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waylor
November 5th, 2002, 09:41 PM
WE HAVE IMPORTED DK, BACKSTAGE, NASHVILLE SOUND, NUTECH AND HELLUVADISC, AND THE ONLY ONE THAT SHOWS IN UP IN THE PLAYSIST UNDER THE BRAND DROP DOWN IS DK. WHY IS THAT?

WE CAN PLAY ANY AND ALL SONGS USING ID DROP DOWN.

THE ONLY SOUND CHOICE WE HAVE LISTED UNDER IMPORT BRAND ARE SOUND CHOICE, AND SOUND CHOICE RERELEASED. WE HAVE THE SPOT LIGHT SERIES STARTING AT 8100. ARE THESE GOING TO BE AVAILIBLE?

WHEN WE GO TO CREAT A SONG BOOK THE ONLY DISCS IN THERE ARE DK, NONE OF THE OTHER ONES ARE LISTED. WHY IS THIS?

CAN ANYONE TELL US STEP BY STEP HOW TO UPGRADE HOSTER AND DATABASE? WE ARE NOT TO GREAT ON COMPUTERS AND WE DON'T WANT TO MESS ANYTHING UP. SINCE WE HAVE 140 CDS IMPORTED. WE WOULD APPRECIATE ANY HELP. THANKS WAYLOR

Wayne White
November 5th, 2002, 11:53 PM
See my post under Hoster Tech Support. I have reported the same problems you have, except your Book problem.

I had never tried to print a book from Hoster. After reading your post, I tried it (to see if Hoster only brought in the 10 Brands I get in the dropdown box). I can't get mine to build the RTF files at all.

Wayne

admin
November 6th, 2002, 09:26 AM
Gentlemen, we have been working very hard to remove a few remaining bugs. We hope that the problems you have reported here are solved in version 1.200... which should be available to you soon... but not today.

Wayne, we are still not sure why the database is not showing all the Sound Choice songs. We did change some of the database query logic in the program last night, so hopefully your problem will be gone and all SC songs in the database will be available in the Import Tracks Tab.

Email support@mtu.com for how to get your copy to test. We would like your feedback posted back in this Thread if you would. :w

Wayne White
November 6th, 2002, 02:55 PM
Bryan

I downloaded & installed 1.2 over my lunch hour.

Good News - All of the Sound Choice Disks now show up to be imported. I imported 1 and it took right off.

My Brand dropdown under playlist also list all 24 brands I have imported now.

I appreciate your getting these problems resolved!

On the Song Book, I am still having problems. It may be because some of my Song Names or Artist Names are longer than what was anticipated in the program. Rather than wait, I pasted the info for about 40 Star Disks.

Previously, I didn't get the Box to click Create Song List File when I clicked on the Prepare Songbooks button, now I do. When I click it, it briefly says 'creating temporary database, please wait' then I get an error box labeled HPPRINT saying 'couldn't insert or paste data too long for field'. Still no RTFs are created.

Thanks again...Wayne

MTUSUPPORT
November 6th, 2002, 03:20 PM
Wayne,
Please try to run the HeaderConverter Program from the Download page. Once you do this, this should over write any of your files that have the 1 for Song Name and Artist name. Lets see if this for some reason is giving you the Hprint error. Then try it again.

If this still does the same thing then please email me your songs.mdb and hoster.dat files. These should give me some information on what is going on.

I am glad that it seems to be working other than this though.

Wayne White
November 6th, 2002, 09:04 PM
As I suspected, I shortened the longest Star Disk song and tried it again & got the Songlist to work.

I ran into another temporary problem (easily resolved). It will create the hoster.dat file properly, but not the RTFs if you don't have a printer installed. I guess it must need a printer to determine formatting. I bought this laptop just for Hoster & never bothered to install any print drivers. After installing the print drivers, it works fine.

Thanks again.

Now if I could only figure out why it doubles the lyrics/graphics on almost all of my Nikkodo disks and why the graphics are out of synch with the music on AH8001.

Wayne

MTUSUPPORT
November 7th, 2002, 11:40 AM
Wayne,
I am glad that it now seems to be all working. Yes, you are correct about the HPrint.exe program needing the Print drivers for Formatting. I just found this out when I asked the engineer that wrote it.

Here is what he has said: "Hprint.exe uses the character widths determined by the printer object (attached printer) to know where to break the lines on titles that are too long to fit on a line. If you have a long song title with a long artist name and disc ID, they won't all fit on the same line.

Otherwise, there is no other way to determine the line lengths, but I'll check into it and see if there is another solution.


The printer doesn't have to be "on" to my knowledge, but it needs to be attached."

If you have any ideas on how else this could be done, we are open to hear them since you are a VB programmer.

kedmison
November 15th, 2002, 04:37 PM
I have asked this once but haven't got any takers. So,... I'll ask again. In XP Pro you are given the opportunity to leave your file system in FAT32 or convert to NTFS. NTFS is supposedly supposed to be better. However, I am wanting to know if this helps or hurts Hoster. Does anybody out there know?

Kelly

MTUSUPPORT
November 15th, 2002, 05:06 PM
Kelly,
All of the systems that we are shipping with Hoster are running the NTFS. This is fine to use. You can use either, but we prefer the NTFS for the fact that it is newer and seems faster than Fat 32.

Hope this helps.

kedmison
November 15th, 2002, 06:58 PM
Thanks Bryan,

I have ordered the laptop and Hoster and was wanting to set up my home computer the same. Just finished conversion and you're right. Everything does seem to run faster. Thanks again.

Kelly

SteveWalker
November 15th, 2002, 07:17 PM
Originally posted by kedmison
Thanks Bryan,

I have ordered the laptop and Hoster and was wanting to set up my home computer the same. Just finished conversion and you're right. Everything does seem to run faster. Thanks again.

Kelly

kedmison,

Hoster has authentication codes that are tied to your PC so the notebook with hoster will be the only machine you can have hoster on. :w

Steve

kedmison
November 16th, 2002, 10:20 AM
There you go jumping the gun and assuming again. I have no intention of trying to put Hoster on my home machine and the laptop. My whole reason for the file structure question was that since I will be using two computers; now three counting the one at work; I would like to have all of them utilizing the same os and file structure. This question had more to do with the operating system itself. George and I have talked about the need for a section in our forum for dealing with these types of questions.

Gonna have to have a talk with your boy,..George.

Hang in there Steve,...your alright.

Kelly::g

MTUSUPPORT
November 16th, 2002, 10:38 AM
Actually Kelly,
You had talked to Doug Cox, so if you want to run it on both systems you can get the USB Network card from us to plug into your Laptop and your Desktop. It would only run on one system at a time, while the USB network card was plugged into that system, but it can be done if you want to.

Let me know if this is what you had ordered or if this interests you. Or give Doug a call back on monday. I know your system should be at the office some time early this week. You will be happy, this is a very nice Laptop. I love these notebooks that we are using, they are feature packed.

kedmison
November 16th, 2002, 11:13 AM
Yes I talked to Doug and I think we have exactly ordered what I need, but,... I have no intention or need to be able to run Hoster from my desk top computer. The laptop will be used exclusively for Hoster. I have ordered the Suite for the laptop also. I currently have Microstudio on my desk top. My whole question about the NTFS was I wanted it the same on both computers. I was afraid to upgrade to the NTFS on my desktop because I didn't know whether it would interfer with Microstudio.

Am looking forward to getting the laptop/Hoster. Like a kid at Christmas; and that ain't to far away. keep up the good work.

Kelly:)

kedmison
November 16th, 2002, 11:39 AM
One other reason for the NTFS question is I was going to get a computer here at home for my wife, then it occured to me that I could network the laptop and the desktop so that I could still access all my other programs without putting anything extra on the laptop. That of course was the original reason for the NTFS question. Again thanks for a great product and service.

Kelly

MTUSUPPORT
November 16th, 2002, 11:53 AM
Kelly,
Great! You should be fine now then. It sounds that you have everything that you need other than the computer of course, lol. I will get it done as fast as I can once it gets in the office. I know how it is to be waiting for something that you want pretty bad, lol.

Wayne White
November 16th, 2002, 12:54 PM
I think it was Dave I talked to when I purchase Hoster & the MTU laptop. Don't you allow a discounted rate for Hoster Licenses to customers who have Hoster and want to set up multiple systems?

Before all of the assumptions start, I have 3 systems today (3 complete sets of disks) & would ultimately like to be running all 3 from laptops.

Wayne

SteveWalker
November 16th, 2002, 01:50 PM
Originally posted by kedmison
I have no intention of trying to put Hoster on my home machine and the laptop.

kedmison,

"I have ordered the laptop and Hoster and was wanting to set up my home computer the same. Just finished conversion and you're right."

Sorry if I embarassed you. :s Of course you want Hoster on both systems. :w George you need to talk to that boy he's in denial!

Is it not true that Hoster has authentication codes that are tied to your PC? I think I read this somewhere on this forum.

Steve

kedmison
November 16th, 2002, 09:00 PM
Okay Steve, fun times over. :g

Now for a serious question,...been reading through some of the old posts and have thought of this;...when I recieve my laptop and Hoster and proceed to import my music; do I need to go back and pull out all my original CDGs, or can I use my copies that were made with Microstudio? Guess what I'm trying to figure out is whether when I copied my originals with Microstudio, did it change the compression of the original?

As most people have duplicates in their original discs; I do not have any dupilcates in my Microstudio copies,..so this would be the quickest. Have I made the water really muddy yet???:r

Kelly

SteveWalker
November 16th, 2002, 10:38 PM
kedmison,

You have encoded your CDG's in MicroStudio which produces MTU .cdg format and Hoster encodes files to WMA format. Hoster would have to encode from MTU .cdg format to WMA format which would likely result in loss of audio quality. I would check with MTU about this first but otherwise I would encode all the files from CDG to MMA all over again.

Also, Hoster should be about to play the .cdg files with no change.

Steve

George
November 17th, 2002, 04:37 PM
Hoster encodes all cdg files into WMA, not just MTU Microstudio. I've used nothing but my backup's to test with, rather than foolling around getting the discs out of my players.

And I am not Steve Walker's Boy...ugh!


George:g

kedmison
November 17th, 2002, 05:10 PM
Thanks George,

Appreciate the info and I promise not to refer to "you know who" as "you know what!":g

Kelly

kedmison
November 17th, 2002, 05:47 PM
Some of the newer CGD's are being made with a video background. Will Hoster be able to play these? My Hoster/Laptop is coming with a CDROM/DVD, I suppose it might play through that but was wondering if it would play as a loaded file.

Kelly

George
November 17th, 2002, 06:05 PM
Kelly, have no idea this is the first I've seen of it. Really don't know anything about "video background", not having purchased a new cdg in some time. Are they using a background "wallpaper" with the lyics, instead of the lyrics being on a solid color screen? That's the impression I get from your post. This may need to be addressed by MTU.

George

kedmison
November 17th, 2002, 06:49 PM
George,

The ones I saw Looked pretty much like a regular CDG but where you normally have your "Intsrumental Breaks" they had a video playing. I've only seen them a couple of times and that was over a year ago. Apparently they aren't catching on well. Thanks.

Kelly

admin
November 20th, 2002, 09:03 AM
DVD discs have a totally different format, including MPEG2 audio compression. We have a LOT of work to add this into our Import Tracks Tab importing function. Thus, importing DVD disc songs is not currently scheduled to be done. We are aware that some of the Karaoke producers are now converting to DVD format, and we think that is a mistake. However, we will have to follow the market digressions... IF enough producers follow this direction shift.

Also, video images will consume HUGH QUANTITIES OF HARD DRIVE SPACE!!!. If we import them, you probably won't get any more compression. Thus, playing a DVD from Hoster would be easier for us to just let you use your DVD disc and play from there. I know... then there is no advantage of Hoster!!! Now you're starting to understand why we think the DVD direction is a bad one. These songs also can't be effeciently downloaded over the Internet for sale. They can only be sold on DVD disc format.

Food for thought.

Dave

kedmison
November 20th, 2002, 10:13 AM
Dave,

I agree with you 100%. I was just wondering since the laptop I have ordered from you, which has DVD/CDROM in it, would play a karaoke/DVD disc. I don't think that's the direction they will go either.

Kelly

admin
November 22nd, 2002, 02:13 PM
I find it very incredible that someone who does not own Hoster can even pretent to know anything about it. In the future, all parties who are not Hoster users who make posts that don't make sense will be deleted.

I further request, that anyone who does not own Hoster, not post in our Hoster Open Forums. It is VERY misleading and makes George, MTUSUPPORT and ADMIN have to spend more time correcting the misconceptions proposed as "facts".

I trust all who are guilty will take notice. :e :f

kedmison
November 25th, 2002, 06:23 PM
Hoping my laptop and Hoster to be here next week.

Have noticed in some past threads that there was a problem with using certain compression ratios. But I believe in the newest release that is fixed. However my question is what compression ratio has been found to be the best?

Kelly

admin
November 25th, 2002, 06:54 PM
All compression problems were found and solved. They all related to a problem in Microsoft's dev studio software!!! Bless their dear little hearts... they try so hard to screw up the entire world and do such an excellent job at doing it!!!! :m :e

Listen to MP3 with known compression ratios. Whatever you like, you can probably use one higher compression ratio (meaning 96K is higher than 128K... i.e. more compression makes the file smaller). Some diehards like 192Kb which is not much at all. Most I believe are using 96Kb, or 128Kb. :?