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.
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.
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.
