What is essential in a laptop for Hoster?

[jdgraylp]

I've been a DJ/KJ show for the past five years and up until now have been running my show with a duel deck cd player. I think I'm just about ready to take the plunge and buy a laptop so that I can improve the quality of my show. I'm planning to run both Hoster and PCDJ from my laptop.
My dilemma is this. I really can't afford $3700.00 for your laptop. It's very nice... but I just don't have that much money available. Please tell me what is essential for me to have in a laptop to be able to run Hoster. Is there a way around the CD+G drive, and if not, where could I get one of those drives to install into my laptop?

Thanks for all your help!

DJDave

[Beavis]

no such a thing as a cd-g drive, all you need is a plextor cd drive to import your CD-G's

also, you dont need a laptop, a small desktop is just as good with a flat screen! its not that hard to lug around !

[Mr Music]

Yea Look at a GBox they are small and pack a big punch and you can cary them easy.

Chris

[admin]

jdgraylp, we understand your delima.

First, for the record, there IS such a thing as a CDG certified CDR drive. We test all the Plextor drives we purchase and reject the ones that don't pass. Also, we upgrade the flash bios as we often find the NEW drives we buy have a 1.5 year old bios that cause crashes or other problems with the most recent Windows versions. It is a non-trivial problem that we work to insure our users never face.

The best way for you to add a CDG certified drive to any computer you end up with is via a USB type 2 port (faster than USB type 1).

In any computer you purchase, if you are not a "techy guru", you need to insure your vendor understands your needs. The CDG disc format is NOT standard! Forgive the language, but the analogy is exactly correct... CDG is a bastard stepchild to the CDR/CDROM industry. There are very few companies who even support it, and far fewer "tech gurus" in the world who have a clue about its unique demands.

Believe me, I would like nothing more than MTU to become solely a software company! I wouldn't need the building we are in, the daily receiving/shipping of CDR drives and computers, the bickering with vendors over returned CDR drives that work perfectly for everything but CDG, etc. :r

However, we have many users who had purchased 2, 3... even 6 (reported several times) "karaoke capable" drives (which means audio only, no lyrics/graphics) before finding MTU and our certified CDG software and hardware solutions. There is no industry MTU has been a leader in over the past 32 years where "buyer beware" applies more than to the CDG market!

We have considered offering a less expensive computer system, but there are certain things you should consider. For example, we had a customer recently have a hard drive crash on their single drive MTU laptop computer. All their imported songs were lost! We have spend many tens of hours trying to help them reimport to get their show back up. They were told about the benefits of our dual drive system and its software that can make an "image" backup of the first drive to the second. This was designed to insure that even at a show if they lost their hard drive, that within minutes they can switch to the backup drive and continue running the show.

That is one of the concerns you need to address when choosing to go with a computer... what type of backup? It is not a question of whether you backup or not! It takes time to import your songs. Without some form of backup you will loose your investment if your hard drive is lost. :e Backing up to another hard drive is the only viable solution for an active Karaoke Host. Please, pay attention to this fact to prevent problems down the road one day.

Whatever computer you choose, make sure the Windows 2000 or XP is a clean install, not an upgrade. We have many customers who do run upgrades (98SE to XP home for example), but overall this is less reliable in the long run. This is the most vulnerable for bugs happening that are unique to the "upgrade", versus a clean install.

You will also want to have a dual-display card so you see your control screen, and the singer/audience sees only the Karaoke screen. We recommend ATI dual display cards. They are always coming out with new ones, and the latest 8500 (I think that's the number) is a good choice.

If you have any other direct questions, ask and we'll try to answer them. :)

[Beavis]

Certified and an all out cd-g drive are 2 different things ! no one sells a cd-g drive specifically for cd-g's only!! cd-g compatable is a different thing.

[jdgraylp]

So which is the best internal Plextor drive.... most reliable, best value, etc...


DJDAVE

[Flipeoke]

Best bet would be to get a Plextor from MTU. This way it is tested and made sure to work for CD+G.

As far as what is required for hoster:

Runs ONLY on Windows XP Pro (recommended), XP Home, and Windows 2000.
Hoster will NOT run on 98SE or ME.
CDG Certified CD-Recorder to import CDG Karaoke discs to the hard drive. (Plextor USB2.0 if using a laptop)
Graphics video card must support Direct-X 8.1 or higher.
For dual-display use, requires an ATI or equivalent dual-display card.
Processor should be at least 800 MHz Pentium 3 (or equivalent) or faster.
The computer must have an Ethernet card or port installed.
If you do not have one you can order an inexpensive one from MTU, and our USB Ethernet module makes Hoster able to run on multiple computers, one at a time that has the USB module.

Taken directly from the mtu website at:
http://www.mtu.com/basics/karaoke-hoster.htm
(except the comment I added in red which is just my recommendation)

Good luck with everything,
Mike