Joe Thompson's dashboard

Quatech Box
Setup & Config

Setting up your com ports in a way that makes sense will make the setup of Cablecast much quicker and easier. Your system ships out with one or two COM ports on the back of the system. These can be used to control devices (such as DV decks, DVD players, VHS decks, etc.) or your routing switcher. The Quatech box is most useful when you have more devices to be controlled than COM ports available.

We have a product called a Quatech box that is a USB to serial converter. This product provides 8 COM ports which can control RS232 or RS422 devices. This guide will walk you through the setup and configuration of your Quatech box.

The Quatech box can be installed by plugging in the unit in an open USB port. The system should recognize the Quatech and ask you to locate a driver. Divers for the unit may already be loaded on your system and would be at path: C:\TRMS Production\Drivers. If they are not preinstalled you can download the driver here: http://www.quatech.com/support/driver... by searching for the product number on your box from the list (ESU2-400 in most cases).

Your system will add the new com ports to the ones that are already there which will increase your system from 1-2 com ports up to 9-10. While doing this, the Quatech software will assign ports 2-9 or 3-10 to itself. Knowing this you can change the order of these ports in the device manager to match the labels on the rear of the Quatech box.

*Note – You do not have to change the numbering on the COM ports. Changing them to represent the labels is best in case of future troubleshooting.

To reassign the ports right-click on “My computer” and select Manage. You will then want to go to Device Manager and select “Ports(COM & LPT)”. This is where you will be able to reorder the com ports on your system.
This is the way it will look when you first install the Quatech box.

To arrange the ports so that they correspond with the numbers on the Quatech you have to reorder the ports. This is done by right-clicking on the COM port and selecting Properties. Within the Settings tab at the top, select Advanced near the bottom of the menu.
Here, you are able to change the port number at the bottom. If you set the on board ports to very high number they are easy to tell apart. Setting them to ‘255’ or ‘256’ is common.
This is how the ports should look when reordered

The last thing that you may need to configure is the interface that the ports are using from RS232 to RS422. This is done through the Device manager as well under Multi-port Serial Adapter. Right-click and go to Properties then choose the “USB serial ports advance options” tab. In this menu you can change the port settings. You will want to use the 422 4wire full duplex and low latency modes when controlling 422 devices.

Hey John,
You can get the DVD Import tool by sending a request to us at Support@trms.com The program is installed on a system on your network with a dvd drive and is saved to that local system. Then you move the file across your network to the content drive on the video server.