Changer Manager

Make/Model	Device Version	Connection Type
CQSL/MediaChMgr	N/A	N/A

Description:

This driver is a special one that acts as a 'front end' for changer drivers. When you have a changer based media system, you will often have more than one changer in order to hold all of the DVDs or CDs you have. This could be quite difficult to deal with because your user interfaces and macros would have to understand which of the changers is active at any one time, and the widgets on your interfaces can only be associated with one device at a time.
To deal with this issue, the changer manager driver sits in front of one or more changer devices, so that you can deal with a single driver and it can in turn deal with multiple changer devices behind the scenes. To do this, the changer manager driver does three things:
Allows you to select a particular title from an associated media repository driver by writing to its PlayMedia field. It will go back to the repository and ask for location information. Using that, it will attach to the changer that contains the indicated collection, making it the new active changer, and start playback of the selected collection.
Provides fields for control and two way feedback that just pass through to the active changer.
Provides the standard media renderer metadata information on the currently selected collection.
So you can treat the changer manager as though it were a standard CQC renderer driver, in that it provides transport controls, has a PlayTitle field that you can write a title cookie to in order to make it play a title, it is associated with a media repository driver, and so forth. The underlying changer drivers that are being managed don't provide formal renderer functionality, they just provide raw control over the changer. The changer manager acts as the renderer, though in reality it is just a middleman.
Note that in #1 above, if there was a previous active changer, it will send that changer a stop command first. It will then forget any previous active changer and attach to the new one. So it does not have a list of changers it manages, it just deals with the current active changer based on the title it was told to play. So if you add new changers to the system, you don't have to do anything special to have them recognized by the changer manager.
Since this driver is a formal 'renderer driver' in the CQC sense, it must be associated with a media repository, which is set during installation of the driver. Any cookies you write to the PlayMedia field must be associated with that media repository.

Quirks and Limitations:

None at this time

Connection Details

This driver doesn't have any connection per se. It talks to the changers via the standard CQC driver field interface.

Driver Fields

This section lists the fields that the driver makes available, their types, minimum and maximum values, etc...
Name Type R/W Description/Limits
ActiveChanger String R Indicates the moniker of the active changer. It can be empty if none has been set.
CurAspectRatio String R If aspect ratio information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value, else it will be blank.
CurCast String R If cast information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value.
CurColArtist String R The name of the artist associated with the currently playing collection, if available.
CurColCookie String R The cookie for the currently playing collection, if any, else blank.
CurColName String R The name (title text) of the collection that contains the currently playing item, if any, else blank.
CurDescr String R If title description information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value.
CurrentDisc Card R/W For read it indicates the currently active slot on the currently active changer. You can write to it in order to do a manual selection of a new slot, but normally you'd do this by writing a title cookie to the PlayTitle field.
CurItemArtist String R The name of the artist associated with the currently playing item, if available. Will be different from CurColArtist if the collection is not all by the same artist (a sound track, for instance.)
CurItemCookie String R The cookie for the currently playing item, if any, else blank.
CurItemName String R The name of the currently playing item, if any, else blank.
CurLabel String R If studio/label information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value.
CurLeadActor String R The name of the lead actor associated with the currently playing movie collection, if available, else blank.
CurRating String R If title rating information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value.
CurrentTitle Card R The number of the title currently playing on the current disc (if reported by the currently active changer driver.) If none, or not supported, it should be zero. Since various changer types could have different limitations on the maximum title number, this field has no range limits.
CurTitleName String R The name (title text) of the title that contains the collection that contains the currently playing item, if any, else blank.
CurTitleCookie String R The title cookie for the selected title. Could be empty if none has been selected yet.
CurrentTrack Card The number of the track currently playing on the current disc (if reported by the currently active changer driver.) If none, or not supported, it should be zero. Since various changer types could have different limitations on the maximum track number, this field has no range limits.
CurYear Card R If title release year information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value, in four digit format.
PlayMedia String W Write a title or collection cookie (a cookie from the associated media repository) to cause that media to start playing. This driver will find the location info for that media, and if it is changer based, it will ask the changer to load the appropriate disc. If you send a title cookie, the first collection of that title will be used.
PlayMode String R This field indicates the basic transport mode for the overall 'virtual changer' represented by the changer manager. This is an enumerated field with the values: Stop, Play, and Pause.
Power Boolean R/W This is a pass-through to the Power field of the active changer. For read it indicates the power status of the active changer, and for write it sets the power state.
Transport String W This acts as a pass-through for transport commands. Whatever you write to this field is passed on as is to the Transport field of the active changer. This of course means that all the changers will generally have to be of the same model so that they share similar transport control functionality.

Name	Type	R/W	Description/Limits
ActiveChanger	String	R	Indicates the moniker of the active changer. It can be empty if none has been set.
CurAspectRatio	String	R	If aspect ratio information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value, else it will be blank.
CurCast	String	R	If cast information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value.
CurColArtist	String	R	The name of the artist associated with the currently playing collection, if available.
CurColCookie	String	R	The cookie for the currently playing collection, if any, else blank.
CurColName	String	R	The name (title text) of the collection that contains the currently playing item, if any, else blank.
CurDescr	String	R	If title description information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value.
CurrentDisc	Card	R/W	For read it indicates the currently active slot on the currently active changer. You can write to it in order to do a manual selection of a new slot, but normally you'd do this by writing a title cookie to the PlayTitle field.
CurItemArtist	String	R	The name of the artist associated with the currently playing item, if available. Will be different from CurColArtist if the collection is not all by the same artist (a sound track, for instance.)
CurItemCookie	String	R	The cookie for the currently playing item, if any, else blank.
CurItemName	String	R	The name of the currently playing item, if any, else blank.
CurLabel	String	R	If studio/label information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value.
CurLeadActor	String	R	The name of the lead actor associated with the currently playing movie collection, if available, else blank.
CurRating	String	R	If title rating information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value.
CurrentTitle	Card	R	The number of the title currently playing on the current disc (if reported by the currently active changer driver.) If none, or not supported, it should be zero. Since various changer types could have different limitations on the maximum title number, this field has no range limits.
CurTitleName	String	R	The name (title text) of the title that contains the collection that contains the currently playing item, if any, else blank.
CurTitleCookie	String	R	The title cookie for the selected title. Could be empty if none has been selected yet.
CurrentTrack	Card		The number of the track currently playing on the current disc (if reported by the currently active changer driver.) If none, or not supported, it should be zero. Since various changer types could have different limitations on the maximum track number, this field has no range limits.
CurYear	Card	R	If title release year information was available in the associated repository, this field will indicate that value, in four digit format.
PlayMedia	String	W	Write a title or collection cookie (a cookie from the associated media repository) to cause that media to start playing. This driver will find the location info for that media, and if it is changer based, it will ask the changer to load the appropriate disc. If you send a title cookie, the first collection of that title will be used.
PlayMode	String	R	This field indicates the basic transport mode for the overall 'virtual changer' represented by the changer manager. This is an enumerated field with the values: Stop, Play, and Pause.
Power	Boolean	R/W	This is a pass-through to the Power field of the active changer. For read it indicates the power status of the active changer, and for write it sets the power state.
Transport	String	W	This acts as a pass-through for transport commands. Whatever you write to this field is passed on as is to the Transport field of the active changer. This of course means that all the changers will generally have to be of the same model so that they share similar transport control functionality.