Writing software to control CD players

I would like to write my own software to control CD players. As much
as I am enjoying CDJ I have a need to support Pioneer home as well as
industrial CD jukeboxes. I also have my own 'player list' creator
that builds music lists for use at parties etc (DJ type work).

From what I can find on the Internet, I've read that you can control a
CD player (sony or pioneer) directly through a parallel port. It's my
understanding though that you have to send the commands as binary pulses
and that you have to control the duration of these pulses. For example
the sony is supposed to require a 2.4 ms start bit. Each logical 1 is
1.2 ms long, each 0 is .6 ms high, .6 ms low etc etc...

My first question(s) are.. 1) Is the above true.. that you have to control
the timing of these bit patterns in your software if you directly connect
a CD player. 2) Does it have to be a parallel port.. why can't it be a
serial port (I've read that a parallel port provides a TTL-level binary
output port.. If that's true how does this differ from a serial port ?)

Assuming the above is true, I can see the pain and limitations of using
a parallel port and having to deal with this level of detail in the code.
Plus the inability to drive multiple players. (I guess you could drive
3 Sony's right ?)

The Slink-e apparently allows you to issue Slink-e commands through a
serial port. The Slink-e then must translate these commands to the
'raw' binary and take care of the timing issues of sending these commands
directly to the players. Is this roughly correct ?

If I have 2 Pioneer CD players.. How would I use a Slink-e's IR capability
to independently control them. I don't think Pioneer supports unique
device addresses like the Sony's do. Would I have to use 2 Slink-e's ?

One final thought... (This is a test to see if Colby is still awake)
On the Nirvis home page it says that CDJ will support 48 CD players.
Since CDJ support's 8 serial ports or 8 Slink-e's x 12 CD players per
Slink-e shouldn't CDJ be able to support 96 CD players ?

Regards,
Steve