Also, the decoder functionality will often be integrated into a more complicated microcontroller that controls the AV device, eliminating the need for the separate chip.
In the absence of a viable standard, the microcontrollers can be used to emulate the ambiguous protocols used by the old dedicated encoder/decoder chips and it appears that this is often the case.
These offer keyboard wake, low power standby modes, and sample controller code though similar features are present on more general PIC microcontrollers or Atmel AVRs.
Sony manufactured a number of consumer devices of different types that share a common proprietary protocol, called S-link.
However, the rapidly expanding requirements for newer categories of electronics products since that time (e.g., DVD players, cable boxes, DVR's, et cetera) has led Philips to replace the RC-5 protocol with the newer RC-6 protocol that has both an expanded set of devices (256 versus 32) and commands per device (256 versus 64 in RC-5 and 128 in RC-5x).
In contrast, the major Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers almost universally adopted a protocol that was developed and administered by NEC (now Renesas).
In the NEC protocol, each manufacturer is assigned a unique code that is contained in the transmitted command, avoiding the possibility of false triggering by other remote handsets.
However, these transmission protocols are easily created and/or decoded with general-purpose 8-bit microcontrollers, such as those offered by Microchip Technology and Atmel.
Transmission of the IR commands requires only a microcontroller and an infrared LED, available from a wide variety of sources.
Reception of the modulated commands for RC-5, RC-6, and the NEC protocols is easily accomplished with specialized IR receivers, most readily available from Sharp Corporation and Vishay Intertechnology.