JLCooper MCS3 USB User Manual
Media Control Station
USB/RS232 For Windows98/2000/XP
3
User's Manual
Second Edition
©2000-2002 JLCooper Electronics
142 Arena Street • El Segundo, CA 90245 U.S.A.
MCS, Media Control Station, MCS3 and Media Control Station3 are trademarks of
JLCooper Electronics. All other brand names are the property of their respective
holders.
MCS3 For Windows Version Users Manual Second Edition
Part number for this manual is 932076-WIN.
©2000-2002 JLCooper Electronics
142 Arena Street
El Segundo, CA 90245 U.S.A.
(310) 322-9990
(310) 322-0110 fax
www.jlcooper.com
Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................. 4
Connecting the MCS
Installing the Software ............................................ 5
Getting Started ......................................................... 6
Setting the Serial Port.................................................6
Driver Popup Menu ................................................... 6
Launching Application .............................................. 7
Shuttle LEDs ............................................................... 7
V/Stick........................................................................7
What Does the MCS3 Do? ..........................................8
What is a Keyset? ....................................................... 9
Keyset Selection.......................................................10
Try it Now ................................................................10
About the Default Keyset ........................................ 11
Editing the Default Keyset ....................................... 12
Restoring the Default Keyset Using Clear ...............14
The MCS3 Editor Application ................................ 15
Creating a New Keyset ............................................ 16
Assigning the Keys and V-Stick ............................... 18
Hide Pointer............................................................. 22
Assigning the Jog Wheel and Shuttle Ring.............. 24
Wheel Modifier Key................................................. 25
Wheel Speed ............................................................ 28
Alerts During Clicks, Drags, Scrolls......................... 29
Special Wheel Modes .............................................. 30
Additional Time Saving Hints.................................. 31
About Delete and Tab ............................................. 32
Display Keyset .........................................................33
Saving and Deleting Keysets ...................................34
Importing and Exporting Keysets ........................... 34
Using Supplied Keysets ...........................................34
The MCS3 Editor Application Menus.......................35
3
........................................................5
Technical Information .......................................... 37
Specifications and Troubleshooting........................37
Care and Service ......................................................38
Warranty ..................................................................39
Introduction
Thank you for purchasing the JLCooper Media Control Station3.
This MCS3 is a serial device (USB or RS-232), for use with
Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP.
The MCS3 allows you to create a personalized control station
for virtually any application. You will find that the MCS3’s
smooth, optically encoded jog wheel and transport keys make
creative multimedia production and editing easier than ever.
The MCS3 wheel can play back movies, jog through sound
files, scroll through event lists, and more. And the MCS3 keys
can send function-key equivalents and mouse clicks.
This allows you to use your MCS3 to bring the most frequently
used menu items and commands speedily within reach,
providing more comfortable and creative control of your
favorite applications.
The MCS3 allows you to create an unlimited
You can have a different “Keyset” for each
The MCS3 detects which application is active, and the behavior
of the MCS3 changes accordingly as you change applications.
The included MCS3 application software and driver are
required for the MCS3 hardware to operate.
Please take a moment to send in your product registration card,
so we can notify you in the future about any new products or
updates as they become available.
number of “Keysets”
application.
4
.
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Connecting the MCS
Locate an available serial port on your PC (an RS-232 port will
be a D shell shaped 9 or 25 pin connector.
A USB port will be rectangular
with a symbol such as:
Connect the MCS3 to the PC. If the MCS3 is an RS-232 unit,
connect the power supply (supplied) to the power connector
at the end of the MCS3’s cable.
Installing the Software
Before you run the installation program, (as with any other
Windows installation program), it is strongly recommended
that you first quit all other programs.
If you have previously installed a version of the MCS3 software
on your computer, be sure that you unload the Driver prior to
installing the software. To do this, right-click the wheel icon in
the System Tray (lower right corner) and select ‘Exit’ from the
popup menu to unload the driver.
Launch the Installer
Then start the “setup.exe” program on the MCS3 disk.
Follow the instructions in the install routine. After the install
routine has installed the software, it prompts you to restart
your computer. It is strongly recommended to restart your
computer at this time to finalize the installation and
automatically load the MCS3 driver.
Remember that the MCS3 Driver is required for the MCS3 to
operate. The MCS3 will not appear to send any commands into
the PC unless the Driver has been properly loaded.
The reason for this is that the MCS3, unlike a mouse or
keyboard, sends special "invisible" codes into the PC.
And it is the Driver that is responsible for "re-mapping" these
commands into useful keyboard and mouse commands, such
as key presses and pointer movement.
5
Getting Started
Serial Port Settings
Launch the MCS3 application, either from the Windows
Start Menu or by right-clicking on the MCS3 icon in the
Windows system tray and choosing “Control Panel”.
From the Edit menu, select "Preferences”.
If the MCS3 is a USB version, the PC will automatically identify
it on the USB bus. The driver will then recognize it. If the MCS3
is an RS-232 version, the MCS3 Driver will automatically scan
the available COM ports, starting with COM1. It tries to locate
an MCS3 on the first port that is currently not in use. If the
automatic scan process was not successful, you will need to set
the COM port manually, in the Preferences menu.
After you change the COM port you need to reload the driver.
This is done by right-clicking on the MCS3 icon in the lower left
of the computer monitor and select “Reload”.
If the port cannot identify the MCS3, please refer to the
Troubleshooting section of this manual.
Driver Popup Menu
In the lower left corner of the screen, the MCS3 “wheel icon”
appears in the system tray.
This indicates that the MCS3 “Driver” is loaded.
Right click on the icon to open the popup menu for the Driver.
The first menu item opens the Application.
Enable MCS3 (Disable MCS3).
There may be times when the MCS3 is connected to the PC, but
you do not want to use it. For example, you may not want to
accidentally engage or terminate playback because you
accidentally bumped the controller. You can temporarily
disable the MCS3 by selecting “Disable” from this menu.
Re-enable the MCS3 by selecting “Enable” from this menu.
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Reload Driver
There may be times when you need to reload the driver. To
reload the driver simply means to quit the driver and load it
again. For example, if you change COM Port settings in the
Preferences, you will need to re-load the driver. To Reload the
Driver, select Reload from this menu.
Exit
Selecting Exit Unloads the Driver. If you select Exit, the Driver
will unload and the icon will go away. To reload the driver
and begin using the MCS3 again, you will need to Restart the
computer.
Launching the MCS3 Software Application
The application is launched either from the Windows
Start Menu or by right-clicking on the MCS3 icon in the
Windows system tray and choosing “Open MCS3 Editor”.
MCS3 Shuttle LEDs
Normally, on power up, the shuttle ring LEDs will not light
until the shuttle ring is centered.
After that, the shuttle ring LEDs will light depending upon the
direction of rotation from center. Both LEDs are on when the
ring is centered.
V/Stick
The V/Stick is located to the upper right of the jog/shuttle
control. It is a soft, four position switch.
The switch is activated by applying pressure either left, right,
toward you, or away from you. (It is not necessary to press
down or rotate the control.)
Like the other MCS3 keys, it can be assigned to send a key
press or a mouse click.
Typical assignments include arrow keys, home and end keys,
page up and page down, etc.
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What Does the MCS3 Do?
When you press a key or turn the wheel, the MCS3 behaves
like a PC keyboard or mouse.
The MCS3 gives you the ease and convenience of using a
conventional tape recorder style transport control, which will
improve the speed you are able to work .
The MCS3 also provides a way of remotely controlling your
computer when seated at a location other than directly in front
of the monitor.
Key Press Emulation
The MCS3 can send a variety of commands, including simple
keystrokes, like the letters “a”, “j”, symbols such as “@”, and
function keys such as “F1”.
The MCS3 can also send keys with modifiers. Pressing a single
MCS3 key can send the equivalent of a cluster of keys, for
example, Control-Alt-A.
The simplest example is this: Many applications will play back
previously recorded music and or movies when you press the
keyboard’s spacebar. So, you might want the MCS3 Play key to
imitate a spacebar. When you press the MCS3 Play key, the PC
“thinks” that you have pressed the spacebar, and the software
begins to play back music and or movies.
Mouse Emulation
The MCS3 keys also send mouse clicks. Pressing the MCS3 key
can produce a mouse click at specific, user-selected location
within a window.
Most software applications have some on-screen buttons or
icons for which there is no key-equivalent at all. Again, the
MCS3 gives you single-key access to those buttons and icons.
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The Jog Wheel and Shuttle Ring
These can send repeated key characters, (such as arrow keys
for playing movies).
The jog wheel and shuttle ring are also capable of performing
horizontal and vertical mouse click and drag.
The rate of pointer movement or repeated key presses is set by
a Speed Slider, which allows the user to personally customize
the wheel response.
Certain applications allow even more control from the MCS
wheel, including features such as video or audio jog or shuttle.
3
What is a Keyset?
The MCS3 has five keys called “Transport” keys.
They’re called Transport keys because they are labeled with
the standard “tape recorder” transport icons for rewind, fast
forward, stop, play, and record.
There are 6 keys along the top, F1 through F6.
There are 7 keys around the jog/shuttle wheel,
There are four switches built into the "V/Stick".
All of these are user-definable. Each key can send a different
command. That is a total of 22 commands.
In addition to Jog and Shuttle, one key may be assigned to be a
wheel modifier. The wheel can send different kinds of
commands depending on the state of the wheel modifier.
W1
through
W7
.
The 22 key commands, plus the wheel commands, and
the shuttle commands, are collectively called a “Keyset”.
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Keyset Selection
One Keyset may be created for each application.
The MCS3 automatically senses which application is running,
and selects the appropriate Keyset.
For example, say you've already configured the MCS3 to
control a certain application.
Now suppose you click on a window in the background, and
make a different application active.
This immediately “re-configures” the MCS3 with a completely
different Keyset, with 22 different commands and different
jog/shuttle assignments.
When you return to the previous application, its associated
Keyset is instantly and automatically restored.
For example, suppose that one application plays a movie when
you press the spacebar, and a different application plays a
song when you press the return key.
You can set up the MCS3 so that the MCS3 Play key will always
cause the movie or the song to play.
The MCS3 will keep track of which application is active, and
"know" whether pressing the MCS3 Play key should send a
spacebar or a return key.
Try it Now
Launch the MCS3 application.
Select "About Media Control Station".
Rotating the wheel causes the "movie" to go forward and also
makes the picture of the wheel slowly rotate.
The transport keys on the MCS3 make the movie rewind, stop,
play, and go fast forward.
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About The Default Keyset
The first time you use the MCS3, the so-called "Default Keyset"
is automatically selected.
The Default Keyset is ready to use and should have some
functionality with certain applications.
The wheel sends left and right arrow keys, to playback
QuickTime™ movies one frame at a time. The QuickTime™
application will also recognize the Play and Stop keys to toggle
between play and puase.
Play and Stop keys send a space and return, respectively.
F1 through F6 send function keys F1 through F6.
The V-Stick sends up, down, left and right arrow keys.
The W keys have no assignment. They will not send any
keyboard commands or mouse clicks unless you edit the
Default Keyset.
Any time you open an application, if you haven’t yet created a
Keyset for that specific application, the Default Keyset will be
automatically selected.
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Editing the Default Keyset
You can edit (that is, change) the Default Keyset at any time,
using the MCS3 application. Here are two simple examples of
how to edit the default Keyset:
Example of Changing What the Wheel Does
Presently, the wheel sends left and right arrow keys at a
medium speed.
Turning the wheel will play a movie in a QuickTime™ related
application.
Suppose you are editing a movie, and you want to use the
wheel to easily view the movie frame by frame. You may want
to slow down the response of the wheel, to make it easier to
find a specific frame.
We will use the Wheel Speed slider. First, select the Wheel.
Rotate the wheel a little in either direction. Alternately, you
may click on the picture of the wheel.
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