Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

Good day -
My wife and I, KJ locally and use the Hoster program with the recommendation of a very good KJ Friend.

My problem is that in our first set up over a year ago, we did not pay too much attention to detail on where KMA/KMH were stored and now that I am getting ready to install Hoster on a back up Laptop, I am running into many inconstencies that are driving me batty.

In our first setup:

1. Disks that were originally imported into Hoster had been saved as KMA files in the C:/MTU/KMA directory.
2. All of the KMH files were imported from many different file folders from a User directory and reside along with the original HD/Zip files in those folders.

As you are probably aware, KMA files run in Hoster without the need of the MP3-CDG file. In contrast, KMH files are really only a short cut to the original HD/Zip file that must reside in the same folder as the KMH files for Hoster to find and play.

For space, but mostly simplicity, I would like to:

• Remove all of the original music files off Laptop A & B and store them only on our back up HD.
• Have all of our Hoster music saved a single folder in the C: directory and preferrably as KMA files to ease duplication from laptop A to laptop B.

Is there an "easy" fix for turning our current KMH files into KMA files??

Is there a reason that HD/Zip files can not be imported as KMA files without having to convert to a BIN file first?

Thanks in advance for your time to read and any assistance you may be able to offfer. :)

Sam
Duet Ent.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

Currently MP3+G cannot be imported as KMA files. There was a request with lots of support back before version 4 was produced to keep from needing to keep two copies of of the music (KMA and the MP3+G) to cut down on space used on hard drive specially for laptops.
MTU set this up so that all of the previously compressed file types (MP3+G, WMA+G, ZIP, etc) would get a small header file (256 bytes) added (KMH) which would conserve space on the hard drive.
My method of setup is to create two folders. One is all my KMA files and the other contains all my MP3+G along with their associated KMH files. This way it isn't spread out all over the place , being contained in one of two locations.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

Dale - Thank you for your comment.
Your set up is exactly what I had come up with as well when I realized that the KMH files would not play without it's original Music files (MP3+G or ZIP) in the same folder location.

I would still love to hear what others have done to see if something else may work for me...

Sam
Duet Ent.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

HD/Zip files can be converted to kma with songverter but the problem is you have no way to control how it names or numbers the files in Hoster, it can then take a lot of work editing the information after. They have to be added to the rebuild list using the ADD button.
If you wanted to try it just put a small amount in a test folder to see the type of results you get. It depends somewhat on the way your files are named.

Dales suggestion is the best. To keep it as simple as possible if all your HD/Zip files are in different folders, copy all their contents into one folder.
Having said this my own are like yours spread in many different folders but I have my own reasons for this and are happy to leave them that way.:w

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

If you move all your zip files into one folder, wouldn't you have to do a "rebuild database"?. Also, if you have one folder for the zips and then add 12 new ones, how do you add only those to the database? I have been making subset folders with the new adds and selecting only that folder to add to database and I would like to get all the zips at one level.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

After moving the HD/Zip music files, yes, you will need to rebuild the song database otherwise Hoster will not know where to look for your files.

It is also my understanding that when you add new songs in a single folder, the rebuild checks for duplicates first and adds only songs not already in the song database.

Please correct me if I am mistaken.
Sam
Duet Ent.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

Correct, but duplicates in this case means same disk id and track #, not necessarily same song title and artist.

Getting back to the original question as to keeping your database easy. If you create a folder on your external hard drive to hold all your Hoster song files, you can create a number of sub folders within the main folder. This would still keep things nice and tidy so you know where to look for them. If you do it this way you would have to list all the sub folders in the rebuild list then rebuild the list. Later if you want to use the add files feature be sure to move the folders with the new files in to the main folder before using the Add feature.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

I think the whole KMH vs KMA file types have just confused people. At least I am. All my files are KMA direct from CD+G but if I understand correctly if I am going to import any zip karaoke zip files then I will have to put all my zip files into the same folder where my KMA files are stored.

I just tried importing a zip file as a KMA file and it worked just fine. I am not sure what the dirrerence is now. I though the KMH was the only choice you could pick if you were importing zip files. I also thought the KMH will allow a smaller file size but since you have to add the zip files to your destination folder then I don't see what the advantage is.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

No you do not have to have them in the same folder as your Kma files.
You can have a seperate folder or multiple folders, it's your choice.

The option to allow you a choice of whether to use KMA or KMH again is yours.
The advantage with kmh files is if you already have a lot of zip,mp3+g or even none karaoke files the kmh file uses very little extra storage space to index your files and is far quicker importing them plus KMH files do NOT duplicate the original files which other programs can use. The kma file can only be used in Hoster, and in the case of a zip or mp3+g file if you import them as Kma you now have doubled your storage space unless you delete the original zip or mp3+g file.
Also the importing time is far longer for kma as it is rewriting the whole file, depending on the speed of your computer a KMH file will index a song in about 1.5 seconds against kma taking 30 seconds per song.
If you are only importing about 20 songs not a lot of difference but multiply this by 10,000 and there is a huge difference.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

To add to that the only ones that must be KMH now are video types.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

Well I thought I had this whole thing figured out but I don't so here is what I did. I created a folder call karaoke music, I put my folder containing all my KMA files in there then created another folder containing all my zip files. I then went to import, and tried importing all my zip files which it did but with thousands of duplicate book id's.
I thought I would just wind up with a lot of dupliactes then I would try and weed out the KMA ones and keep the smaller KMH files.

Afterward I went to verify all my songs were still there and it seems that some songs were actually gone. I don't know why. Bottom line is I spent all day trying to get my file sizes under control but wound up just deleting all the zip files back out before I lost all my KMA files in the process.

Is this problem because of the duplicate book id's? Could I delete the song database and start all over.

Heck I don't even know if I am explaining this right.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

By the statement I highlighted it seem you are still misunderstanding the size issue of kma & kmh. There is no real size difference, I was only saying that if you import your zip files as KMA then you have 2 copies of the same song, 1 kma and still the original zip.

If you have all your existing files that you imported via disc as kma then keep them at that. (I hope you haven't deleted these from your hard drive):e Assuming you are using 5.05 and have not actually deleted your kma files from your hard drive follow this to get back to your original configuration.
Open the Build songs database dialog (Tools/Songs Database/Build Database) In the bottom left window below the add folders button where your folders are listed, Highlight the folder or folders containing your zip files then press the Exclude folders button, this will remove those folders from the rebuild but not delete any files from your hard drive.
Now make sure the folders containing all your original kma files are still in the list, you can see if any of the folders are empty by highlighting them and their contents will be displayed in the right hand panel.
Assuming all your kma files are still present press the rebuild button.
This should at least get you back to where you were before you tried importing the zips.
Let us know if this is successfull before continuing to try and import zip files. Then we will try and guide you on.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

This was successful.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

Glad to know your back with all your original songs.
If you still want to import zip files to your database bear in mind the Merge duplicates button won't merge files that have an identicle DiscID to files that already exist in your database, it only merges songs that have an identicle Book Id.

Now to avoid the chance of importing these duplicated Disc Id's I would say it's best to import them from the Index HD Files dialog (Import Songs tab then Index HD Files button) rather than the quicker Build songs database dialog, this is more time consuming way but will enable you to check the files before they actually import. Also select the Single rather than the Batch option again so you can monitor what is being indexed.

Now if you don't care if it imports duplicated songs you can set the Field & track seperator boxes for Disc ID and Track to Ignore, then either enter your own unique Disc Id in the box for DscID (this could be the original Disk id but with an added # or letter on the end to make it different from your existing) or leave Hoster to create it's own which would be something like XYZxxxx. It will then import upto 99 tracks per BookID.

Should you not want it importing Discid you already have then select the Disc id and track fields in the seperator boxes correct then check before pressing the import button that the disc ID is not already in your database. I'm not sure, you may see a message that the disc id is already in use other wise manually check before importing. When you find the duplicated files you may want to open the folder in explorer and either move them to another folder or delete them so that they do not keep appearing in the import list.

One other point before you try re-importing these zips, Open the folder containing them in explorer, if they have the kmh files still with them from your previous attempt at importing them, delete the kmh file. To make this easier right click in window select Sort By Choose "Type" if you don't see Type listed select "More" then tick the option in that dialog.
This should list all the kmh files seperated from the zip making it easier to delete multiple selections.

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

[quote=Roy Dennis;110165]

Now to avoid the chance of importing these duplicated Disc Id's I would say it's best to import them from the Index HD Files dialog (Import Songs tab then Index HD Files button) rather than the quicker Build songs database dialog, this is more time consuming way but will enable you to check the files before they actually import. Also select the Single rather than the Batch option again so you can monitor what is being indexed.

I just purchased a large amount of songs in .zip format. Here is my question. Based on what you said above it is best to import them from the Index HD files dialog box.

Also I was under the impression that if I had all my files in one folder all I would have to do is scan that one folder and in would scan all the folders that were inside and include all the files. Now I am thinking that I have to included each and every folder that contains files???

Re: Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH
 

Yes. because you can monitor what is going to import.
You can have all your zip files in 1 folder, if you have multiple sub-folders in the main folder you can put a tick in the "Include Sub-folders" box and it will find all the files in those sub folders.
When it imports them they will then be listed in the "Build Database" list in separate folders. If you rebuild the database afterwards it will build the database on all the files that are listed. The Rescan button only works on the folders that you select in the list along with the type of file you highlight, For example if none of the type buttons are selected it will just scan for previously indexed kma & kmh files, but if you were to select the zip type button it would add any of these to the database but it would probably only enter them as the file name and not separate all the artist & title fields correct and possibly duplicate Disc Id's. If the mp3 part of the files have their ID3 tags correct it will list them correct but from my experience not many ripped karaoke tracks have any id3 tags data.

It depends a bit on how your zip files are stored, with mine each Disc ID has its own folder which creates a long list in the Build database folders list. You can just have all your zips in a single folder then it will only list a single folder in the Build database list.
It's something you will have to decide yourself what 's best for you.

You could just do a test run via the build database dialog, highlight the zip type button and use the Add folder button to add it to the list, it will index that folder, then open your edit dialog or use you search button to see if it indexed the artist and title correct if not delete the info via the Edit dialog and proceed by using the import hd files dialog as mentioned before.

You can make a backup before you start of your complete Hoster folder,(Found in C:/MTU/Hoster) Its only about 140mb, thats what I do, then if things go wrong replace the complete Hoster folder that contains all your playlists, songs.mdb & singers .mdb etc.