Introducing QCD

Welcome to the QCD Player help system! Use this information to understand how to use your QCD player most effectively.

If you want to find out about the controls and buttons on the QCD Player (base skin ), go to The QCD Controls.

Tip: All the features of the player are also accessible via the Main Menu and hot key commands.

If you want to learn how to get started with QCD, go to any of these topics:

Playing a CD

Playing an Audio File

Playing a Stream

Using the Playlist

Controlling the Volume

Changing Skin Modes

QCD Encoder Controls

The QCD Controls

The illustration below shows all the controls as they appear on the QCD base (default) skin. Click on any number to see what the control does.

Note: Other skins may not have all these features, or will give the controls very different locations and appearances than shown here. If you want to find a certain control, and QCD does not appear as shown below, just type Ctrl-0 (zero) to restore the default skin.

Tip: Use the Message Area (#1 below) to remember what each control does. As you move your mouse pointer over the controls on the QCD base skin, the Message Area describes what it does. If a description appears in parentheses, a right-click shortcut menu is available. For example, as you move your mouse pointer over the Time Display (#4 below), the Message Area shows "play time (settings)", which tells you that this control shows the play time, and you can click your right mouse button to bring up 'settings' for the play time display.

Here's the QCD base skin. Click a number to see what the control does.

#	Control Name	What it does
1	QCD Message Area	Displays control descriptions (tool tips) as well as event, status, and error messages. Control descriptions in parentheses ( ) indicate something you can do with the right mouse button.
2	Plug-in Menu button	Displays menu of options provided by various plug-ins. The contents of this menu depend on the plug-ins in use.
3	Menu button	Opens the QCD main menu.
4	Time Display window	The main time display; shows the track or Playlist time elapsed or remaining. back to illustration
5	Playlist Time button	Displays the time for the full Playlist (all tracks).
6	Track Time button	Displays the time for the track currently playing.
7	Elapsed Time button	Displays the total elapsed time in the track or Playlist.
8	Remaining Time button	Displays the remaining time in the track or Playlist.
9	Visual effects level	Controls the reaction level of the visual effects to the music.
10	Always On Top button	Keeps player on top of other windows.
11	Skin Menu button	Displays menu to change skin layouts and modes in the currently loaded skin family.
12	QCD Remote button	Opens the QCD remote control.
13	Minimize button	Minimizes the QCD player.
14	Close button	Closes the QCD player.
15	Help button	Displays QCD Help. back to illustration
16	Visual Effects Area	Displays visual effects which react to the beat of the music. If nothing is displayed, use the Next Visual Effect button to turn the visual effect on.
17	Next Visual Effect button	Displays the next visual effect.
18	Full-screen Visual Effects button	Launches the full-screen visualization when music is playing.
19	External Visual Effects button	Opens a separate window for displaying the visual effects (normally displayed in #16), so that you can move or resize the visualization area. Caution: The larger the visualization window, the more computation resources required, which may slow down other applications' performance.
20	Album / Artist Name display	Displays the artist and album name for the currently playing track. If the track is an MP3 or other digital music file, the album name may not be available.
21	Track Name display	Displays the track name for the currently playing track.
22	Playback Progress slider	Displays current location in the track or Playlist. You can drag this to fast-forward or rewind to any location.
23	Encoder button	Toggles the QCD Encoder List.
24	Music Browser button	Opens the Gracenote Music Browser to display more information about the currently playing artist.
25	Play/Stop/Pause/Eject/Next Track/Previous Track	Provide traditional playback controls. back to illustration
26	Mute button	Mutes/unmutes the QCD Player.
27	Volume Knob	Adjusts the QCD volume level. This only affects QCD volume (unlike the sound-card Volume in the Mixer controls (#44), which affects volume for all applications on your computer).
28	Playlist button	Displays/hides the QCD Playlist. In the default skin, you can drag the Playlist area away from the main body of QCD.
29	Add (to Playlist) button	Adds one or more tracks to the displayed Playlist. Provides choices to add single tracks, saved playlists, folders of music, or Internet locations (URLs) that stream music.
30	Remove Tracks button	Provides choices to remove all "marked", all "unmarked", or all tracks from the Playlist. To "mark" a track, click the track name using the right mouse button.
31	Shuffle button	Shuffles the order of the Playlist.
32	Repeat Track/Repeat All toggle	Repeats the currently playing track or the entire Playlist.
33	Save Playlist button	Saves the current Playlist to a file that you can load later using the Add button (#29).
34	Sort Playlist button	Opens a menu for sorting the Playlist.
35	Convert button	Opens a menu for converting playlist tracks or changing the encode settings.
36	Edit Track Info button	Opens the track editor for the track(s) currently selected in the playlist.
37	Playlist	The list of tracks queued for playing. Click on a specific track to jump to it. back to illustration
38	Playlist Scrollbar	Lets you scroll through the Playlist if it's longer than the Playlist area. To use the Scrollbar, drag the slider knob and up and down, or click the up / down buttons above and below the scrollbar.
39	Search Playlist	Lets you type in all or part of a track title to search in the Playlist. To find all matches, hit Enter after you type your search word(s). Use down and up arrows to go to the next or previous match. For more information, see How To: Perform Searches on the Playlist
40	Playlist Resize area	Click and drag to resize the Playlist Window.
41	Equalizer controls	Graphic equalizer sliders let you shape the tone on a frequency-by-frequency basis. This is only supported with some plug-ins (such as MP3 playback).
42	Equalizer preset controls	Arrow buttons move through the list of preset equalizer settings. The "Presets" button lets you save or recall a preset.
43	Equalizer/Mixer button	Displays/hides the Equalizer and Mixer controls.
44	Volume and Balance controls	Volume adjusts the sound-card settings. To adjust the volume for a specific channel, right-click on the Volume slider. Note that this sound-card Volume is different from the QCD Volume Knob (#27) because it affects all applications on your system. Balance adjusts the QCD left-right speaker balance (if you have a stereo sound-card).
45	Mixer controls	Bass and Treble adjust the sound-card settings. To use any of the slider controls: Use your mouse to drag the slider control left/right or up/down. For more information, see Using the Mixer. back to illustration
46	Encode Source button	Lets you choose your CD Recording source.
47	Encode Settings button	Opens the Encoder Plug-ins settings window to configure the location and format of recorded audio files.
48	Close Encoder button	Closes the Encoder window.
49	Encoder Scrollbar	Lets you scroll through the Encoder List if it's longer than the Encode List area. To use the Scrollbar, drag the slider knob and up and down, or click the up / down buttons above and below the scrollbar.
50	Encoder List	The list of tracks queued for encoding. Click on a specific track to select/deselect it.
51	Resize Encoder List area	Click to resize the encoder list.
52	Encoding Start button	Starts Encoding all files queued in the Encoder List.
53	Encoding Stop button	Stops all encoding.
54	Explore Encode Folder button	Opens the current encode folder where encoded files are saved.
55	Select None button	Deselects all tracks in the Encoder List.
56	Select All button	Selects all tracks in the Encoder list for encoding.
57	Encode Progress bar	Displays the progress of all files selected for encoding. back to illustration
58	QCD Remote	Use the QCD Remote to control QCD while using minimal desktop real estate.
59	QCD Remote Play/Pause Previous/Next Track buttons	Provide traditional playback controls on the QCD Remote.
60	QCD Remote Volume Up/Down	Controls volume on the QCD Remote
61	QCD Remote Album / Artist Name display	Displays the artist and album name for the currently playing track. If the track is an MP3 or other digital music file, the album name may not be available.
62	QCD Remote Playback Progress slider	Displays current location in the track or Playlist. You can drag this to fast-forward or rewind to any location.
63	QCD Remote Playlist button	Displays/hides the QCD Playlist.
64	QCD Remote Mute button	Mutes/unmutes the QCD Player.
65	QCD Remote Resize area	Click to resize the QCD Remote. back to illustration