Quick update on this (before I announce I am moving to Siberia to spare me the threat of visitors!
).
I have now used my new fully functional "Smart Playlist" and it is hard to remember life before that! Apart from a few glitches here and there once or twice per evening (none in the past two days), it is working well beyond my hopes. I was aiming for that, but I was really afraid as manually (and using the Harmony 890's jukebox functions), my rate of success was less than 50%. Now it's 100%.
Since Tuesday, I don't even check what is going on. I just build my playlist and start reading or watch hockey in simulcast and just enjoy the music, regardless if it CD or SACD. I have implemented all the "look ahead" functions so sometimes I build my playlist to swap neatly between players to avoid waiting 30 seconds between disk changing once in a while, but I don't bother anymore. Optimization happens if it can happen, otherwise, 30 seconds is not enough to make me worry about it (I do have an "Optimize" to move things around if I feel like pressing it when I build the playlist).
NOW TODAY!
I used the IR-learner connected to my second GC-100's serial port (that one a 6") and it only took me a few hours to have a fully integrated RF Harmonry 890. The IR-learner is not as good as the IR-extender because it takes about a second to "optimize" the IR and often sends 2-3 codes to the computer using different carriers when the signals are too short for their algo to be certain. So there is a small sluggishness for now, but it is only noticeable when using cursor keys.
To problem my "CEF Remote" activity, I added a "dummy" device (one that I knew had a huge number of discrete codes), frequently referred to here as a "Denon 3808" :). Then I created an "FM Radio" activity and mapped 6 pages of buttons (8 per-page) containing all the unary operations of the remote server. Works great!
I'm pretty close to be done with functionality and then I should be able to take a few pictures and prepare screen shots tomorrow or Monday.
