Problem Importing Customers Discs

[Harryoke]

Hello! My first real post on the board. I frequent some other online forums, but since I am using Hoster now, and encountering some obstacles, I figured I would share my experience here and see what advice I can get from the horses mouth!

Sorry for the long post here, but I wanted to give an outline of my experience vs expectations for clarity.

I am operating Hoster on a portable PC which I got from MTU. I got the portable PC with the suite pre installed, 2 200 gig drives and all the RAM upgrades etc...

My plan is to use one HD for DJ music and one for karaoke. I have loaded 600 discs into the karaoke library (with minimal errors!) and have also learned to overcome the last track import issue with the Microstudio "let it hang up then abort" trick.

I have not yet installed a DJ program, as I want to be sure the karaoke will go smoothly before commiting, but I do have Winamp installed to play music files. My idea was to have Winamp play a musical bed of bumper music under Hoster. Each is directed to its own sound card.

My biggest headache with Hoster is importing customers tracks at the show. You cannot import a customers track with Winamp running or the winamp music skips, so I will eliminate this option for conversational purposes and concentrate on using Hoster as it was designed.

I should be able to start a singer and import a track from a singers disc into the queue at the same time, but I have great troubles.

Doug suggested upgrading to 3.110 which I have done. I used it Sunday night with no problem, but I had no customers bring their own discs either.

Monday night the discs came, along with the headaches and stress...

First disc to import was a customers burn. When I tried to import it, I never got the progress box with the blue bar showing the progress, the music kept running fine on the karaoke player, but the graphics hung up on the display. I asked the customer what brand of disc it was and how it was made (compilation vs copy etc...) and he had no clue, so I gave him his disc back and told him to pick one from the book. So I wanted to eliminate that disc variable since I cant tell you what it was...could have possibly been a problem with his disc...who knows?

Next disc was a burned copy of a PHM disc. Imported the track with no problem.

Next disc was a 300 series chartbuster country disc. Could not import and would not even start to try. It just ignored any efforts. I put the disc in the drive, clicked the CDG tab, typed in the track # and name of the singer, clicked the import tab and nothing. No response.

Same situation on Zoom 29...the Blues Brothers disc.

I tried importing both while the karaoke was playing and while it was not.

So my personal experience so far with the PC conversion is that it is frustrating if you have shows where the customers bring in their own discs. I find myself having to either wire up the CDG player to accomodate them, or put a CD in the CD player to free up the PC resources while I attempt to import their track.

My customer with the Blues Brothers disc is a reg, so I tried to import his entire disc during the show. He was there in costume waiting to sing... Legalities aside, in an act of desperation I put on a CD and downloaded his disc to Hoster to get it to play and I had to play 5 songs while I waited.

I am one of those hosts who gets an awful lot of customers bringing their own discs...lots of SC, Chartbusters, Top Tunes and other protected brands...and lots of burns. I am a believer that progress for me should not compromise customer service for my singers. I will not refuse to play my customers discs, and I hope that whatever problems I am having in this area can be overcome. The most common solution I hear is "keep a CDG player hooked up just in case" . This is not an option to me. One of my biggest reasons for going to PC was to downsize my load and make setup/breakdown easier, but having to keep a cdg player hooked up makes my load no lighter and my set up more complicated.

If I must keep a CDG player hooked up, it is a lot easier for me to throw my 2 boxes of discs on the table next to me than it is to set up my PC in the same spot and run the monitor and power wires as well as 2 patches to the mixer, etc....

Unfortunately, for that reason, I have been keeping my PC at home and just using it for private parties or shows that dont get a lot of customers bringing their own discs. I was hoping my upgrade to 3.110 this weekend would resolve that issue, but alas it is not so.

Is anyone else having this issue, and if so, what resolutions are you undertaking?

As to the product itself, when it works well it is great! I would probably have no complaint if I did not have to play customers discs. My experience with Doug thru the design, purchase and support issues was exemplary. I cant say enough great things about Doug. I got a lot of info and help from him.

[Beavis]

so your saying that just certain songs wont import while a singer is up singing ?? or all cd-g's wont ipmort while people are singing ??

you can play music files through hoster or just use the windows media player if you dont want to purchase DJ software.

[Harryoke]

It appears to be certain discs, but I am not seeing a rhyme or reason yet. I can understand if it is multisession or copy protected. I am not happy about it but I can understand, LOL! I am under the impression that should only affect the last track, but I am getting discs in the drawer and having them hang up on any track. And it can hang up the graphics on the person singing! That is frustrating.

Then there are times when all goes smooth...but not usually. My blood pressure goes up 10 points everytime I see a customers disc at one of my PC driven shows...just wondering what is gonna hang up.

Of course if I hang up Hoster and have to restart it, I loose all the other imported tracks in the queue.

I will need to set it up at the house and play with it to see what variable I can come up with, but I am 7 nights a week till August so any testing on my end wont happen till then...

Thanks Beavis.

[Beavis]

you will not lose all the songs in queue if hoster crashes.

i for one will not play burned cd's that customers bring in.

[Harryoke]

Originally Posted by Beavis

you will not lose all the songs in queue if hoster crashes.

Thats what I thought too, but it did happen last night. I had one track enqueued from a customers disc and about four others from the KMAs, had to kill hoster, restarted and had to re-rip the customers disc.

[Beavis]

oh you mean you had imported their disc's and lost them when you rebooted. that sounds right.


bryan,
is this the way it works ? anything you import at the time of a show from patrons will be deleted if you have to reboot the computer ?

[Harryoke]

Didnt have to reboot, just had to re-start Hoster to get out of the lockup.

[George]

Copied from the Hoster manual:

You can add songs directly into your open Playlist from CDG discs Singers bring to your show.

You can import as many CDG songs as you want. They are stored as a KMA format to reduce space. These are NOT added to the Songs Database, and do not appear in your next Song Book.

You follow Copyright Law. In the USA, you cannot legally keep songs on your hard drive from discs you do not own. This Hoster feature imports CDG songs to a temporary folder on the hard drive and automatically deletes them when any of these events happen:

1-The song finishes playing
2-You delete the song from the Playlist
3-You open another Playlist
4-You exit Hoster before the songs have played

The songs are NOT deleted if the computer crashes as part of our Crash Recovery security and will play in the order they were in when the Project re-opens to continue your show.

George

[Beavis]

thanks george,

i didnt have time to reference the manual at the time of posting.

[mindonstrike]

Giving Harry advice on copyright law does not help with the problem at hand.
I think he pretty well indicated it was an act of desparation so his regular singer could perform from his disk - even to the point of having to put his show on hold.

I imported several songs into the playlist while winamp was running in the back ground and didn't suffer the same maladies, however,taskmgr indicated my processor was running at 100% during the process so I may have been right on the verge.

Harry maybe you could post some computer specs for us.

As for disks that won't import: Except for a slightly warped disk one time, I've never had one not at least try(my player wouldn't recognize it either). I've had a few that were extremely slow (some burns/ some originals) to import, to the point that I had to eject them and crash Hoster to get the next song started.

Songs imported to the playlist are supposed to still be there when you recover from a crash even if you have to reboot.Often times I have imported songs hang around 2 or 3 days before they finally disapear.
I have no idea why yours would not still be there.

Sorry I can't offer any solid suggestions to help (except maybe turn off winamp while importing). Hopefully someone smarter than I can help.

Sam

[George]

Sam,

Instead of getting judgemental, if you'd take time to read the post quoting the manual, then you would see that it explains the protection given the temporary files in the event of a crash, and clearly defines under what conditions they would become deleted, and why. This addressed part of HARRYOKE'S concern.

Your opening sarcasm is uncalled for. He was not being given advice on copywrite law.

George

[Harryoke]

First off, thanks Guys!!

Second, here are some PC specs:
Portable PC (has 2.8GHz pentium 4 installed as well!)
1024MB Ram
128MB Video card, w/tv and svideo outputs
Plextor 712 DVDRW
(2) 200GB, 7200 rpm hard drives
Logitech Keyboard and cordless mouse
Flatscreen LCD Monitor
MTU Hoster 3.0 pre installed and upgraded to 3.110
2nd Sound card (for winamp or dj program)

3rd...no offense taken here...I picked up that the copyright statement came from the manual and was not aimed at me. I am a vocal opponent to piracy, I only mentioned what I did to be candid about any possible problems. I was relating that the disc (Zoom 29) imported (albeit Sllllooooowly) when I tried to import the disc, but would not give me the singers track when I used the proper method.

4th and final...I have never had a problem with Hoster losing tracks in the queue from singers disc, but on the July 4th show that prompted the original post, I did have the experience of losing one. Will I be able to duplicate that experience? I dont know. But I did import the customers track, then tried to import the original track that held things up and it jammed up the works again, so I restarted hoster and the other track I imported for him was no longer in the queue. The KMAs were, but the CDG was not. I wont be able to play with it to try and recreate that situation for awhile, but I dont think it will be a regular issue and dont want to dwell on it too heavily, just mentioned it in the interest of honesty and giving as much info as I can to possibly recognize what my problem may be.

Did I say thanks? LOL! Thanks guys!

[PastMember]

I'll bet you dollars-to-doughnuts that it's the difference between a Plextor CD-rw and the DVD-rw (Plextor 712 DVDRW). Especially when it comes down to attempting to play a customer's burned disc. And/or I'll bet if you used cdrwin (only because you can't specify this in MicroStudio) to copy a track to your drive via sectors and then play it back, it wouldn't be a problem.

[mindonstrike]

George

Your opening sarcasm is uncalled for. He was not being given advice on copywrite law.

George,
I apologize, I did not wish to appear sarcastic, and If I missunderstood your post I apologize for that as well.

Chip, why do you suggest it's the DVD? are they more resource hungry than a CD drive?

Sam

[George]

Sam,

No problem here. I'd already dismissed it.

It's another example of this necessary communication media's shortcoming.

Things that would be said and laughed at if sitting around a table eyeball to eyeball, seem to take on a whole new character of their own when viewed as a printed word.

I apologize also if I overreacted.

Take care,

George

[George]

Originally Posted by Harryoke

But I did import the customers track, then tried to import the original track that held things up and it jammed up the works again, so I restarted hoster and the other track I imported for him was no longer in the queue.

I've been giving this a lot of thought and am ready to go out on a limb with a possible theory. I may be as wrong as rain, but it's been bugging me.

The program is designed to save any temp. KMA files in the event of a CRASH.

The program does not save those files if the program is SHUT DOWN.

So, what constitutes a crash as far as the program is concerned? I think that may be the answer to what Harry is experiencing.

When Hoster closes of it's own accord, and you get the Microsoft crash notice, that definately is a crash, and the temp files will be saved.

What happens though, if you get a multisession disc that won't read, hangs up, and the operator SHUTS DOWN?

Consider that Hoster was up and running, hung up or not, and was shut down by the operator. Does that place the unplayed temp files under the area where they are unprotected and lost?

If so, then the program is functioning as designed, and perhaps MTU needs to do some more work in that area.

I think we need MTU to define what a crash is where the program is concerned.

George

[PastMember]

Chip, why do you suggest it's the DVD? are they more resource hungry than a CD drive?

Simple.

From the specs he has about his computer system, there's really nothing else that could be causing this problem. Unless it's all configured really badly (highly doubtful since the machine was configured by MTU), he only has problems when using the drive. There are some VERY distinct differences between DVD and CD Rom drives, add to the fact that some of these customers bring in a burnt discs makes it even worse—like the speed of the burn vs the media it's on, head "drift" based on the age of the burner, etc.


A. He has plenty of memory.

B. Lots of processor power

C. Runs very little in the background.

D. Only crashes when the drive is in use. AND the drive seems to be crashing the peripheral software (winamp).


One other problem here could be winamp itself. IF it's battling hoster for more dynamic memory as it's running, then the party's all over there for winamp. Hoster is using as little memory as it can without compromising playing a track. When you import a track (temporarily), that's a LOT of data that has to be read off a disc in a fairly short time and hoster will attempt to allocate whatever it can find (that's not already in use) for this purpose. IF winamp is doing the same thing (at the same time) then a virtual memory "tug-of-war" is in the works and winamp's losing—and crashing out.

My machine isn't as robust as Harry's yet I run a LOT more in the background and never have a hiccup.

I have 512mb RAM, a 2.4ghz processor, 2 sound cards and running at the same time I have:

1. Hoster

2. BPM Studio (a full-fledged DJ program that "rolls" music constantly in the background)

3. C.O.R.E. Media Player - this allows me to pop up and play full-screen video at any time. (for things like PSA's or just funny videos, MUCH better than Windows media player)

4. SongFinder Reciever — A program that "floats" above hoster and recieves song request from singers via a wireless network. (this program alone, "polls the network" every 3 seconds for new requests and has NEVER interferred with hoster.)

So, I am in effect, doing more with far fewer resources than Harry. For what he has, it has to be narrowed down to the DVD drive.

[George]

The two go hand in hand.

What Chip is saying could be causing the hang up in the program, and what I'm suspecting regarding shutting down could be the reason for the loss of the temp files.

George

[mindonstrike]

Harry another possibility would be that you've got unnecesary stuff running in the background. Take a look at processes in taskmngr and see if you've got stuff that using needed resources. The file names tend to be rather cryptic so it can be hard to tell whats necesary or not. I've got mine down to about 22 processes and 100mb (before Hoster and Winamp).

Sam

[Harryoke]

OK, heres the latest from last nights show. I was not anticipating a lot of customers with their own discs at this show so I figured I would try it...

Hooked up PC, no extra processes running, just Hoster and Winamp. Things wer groovin along pretty good until someone brought up a disc...Pocket Songs.

I got a singer going, and turned off Winamp. I attempted to import the track and got NO response and no hangup. I ejected the disc and tried again. No luck. I put a CD in the CD player (not the PC) and attempted to import without Hoster playing a song...no luck. Ended up playing the disc on my JVC. (sigh).

Now, sometimes I can import and sometimes I cant...so it is not like the CDROM is broken or something like that. Perhaps it is a setting or the way the CDROM is configured with windows or something (an autostart setting or some other reason why Hoster is not talking to it sometimes).

Maybe in August I can hook it up at the house and do some specific things and check some settings while online or on the phone with someone at MTU. Until then, it is not helping me much in the field and causes me more stress than anything.