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Louieoke
December 4th, 2003, 12:17 PM
All,
I apologize if this is covered elsewhere in the forum but here goes anyway:

I have upwards of 1100 discs now and use "CD projects" 208 capacity notebooks to house them. They seem to wear a bit even when I'm not using them which may just be natural, but I wondered if anyone had a suggestion on how to lengthen their lives as I really hate making multiple copies of the same disc, unless I use it ALOT.

Are there cd's that are more durable than others?
Which method of storage is better (notebooks, sleeves, etc.)?
Is there any type of treatment that would enhance the durability?
Is there a good way to repair them after the fact that would be faster/cheaper than re-burning?

Thanks to you all for any suggestions you might have.

Louieoke.

wackyquack
December 5th, 2003, 06:21 PM
I use a roadcase made by Diskjocki. You can find these at Karaoke Club.com not sure of the spelling. These hold 200 cds in cradles with felt lining. Slots are numbered I currently use three of these with great results

SteveWalker
December 8th, 2003, 12:41 AM
Louieoke, ever thought of using Hoster instead of CD's :w

Louieoke
December 9th, 2003, 01:59 PM
"Louieoke, ever thought of using Hoster instead of CD's"

I really need to! I just don't have the time or loot to go that path just yet. Hopefully in the next couple of years, the amount of technology that I need will be more feasible for me monetarily. Lord knows I hate making copies of CD's all the time.

Do you use Hoster currently, and if so, how do you really like it? I will investigate it more in the near future as I know it is the future of the industry and I want to keep as current as possible.

Thanks to all that have replied on this. I will also checkout the road cases for the interum. The felt lining would be the bomb. May be my next way to go.

Thanks again,
Louieoke

SteveWalker
December 9th, 2003, 02:18 PM
Louieoke, I don't currently use Hoster but I helped our largest 7-day a-week establishment using it successfully. I think Hoster is priced good and is the best chose. You can email me at swalker6@tampabay.rr.com if you like more details on what I'm currently doing.

Steve

gduns - with the Lord
December 9th, 2003, 03:26 PM
SKB has a case about the size of a suitcase for 88-120.00 depending on where you find it, and they will hold 650+ in each case. but if you have 1100. you would need 2 cases and that is just about what the hoster program costs now. just think about not having to haul the cd's, looking them up, and refileing them after use. no to mention the wear & tear on them....... It really is a sweet way to go and a computer can be had, if you dont already own one fairly cheep.

No, Im not MTU, but I sure do love the program.

SteveWalker
December 9th, 2003, 04:53 PM
gduns, you make a valid point! but don't forget that you also have to have a PC too. :g Is that what "oops" was for?

Steve

gduns - with the Lord
December 9th, 2003, 08:49 PM
NOPE, I DOUBLE POSTED........
A decent computer can be had for less than 700.00 . if you consider all the trouble you are going to right now to put on a show and Knew the difference........ I could never go back. I know, it is easy to say right now. But I built a rackmount and I have a whole system in a roll in, and plug in unit. I can be set up to play in less than 30 monutes, and tear down in less. Plus I dont have to stay glued to the player, and cd's worrying about theft, and prepairing for the next song. I usually have my rotation set up 3 or 4 people in advance and can set a timer to give them time to get to the mike ..... put it in auto, and play at the bar and work up future business.

I was doing this with djing before this, using windows media player, and setting up playlists, for my different venues. It automates a majority of the work, so my job is easy, and I can work on the customers, keeping them.

SteveWalker
December 10th, 2003, 07:46 AM
Originally posted by gduns I was doing this with djing before this, using windows media player, and setting up playlists, for my different venues. It automates a majority of the work, so my job is easy, and I can work on the customers, keeping them. [/B]

Using Windows Media Player what plug-in did you use to:

1. Display the lyrics?

2. Play a CD+G from the drive?

Steve

gduns - with the Lord
December 10th, 2003, 07:56 AM
"DJ-ing"-- playing regular music, not karaoke. No plug ins. I use the audiology II soundblaster card. I am running a 4000 watt pro system, and it sounds as good as if I were playing the CD.

SteveWalker
December 10th, 2003, 08:04 AM
gduns, guess I'm still waking up!

Louieoke
December 10th, 2003, 11:49 AM
Man, thanks for all the god advice. As far as the Dj'ing part, you should try Winamp3 sometime it's awesome. I do all my dj'ing through it, because I have them in mp3 format and can hold a ton on my PC.

I will have to try Hoster for Karaoke. I have a very nice laptop P4 40gig HD. I think hoster changes the files into an mp3+G format, isn't that correct?

Would an external HD work for hosting because with the amt of songs I have, I would need at least a 120gb'er and only load 1 0r 2 versions of each song (which I have been meaning to do anyway to cut down on my tree killing when I print books.

I may also have to look at the SKB cases, as I was looking at the earlier ones mentioned and they are like $329 each. That would be like 1800 bucks. Ouch. They were pretty darn sweet however. Do the SKB's have linings, just curious.

Thanks all,
Louieoke

gduns - with the Lord
December 10th, 2003, 12:06 PM
first hoster uses kma format, not mp3+g. That is also Why I use windows media player. it uses wma format. Mp3 compression looses highs and lows, and makes a flat sound. (without equalization). The Wma format retains all the original dynamics of the sounds of the cd. And the compression is about half the size of of the same mp3 file. You can download a mp3->wma converter from microsoft. But I loaded all my albums myself, and You would be amazed at the difference in sound.

I have 1,050 karaoke cdg's loadon my harddrive and it isnt but 49 gigs of space. As far as music, I have 800 albums in media player (wma) 10.5 gigs........ compare.

The skb cases aren't lined, but it isnt needed. the place I got mine, was off the internet out of Pensacola. they were $88.00 each. he was the cheepest. Do a search for dj cases, and you will find it, If not I will try to find the website.

gduns - with the Lord
December 10th, 2003, 01:19 PM
ps. external hard drive will work just fine.

SteveWalker
December 10th, 2003, 02:21 PM
Originally posted by Louieoke
[B]Man, thanks for all the god advice. As far as the Dj'ing part, you should try Winamp3 sometime it's awesome. I do all my dj'ing through it, because I have them in mp3 format and can hold a ton on my PC.

You will be using WinAmp5 at this point which is the best yet. The Media Libr is like WMP - nice!

I will have to try Hoster for Karaoke. I have a very nice laptop P4 40gig HD. I think hoster changes the files into an mp3+G format, isn't that correct?

You can use an external HDD on firewire or usb. I would check if usb 1 is fast enough but it should be. Hoster uses KMA similar to WMA format but may not be fully compatible. It is not compatible with MP3+G format.

I would have two external hard drives all songs on each drive for backup purposes. I would also consider backing up all the KMA files to DVD's (you can store over 2300 songs per DVD) for permanent backup.

Steve

Louieoke
January 5th, 2004, 01:18 PM
Stupid question time. If I back them up on Dvd, they (1) will stil be in the .kma format, correct? Also, I assume I would need a Dvd burner to do this as well? Just curious, thanks again.

Louieoke!

SteveWalker
January 5th, 2004, 03:57 PM
Yeah, the files will be in the compressed kma format on DVD and is why you can fit so many files on one DVD. You will need a DVD burner.

Steve

flipper
January 5th, 2004, 10:23 PM
Louieoke

If you have an extra $200 I would recommend purchasing Hoster for your laptop and purchase an external Hard Drive. You will invest some time in importing 1000 discs but it will be well worth it. Prior to purchasing hoster I had my discs in the same storage binders as you are currently using. I used them 4 nights per week over the last few years and even though I handled them with great care they began to wear and crack. Most of the discs that were cracking and degrading were soundchoice. It started to get expensive with replacing them. I too was skeptical about changing over to Hoster partly due to the "unknown" and partly due to the financial investment.

If you already have a P4 Laptop you are way ahead of the game. I was looking at between $1500 and $2500 investment with a new Laptop and Software.

I made the investment and have never regretted it. I have done about 5 shows, and 3 private parties with Hoster and I'm thrilled with the performance, I have yet to touch a disc....yes they are tucked away in my van if I need them. I encourage you to take the plunge with Hoster...you will never go back!!

By the way I use OTS/DJ software for my DJ music and I'm extremely pleased with the results. I looked at and tried other programs but the overall performance of OTS was excellent
you can download a 30 day trial version at www.otsdj.com
they use dynamics signal processing which really enhances the quality of the sound. It gives it a real punch! Anyway it's free to try for a month.

Flipper

SteveWalker
January 5th, 2004, 10:49 PM
I agree that Hoster is the program for Louieoke.

S. Parks
January 6th, 2004, 10:00 AM
Louie,
If you are watching your finances, you could easily put your 1100 disc in a much smaller drive. I have a 120 gig. drive and 1100+ discs and it's not even half full using Hoster. For the $200 bucks Hoster cost, you couldn't even think of buying a decent storage solution to address the problems you mentioned. Someone mentioned the Road cases that Karaoke.com sells, well they quit carying them, because the company that made the case quit making them. I have two that I will sell for cheap if some one wants them. Now I don't even use them, thanks to Hoster. Louie trust me Hoster is the sweetest thing to come to Karaoke in a long time. Your disc will love you for it, and so will your clientel.

George
January 6th, 2004, 12:17 PM
Picking up on what FLIPPER said regarding discs wearing, it was reported a couple of years ago on these forums that continually sliding the discs in and out of carriers was wearing the paint off the label side of Sound Choice cdg's rendering them useless.
Don't think there's any need mentioning Sound Choices concern over the matter.

mlepine
January 6th, 2004, 03:24 PM
Just wish to reply to gdun's comment regarding wma versus mp3.

The mp3 format will be has good as the mp3 encoder it uses, ex: a Lame encoder version 3.94b will out perform a wma compression. Mp3 will let you compresse at 320k versus 192 with wma and when a Lame encoder is used no way can the windows format be superior.
I will get copies of some test I saw on the internet.

Also, with mp3+g you have the ability to play the file (music only) on any player or convert the file back to wave to normalised it and than compressed back to what ever size.

MTU still offers the best option with Hoster but his limiting it's self by only offering this format.

Regards

gduns - with the Lord
January 6th, 2004, 03:33 PM
MLEPINE,
we are not talking apples for apples here. I compress wma's & kma's at 64k and it sounds just as good or better than mp3 at 128k.......and half the size to boot.

you are talking about 320k a file 4 times or more the size of mine. How many gigs do you want to carry around with you.

I have 16,000+ kma's on about 50 gigs and 10,000 wma's on 10 gigs. all fit on 1 drive.

mlepine
January 6th, 2004, 04:04 PM
gduns,

sorry I wasn't very clear (as usual)... Both compressed at 128k for ex. the mp3 with the good encoder like Lame v3.94b will still be better than wma.

The problem is that most people are not using this encoder and therefore yes wma will be better than mp3 for the same compression ratio with the standard encoder.

The issue is more a question of cost of license more than quality and believe me I can understand MTU not wanting to spend the amount. At the moment, the Windows format is probably cheaper due to its low popularity.

My concern is that I'm afraid MTU might suffer in the long run by limiting them self to only one format and not been able to bring on new customers who has stored in their hard drive mp3+g format that would be interrested with Hoster.

A good friendly conversion tool would be a good option versus having to re-enter all cdg's.

Best Regards

mlepine
January 6th, 2004, 09:17 PM
For those who wishes to find out more about mp3 versus the wma format please click on this linck:

www.mp3-tech.org/

Regards

gduns - with the Lord
January 7th, 2004, 07:45 AM
Ok,
I read it, and it says that up to 128kbps wma is very little better. But the fact they don't tell you is that the the file size is 1/2 that of the mp3 for the same bitrate. Get real. if mp3 were that much better Mtu would be using it.

Mlepine, it almost sounds like you are trying to sell us on the competitions products here. By all means if you want to use mp3's and winamp, do it. For me, I like what MTU has to offer

gduns - with the Lord
January 7th, 2004, 07:47 AM
oops

mlepine
January 7th, 2004, 11:31 AM
I'm not trying to sell anyone a competition's product in fact I'm not using the brand you're talking about or any of the players they are selling!

Let me share with you & MTU why I believe it would be important to be able to offer more than one format for compression:

I've been using a Midi Karaoke player which is the original and also the best you can find on the market, it lets you use Roland SCV to play your Mid & Kar, extract the graphic, Excellent Pitch, Vocal remover just to name a few.
Well guess what? This product now has an MP3+G & a VCD player and will have in the coming weeks all the import & conversion tools you can imagine. Now, how much? It's a shareware that limits the midi player (only) to a window everytime you play a song but NOTHING on the mp3+g for now! For $40.00 US you can now get a cdg, midi, vcd, excellent key changer, all the necessary conversion tools and of course the graphic is played at the correct resolution which is low resolution.

I have no intention of saying what product it is but it's not from the US and its own by a programmer that's been in business for over 20 years!

I still believe that MTU has the best and easier CDG player on the market but should understand that by limiting them self they might have difficulties getting new customers. (my opinion of course)

What a hard business...
Best regards

gduns - with the Lord
January 7th, 2004, 11:43 AM
Hoster will be modified shortly to support the drive for CDG, but it will take a bit more work to support playing VCD and DVD discs. That is in the works to be added.

That was from admin
I believe I also read where they were planning on adding wma, and mp3+g support. that is in the new features for hoster forum

bobcox- with the Lord
July 7th, 2004, 08:15 PM
Louieoke. I have 1400 disc and i carry them in a single case . from DJ cases.com or 1-877-djcases mine is 20"Wx41"L with wheels on one end. 5yrs same case. But hoster is the only way to go to save your disc. also nu-finish auto polish works for me on my scratched disc. BOB

gduns - with the Lord
July 8th, 2004, 07:35 AM
I've been using a Midi Karaoke player which is the original and also the best

I think I've read about as much about quality as I can from someone that actually believes this is true.