Sony SIRC vs Philips
Bill,
I think that Sony may be a bit easier except for the fact it is at 40 khz as opposed to 36 khz. A 38 khz receiver will probably be able to see both. I have messed around with Panasonic stuff since I wanted to work on making my plasma tv work better with the DirectTV remote. I have been able to decode the Panasonic 48 bit stuff ok.
Sony is similar to what what Panasonic is doing. But in either case you have to be able to measure somewhat reliably the times in increments of 100 micro seconds using an 877A. The inchworm+ was great to be able to see values of how many 100 micro second intervals a start pulse was, etc.
Also, an oscilloscope is great to see what the remote was really sending. I have one of the Parallax USB units which allowed me to see what the Panasonic remote was sending. I was able to capture the image and print it out and go figure out that it really was sending 40040100BCBD when the power button was pressed. If you can see it, you can figure it out.
For the receive side, I turned my 100 micro second clock off and waited for a start pulse. Mine is really a one because I stuck a 2N3904 between the TSOP1138 and the Pic. Now once it is there, wait for it to go away.
Now we wait for a pulse to re-appear. Once it does, wait for it to go away. Now turn on the 100 micro second timer and wait for for the next high.
How may 100 micro second intervals passed?? If it was greater than "oh" 7, then we are wider than the 400 micro seconds of a "0", so it must be a "1".
Attached is the code that I refer to. It is an example and did work for me.