Instructables stumbled upon a nifty little trick getting their DirecTV universal remote to work with the Xbox 360. After a few simple steps and about 5-10 minutes of cycling through codes, they were able to power up the Xbox and even get some DVD playback functionality out of it. The cool thing about this is that it opens the door to the possibility of other universal remotes being programmed to work with the 360. For example, DirecTV isn't available in Canada, but Shaw Cable has a similar service with its own set top box and universal remote that can manage every component of your home theatre, and if it can be configured to control the Xbox 360, that would be very convenient indeed. Full instructions and brief video after the break.1.) Change your remote to av1, making sure it's not pointing at a receiver that would react to the input. Press and hold mute and select until the av1 switch blinks twice.
2.) Press 991, then 2, followed by the power button.
3.) Press the up button 30-50 times, with a small delay between each until the Xbox 360 turns on. Note that the light above av1 will blink after each press.
4.) Once you reach the proper code that turns on your Xbox 360, press select to finish configuring the remote. Now you have a working Xbox 360 remote.
If any of you fanboys have DirecTV and try this, let us know how well this replaces the official remote from Microsoft.
[Via Digg]
