitter should really be fine.
 
The Strato absolutely works with the IR emitters that come with Harmony gear. There's no actual need to connect a hard-wired cable to the IR port on the back of the Strato if you don't wish to do so. I've done it that way just because it's "neater".

Since you can control the Strato's onscreen display (OSD) when you're not playing movie your IR setup is working and so is the Strato's IR receiver. Losing control once you start playing a movie would point to the possibility that the Harmony is redirecting the IR output to a different emitter rather than the one that is aimed at your Strato. When you initiate playback of a movie, do you lose control 100% of the time or only when playing content that is on the Premiere system? Try playing some UHD or HDR content (which would definitely NOT be on your Premiere system). Are you able to exercise playback controls then?

An interesting experiment would be to point a video camera (or phone camera) at the IR emitter that's aimed at the Strato. Whenever you send a command that should go to the Strato, you should be able to see the IR emitter blinking through the camera. Start playing a movie and then see if the same IR emitter still blinks when you are sending the commands that don't seem to work.

So, given the Elite only has two connections, and I have a bunch of gear across two cabinets already being serviced by flashers - I will need to get some kind of IR extender in order to support the Strato C and it's direct connect IR plug. I basically need a third plug into the Elite hub, which only supports two connections. If any of you have run into that, I'd certainly love to hear what gear you used to make that all work - besides the 2.5mm cable itself.
You can get IR emitter cables that have multiple individual emitters on the end of them which would allow the signal to be sent to multiple devices on the same cable. For example:
(keep in mind that this particular cable has a 3.5mm connector so if you wanted to use it with a Harmony hub, you'd need a 2.5mm adapter).
There are also IR splitter/repeaters that take a single input and have multiple outputs. I tried one of those with the Harmony hub and found that it didn't work well for me at all. But multi-head cables like the one above worked well.
 
Thanks so much for all the info! So, it looks like I have full control - including during movie play - both from the Kaleidescape remote AND the Harmony Elite, but for the Elite, I have to go into the K-scape player device and push nextt/prev/stop/etc on the remote's touch screen. I don't have the ability to use the hard buttons like i normally would when I was just connected to the M500 player.

One thing I'm now wondering is whether or not I screwed up the activity definition itself. i didn't know how best to handle having two players being involved, so I created a device for the M500 and another one for the Strato C (which shows up someone generically as "Kaleidescape DVD Player"). I made the latter control movie playing, and the M500 just powers up and down. I figured I needed to do that, so that both players were always switched on to support the co-star integration. Maybe I should have just included the Strato device? Would the M500 be powered up/down as a direct consequence of being tethered to the Strato C via co-star? Maybe I'm confusing it or something.

So, in a nutshell, i actualy *do* have full control, but no hard button support on the remote.
 
I would definitely delete both devices and rerun that activity setup with only the Strato. When paired, you only have one player, the Premier player is fully controlled by the main unit (including power).

Kevin D.
 
Kevin is correct. You're Harmony activity only needs to know about, and control, the Strato. You can completely remove the M500. The standby mode of the M-Class player is synced to the Strato/Strato C that it is paired with. There is no need to try to control the M500's power state separately.
 
Kevin is correct. You're Harmony activity only needs to know about, and control, the Strato. You can completely remove the M500. The standby mode of the M-Class player is synced to the Strato/Strato C that it is paired with. There is no need to try to control the M500's power state separately.
Kevin is correct. You're Harmony activity only needs to know about, and control, the Strato. You can completely remove the M500. The standby mode of the M-Class player is synced to the Strato/Strato C that it is paired with. There is no need to try to control the M500's power state separately.
 
Folks,

Again, thanks for all the great suggestions. I went back and deleted the M 500 device and only included the Harmony device associated with the Strato C, which again, appears as a rather generic “Kaleidescape DVD player“. Still the problem remains. I am able to fully control this Strato C from the harmony, but not with the hard buttons.

For those of you who have this working, are you actually able to use the hard buttons on the elite? Thinking specifically about the stop, play, fast forward, fast rewind, pause and channel/PG buttons. Having those enabled is a big deal. It is far more convenient to use those than it is to have to go to the touchscreen.
 
Folks,

Again, thanks for all the great suggestions. I went back and deleted the M 500 device and only included the Harmony device associated with the Strato C, which again, appears as a rather generic “Kaleidescape DVD player“. Still the problem remains. I am able to fully control this Strato C from the harmony, but not with the hard buttons.

For those of you who have this working, are you actually able to use the hard buttons on the elite? Thinking specifically about the stop, play, fast forward, fast rewind, pause and channel/PG buttons. Having those enabled is a big deal. It is far more convenient to use those than it is to have to go to the touchscreen.

Yes but you have to add the button commands. Play works generically with the Kaleidescape DVD player, but the rest have to be physically mapped. “Buttons” then use Assign AV commands.


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