If you just show a video as a fill in while waiting for a singer, why don't you use Hoster to show it and still display your singers order on screen. Would save a lot on system resources. :?
I can understand if you are doing a disco and wanting to mix video and music seamlessly.

Roy

In my show, if the singer is not ready they miss their turn. Because we have a singers display there should be no excuses for a delay for the next singer. The more singers to get to sing the better the business becomes. I have at least the next 6 singers listed on the screen and also make announcements who is comming up. I have educated them to be ready and waiting so the show can cruise without delay. It is working well and has built the business well.

I use VDJ before the Karaoke show, However, when doing a private party, it is best to Video DJ with VDJ because you only get a singer now and again and would have breaks between singers. Hoster is not designed for DJing unfortunatley.

Exactly, and VDJ is not designed for karaoke. On the VDJ forums I try to subtly get them to try out Hoster for karaoke-ing, as many think VDJ can do it well, but it just doesn't. :)

Yes I use a different program for my DJ only nights, I realize Hoster is not as good for DJing but I tend to only use one or the other. I thought it sounded like you keep switching from one to the other in a show. When I do a show with Hoster I have a music player playing continuously and just fade in & out of that if I need a bit of fill in music or just slip a few videos into the Hoster play list if it's a bit quite like at the start of the evening. :c:)

Roy.

That is exactly what I do as some of my shows are partly Karaoke/partly dance, during dance portion I do show many videos. One of my most popular shows in town too.

I tried the above last night at a show, Stefan, and Hoster would freeze as expected. Are you sure you were using a second monitor while playing videos in VDJ, then went right to hoster and played a song w/o doing anything on VDJ? I do know that VDJ still takes "priority" over the second monitor as it always has and doesn't allow another program to get on it (second display) until it is deactivated.

Re: Desktop vs. Laptop
 

Well I'm going to run my first show Wednesday night. In my test run it sounds great, from my laptop (Compaq Presario) which is ran into a Behringer PMP2000 Powermixer to two Peavy 115 speakers... I am concerned about my video quality and may need some upgrades. I'm using a Sabrent PC to TV converter which is fair, but not for video shows. Any suggestions?

Re: Desktop vs. Laptop
 

I use LCD monitors with VGA connections (VGA out of my laptop to a VGA Splitter to the LCDs).

With the shopping season coming up you just may find a bargain or 2 out there.

I found 2 new 32" LCDs (720p) for $250 each last year and use them for the audiance.

Hope this helps!

Re: Desktop vs. Laptop
 

I play a lot of video in my show using a VGA to RCA video converter with quite acceptable picture quality output to 40" + TV sizes.

If you have HDMI connectors on both your laptop and Monitor this gives you excellent picture quality although you will need to disable the sound going through the same connection.(Read how to do that here http://forum.mtu.com/showpost.php?p=108439&postcount=7)
One draw back with this set up is if the connection is to a monitor fixed to a wall the connections are usually at the back and hard to get to which is one reason I stick to the RCA video in, which is normally located in an easy to access place.

Re: Desktop vs. Laptop
 

Re: Desktop vs. Laptop
 

My thought on that would be that they both use the same player and video rendering. This would cause a conflict I think.

Re: Desktop vs. Laptop
 

No, that's not the problem, I've made a new thread on this topic if you want to contribute to the conversation there, here is the link http://forum.mtu.com/showthread.php?t=12840

Thanks...