Harmony One & Panasonic SC-BT330

Bob Barber

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First, I apologize if this is reviewed in another post but I was unable to find the answer here or in the Logitech forums.

I just purchased a Panasonic plasma TV (TC-P54G25), a Panasonic home theater system (SC-BT330) and a Harmony One, and had Direct TV installed (HR24)

When setting the Harmony One up the software recognized both the TV and the Direct TV equipment. But, it failed to recognize the home theater system and took me to a menu where it wanted me to manually enter all of the controls for the home theater. After trying multiple times to get that correct I had to give up.

Is there a comparible Panasonic home theater system that I can add as a device that will allow the Harmony One to auto recognize it?

Thanks much for any help!
 
Hi, welcome to AVF, and your enquiry is fine.
I just set up the device and it is included in the database so I recommend you have another try.
 
Thanks! I tried again and woo hoo, it's there now. Not sure where it went - maybe it was napping - lol I noticed that it looks like I will have to add activites under what is shown as the mini system like watching a DVD. That function is listed under the TV for some reason.

I know this is off topic but, could you point me in the right direction for help. For the life of me I can't get the audio from the TV to play through the home theater system. When all 3 components are on, I get no sound and teh home theater is displaying "ARC" If I turn the home theater off, sure enough I have sound coming from the TV itself.

If you can help with all of the correct settings or point me in the right direction, your next beer(s) are on me :laugh:
 
Good to hear you found it that time.
You've lost me on the activities - there's a choice of types, so what's the problem about them?
When you set up an activity you get to specify which device is to control the volume.
If you select the sound system its commands will be on the volume and mute buttons.
You should get the option to set its input which in this case would be for the Audio Return Channel.
That's not enough to count for a drink but if you give more details the next one might. :thumbsup:
 
Sorry, I loose myself all the time. Forget the Harmony One for a second.

I can't get the TV audio to play through the home theater system and have tried playing with the various setting on both to no avail using the individual remotes. When just the TV is on the audio is fine and plays through the TVs speakers. When I turn on the home theater, the home theater display shows "ARC" but there is no sound from the TV program. When I turn the home theater system off, it says "Bye" lol and sound returns to playing through the TV speakers.

All that said, I know this is not topic related so please feel free to delet or point me in a better direction.

And you still get that alcaholic beverage of your choice:)
 
That's what I rather expected, that it's a problem with the devices, not the Harmony.
As we're coming back to remote control I'll leave it here for the moment.
The first thing we need to establish is how the TV is connected to the sound system for audio.
ARC works through HDMI, and not all TVs support it.
Thanks :D
 
The TV has 3 HDMI inputs. HDMI 1 is connected to the Direct TV receiver and HDMI 2 is connected to the back of the home theater system which has only 1 HDMI connection point.

You are working your way up to entire bottle - lol
 
This sounds as if the TV doesn't do ARC - check in its manual for that.
Does it have a separate audio output such as a digital optical or co-axial?
 
I want to thank you for all your help. I called Panasonic tech support this morning and we discovered the problem(s) For others that may read this thread, this is how the problem was solved:

1. When Direct TV set up the sat servic, they plugged the HDMI cable into HDMI 1 on the TV. HDMI 1 on the TV is the dedicated ARC input.
2. When I purchased a cable to connect the home theater system, I was sold a cable that is rated 1.3 rather than one that is rated 1.4. If I had purchased a 1.4 cable, the systems would have worked perfectly initially.
3. Panasonic tech support had me switch the cables around (the other opion was to purchase a new 1.4 cable) The Direct TV cable now runs to HDMI2 and the home theater cable runs to HDMI1.

Sound for the TV is now coming through the home theater system and now I can go play with the Harmony One remote to set up activities for Pandora, Netflix, etc.. So you may hear from me again :)

Thanks again and I put in a good word with Santa for you!!

Bob
 
You got in ahead of me then so I don't qualify for the full bottle after all!
If we'd been able to establish from the TV manual about the ARC connection I'd have pointed you to the 1.4 cable.
It was rather odd that they used 1.4 for the Direct TV as it doesn't need it.
By the way I'd be interested to know why you want the TV sound through the system.
Cheers anyway - Logi. :thumbsup:
 
I know you would have gotten me there but, I am worse than the most impatient child when it comes to things like this - lol

To answer your question - Panasonic's high-end TVs and home theater systems come with a feature set called Viera Cast. Viera Cast allows streaming content through the web to your TV/home theater system. You need to have one or both devises connected to a modem/router and can connect them wireless or with eithernet cables. I chose to use wired connections as the wireless solution requires you to purchase a devise that is about $70 through Amazon.

Be sure to have a high speed connection and a dual band modem if you want to stream and surf the net at the same time.

Within the Viera Cast program choises are (amoung several others) both Pandora and Netflix. Using the home theater system speakers allows me to listen to Pandora and movies from Netflix in near surround sound. Netflix transmits or will shortly in 5.1 surrond sound.

Now that things seem to be working correectly, my next project is to program the Hamony One. The main screen on the remote shows a single activity called "Watch TV" I need to add activities to the main screen that would be Watch DVD, Watch Netflix, Listen to Pandora. This owuld give me the single button control that the remote is famous for :laugh:

All of that said, thanks again for your help and don't be surprise if you see me again with Harmon questions - providing I haven't already overstayed my welcome:)
 
That explains it - I have the same sort of thing on the Sammy, but I use an optical connection from TV to amplifier.
You can have as many Activities as you like so go ahead and combine those devices the ways you want them.
The idea is to set up the devices then go straight on to make them into Activities.
Good to know the forum has been good so far and you'll be very welcome back with enquiries.
:thumbsup:
 
I just wanted to give you a quick update. After some time on the phone with Logitech support, it unfortunately looks like I won't be able to set up individaul activites to watch Netflix, Pandora, etc.

Because Viera Cast is a function of the "device" called TV (the way you get to it is to hit devise -> TV ->Veracast) you can't set up a separate activity for it. The way they explained it was that I was trying to set up an "activity within an activity" and that wouldn't be possible.

Their suggestion was to set up the activity using a key on the remote. Similar to setting up a "hot key" on a computer. I didn't want to go that way as all of the buttons are used for various things.

Anyway, not sure I agreed with them but thats where we are :)
 
You can have separate Activities for anything you like, and as many of them as you like!
There are three distinct Viera commands in the Harmony database for your TV, and if you want Activities that automatically select one of them you simply include its command as Additional When Activity Starts.
 
Making progress but need to call it an evening. Will let you know tomorrow where I'm at Thanks again for your help and patience!!
 
:thumbsup:
 

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