OK I can confirm that it is not the codec, I installed as directed and tested and no change, Video will only play on the primary display :(

Beav, will ya send me one too?

bryan posted where it was a couple of posts back.

Depends on filetype?
 

I too have been having the problem described by PaulK until I accidentally discovered it depended on the video's filetype. If I added a .wmv it played perfectly on the outboard monitors. The singers playlist would be replaced with the video as expected and return to the playlist when completed.

However, if I added an .avi file to the playlist, the singers playlist would be replaced by a black screen, just as PaulK described.

I downloaded and installed "K-Lite Codec Pack 3.8.0 Full", rebooted and tried again. No change. Playback of avi files result in the monitors going black.

Is there a configuration step for the codec I've missed? I hate to have to convert all my avi files to a filetype that does work, but that's my fallback if no one has a solution.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Unfortunately AVI files are almost as bad as Zip files. There are many different formats and a codec for each one.

If your video card supports multiple montors, you will get video on your computer lcd as well as singers TV.
only one i have to do that is nvidia g-force 6800 go.

I've done some further testing. I've added the following video filetypes to the playlist and they play perfectly on the external monitors:

.wmv (Windows Media Video)
.mp4 (iPod Video)
.3gp (mpeg-4)
.mpe (mpeg-2)

The filenames show up on the playlist screen, just like a singer's song request, when the files come up in rotation they play perfectly and upon completion return to the singers playlist screen. The behavior is no different from a regular karaoke track. The audience sees the videos on the external monitors just as they would the lyrics of a song. Excellent.

In other words, I don't have a problem with the feature itself, the monitors, graphics card, etc. The only problem is with avi files. I've evaluated known good files (directly captured by DV device, created by Windows Movie Maker, type-1 files, type-2 files, etc.) All of these files play using any media player I've tried... except for Hoster.

Could someone who uses this feature see if they too have a problem with avi files? It would be useful to know if this anomaly is unique to my setup or universal. Thanks.

Unrelated to Hoster I have had problems in the past getting WMP to play some AVI files. The only thing I could do to fix it was to reload the codecs.
Have you checked Microsoft to see if there are any updates for Movie Maker or WMP?

as far as .avi files, I added the codec from the divx website (free) and it handles all of then for me. Works with hoster and windows media.

I believe he was talking about not being able to get video on desktop and tv at the same time.
two displays at same time, like when playing a kma file.

Just for AVIs. The rest are working.

Yup, avi.'s are definitely weird. My DJ program has troubke with some and different for each computer.
Sometimes it's even a conflict of two codecs as well, i.e., it can somehow grab the wrong one the first time.

Not sure how to uninstall a codec pack, but usually, the second pack tries to detect codecs for the first one, if any already installed, and tell you to delete that specific codec. But, then agan, I'm not sure if all packs work this way or easily detect other conflicting codecs.

I think what I did once was unistall every pack that I had and start from scratch on one particular pack.

Thanks, guys. I feel vindicated knowing it's the avi format that's problematic and not something obvious I've overlooked.

As a further test, I converted the avi's to wmv and sure enough, Hoster plays the converted files just fine. I might play around some more with the codecs, but in the interim, no avi's in the playlist during a show.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a (free) way to convert avi's to wmv ?
Thanks

Paul K

They have some freeware out there (just search on video converters), although most, if not all, will be limited by minutes converted or contain a nag screen in the final product. I purchased one a while back for 39 bucks, I think.

If you've got XP with at least SP1 (preferably SP2) you've got Windows Movie Maker. Just click on "Import Video", select your avi file. When it loads, drag it to the timeline. Don't be surprised if it breaks the avi into several segments, just add them to the timeline in sequence.

If you don't want to do any editing, just click on "Save to my computer". You will then be given lots of options for the saved format including several choices for the quality of wmv (video size, bit rate, etc.)

It's free, you've probably already got it, and the ability to edit and/or add title screens is a bonus. I use it all the time.

Movie maker works well, although not practical if you have a bazillion of them to do. SP1 version crashed often for me. SP2 seemed to fix most of it.

Most of the video forums I've visited recomend NOT using the codec packs because they can interfere with each other. Unfortunately codecs seem to work differently on different computers so it's tough to recomend specific ones.

I just hosted my daughters sweet 16 party this last weekend and ran into the same problem. The video showed up in the bottom left corner of my monitor but not on the audience monitors. I could not drag it, just expand it. Luckily nobody wanted to do Karaoke, so I just used Microsoft Media Player. I do not know what a codec is. But, I noticed that someone said they just changed the .AVI to .WMP. Is that all there is to it? Or is there a certain proceedure I need to follow?

Probably, the last time that you used Hoster you were using it with the secondary display inactive. When you do that Hoster save the last setting that you used so when you opened it again, it opened with that last setting, then you played the video...my experience is that there is no way to resize the Hoster's secondary display window when you are playing videos, you have to reposition and resize it with a .kma playing. After you do so you can play videos and they will be display with your last setting. :c

Sounds like a top tip, I'll give it a try
Paul