Sorry I don't really understand what you are asking in the first question.

2nd - Here is a list of the IR devices that currently work with CQC. [Link: charmedquark.com]

Many of us use the USB-UIRT because it seems to be one of the cheaper methods and is extremely reliable.

3rd - I think getting video metadata into the CQC media repository is a real pain in the rear. Therefore I decided to use another one of the repository options. They are listed here. [Link: charmedquark.com]

I personally use DVDProfiler to handle my DVDs, but they also support MyMovies which is pretty popular too. Basically you add the DVD collection into DVDProfiler (you do have to purchase it separately) and then the CQC DVDProfiler driver will communicate to the DVDProfiler software and gather all the information into CQC. It was much easier to do that than it would be to manually input most of the DVD information into CQC.

4th - While I have my ripped media in the same machine that acts as my CQC server, you don't have to move the media. As long as you set it up properly, CQC can play the media files directly from another machine on the network. Personally I use the CQC Media Embedded File Tag repository for my music collection. This repository will simply read the file tree that is normally used in windows and create a full repository from that. So there is no need for a 3rd party software like I use for the DVD respository.

5th - you should be able to update to the latest Windows Media Player. If you see references to Windows Media Player 9, they probably are just old.

If you haven't seen the great training material from Vidabox, be sure to check it out. It is very well written and easy to understand. They created it to train their integrators, and they have been gratious enough to share it.

Part 1 - [Link: vidabox.com]

Part 2 - [Link: vidabox.com]

Good luck. If you have more questions, feel free to post over on the CQC forum. [Link: charmedquark.com]