Can not import songs

[kevinkennedy]

I just purchesed the hoster program and when I try to import hard drive cdg or mp3g files. I get a dialog box that tells me to select brand name.

No matter what I use *Custom assembly*, my own name whatever. As soon as I click the add files button, the Brand box goes empty and the dialog box comes back.

Also, when this happens, the seperating charactor field boxes change to other caractors. IE. from _ to _-_

Please help.
Can't use the program, anxious to get it running.

Kevin Kennedy

[lmcmains]

What brand name files are they? As in chartbuster, soundchoice ect.

[mindonstrike]

What version are you running?
There was a glitch in an earlier version that caused this or something similiar, but that should not be an issue if you've got 3.313

Sam

[kevinkennedy]

It's the latest version, just downloaded it.


The files are from many different brand names, these files were from a 15 SCDG set I bought from a local music supply house. They range from 300 to 900 tracks per disc and have been converted to hard drive tracks with the disk#,track#, name, artist info in the filename.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by kevinkennedy

It's the latest version, just downloaded it.


The files are from many different brand names, these files were from a 15 SCDG set I bought from a local music supply house. They range from 300 to 900 tracks per disc and have been converted to hard drive tracks with the disk#,track#, name, artist info in the filename.

Some SCDGs are in the database. However at present you are going to run into a problem in that Hoster currently only imports up to 99 tracks/files per DiskID, so if you have more than 99 in the folder with the same DiskID it will not load correctly. This also includes the Custom Assembly too.

Try putting the first 99 in a separate folder, enter the correct brand name and use the add songs from database. See if they don't show up.

Also check to make sure your separators match correctly. You can change what Hoster is looking for from the dropdown on each of them if your files don't match what is there as default.

[kevinkennedy]

The disk id is not the problem, even if I delete the disk id, disc id and track#,. I've done all that, I have deleted the track and disk id info from the file names leaving only track [Title ] and artist and Hoster still acts the same way. Demanding a brand name. Even when I have "custom assembly" or any of the others set.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by kevinkennedy

The disk id is not the problem, even if I delete the disk id, disc id and track#,. I've done all that, I have deleted the track and disk id info from the file names leaving only track and artist and Hoster still acts the same way. Demanding a brand name. Even when I have "custom assembly" or any of the others set.

Hoster has to have a brand name, discid, and track number. Since brand name is not part of the filename it will ask you for a brand name. Deleting the discid and track # from the filename isn't going to change that.

[kevinkennedy]

Then what good would "Custom assembly" or "unknown brand" be? what are they used for for?

Even the manual says to use the custom assembly if you dont know the brand name or if your choosing seperate tracks. Here is what it says.
(Quote)
There are several Special Brand Names you can select if you do not know the Manufacturer who produced the song:

• *Custom Assembly* - Use this if you made a custom disc with your favorite songs and no longer know the original Brands and DiscID's.
• *KHProducer Made* - Use this if you created your own songs using MTU's Karaoke Pro or Karaoke Home Producer software.
• *Private Reserve of Mine* - Use this for whatever you want to.
• *Unknown Brand* - Use this if you have no idea where the song came from.

(end quote)
That was the whole reason I bought this software.
I imported some of these files using the demo and it worked fine. I have over 11,000 tracks that I need to import to this program to make it work for me.

[gduns - with the Lord]

The Whole purpose of the brand name and the disk number is so it can fill in the title and artist for you. Certianly you dont want to type in all this by hand.

[ddouglass]

Before I get into trying to answer you I have a couple questions.
Are all these 11,000 files you are trying to import in one folder?

Are they all named exactly the same way with the _ (underscore) or is it a space?

Originally Posted by kevinkennedy

No matter what I use *Custom assembly*, my own name whatever. As soon as I click the add files button, the Brand box goes empty and the dialog box comes back.

Also, when this happens, the seperating charactor field boxes change to other caractors. IE. from _ to _-_

If all your files are in one folder then the import routine is asking for the brand name for the next DiscID and has changed the separator back to the "default" for the filename order you checked. This is why you keep seeing the dialog come up.

Originally Posted by kevinkennedy

The files are from many different brand names, these files were from a 15 SCDG set I bought from a local music supply house. They range from 300 to 900 tracks per disc and have been converted to hard drive tracks with the disk#,track#, name, artist info in the filename.

Again I point out that for each DiscID and corresponding BookID you can only import 99 song files.

Originally Posted by kevinkennedy

Then what good would "Custom assembly" or "unknown brand" be? what are they used for for?
That was the whole reason I bought this software.
I imported some of these files using the demo and it worked fine. I have over 11,000 tracks that I need to import to this program to make it work for me.

Those are valid "brand names" too. I wasn't saying they weren't. If you use a custom brand name you will need to assign a DiscID (can't be the same one used by the SCDG as that will be recognized by the database) for each 99 files with tracks 1 - 99.

[kevinkennedy]

Hi Ddouglass
No, there are 15 folders named DK01 thru DK15 that were created using CDGFix Super.

Yes, the file names are all the same and look like this DK01_01_songname_artistname.cdg With DK01 being disk# 1 and the _01_ being the track# etc.

The folders are copies of the 15 SCDG disks the way they were recorded.
Some have 900 songs and some have 300 songs.

I don't understand the 99 track limit thing, the software tells you that if you remove the disk id it will import all tracks. It say's
(Quote)
You are trying to import over 99 tracks and tells you to remove the disk id from the track name so Hoster can assign it's own numbers.
(end quote)

And it will, however on my software it only takes in about 160 tracks or so and then stops and askes for the brand name. It does copy the track name, track# and artist properly, but it stops before importing them all to prepare for conversion to Hoster format.

[ddouglass]

Kevin, the 99 limit is because the KMA header is set for only 2 digits for the track part of the BookID. Therefore it can only handle 99 tracks per disc. The only way around it is to only put 99 in the folder and renumber the tracks from 1-99.

Even if you remove the DiscID you have to tell Hoster what the brand name (custom assembly) and the DiscID you want to assign for those 99. I have done this with the 2 SCDGs I have and what happens if you have more than 99 is it will overwrite the tracks you have already imported. For example if I import track 101 then the BookID changes to xxxx01 overwriting track 01.

This is supposed to be fixed by MTU in the next major version but that won't be out for a while yet.

[cbr929pilot]

I'm stuck at the same situation.

I hope there is a new release soon. I have 3 SCDG disk I would like to back up on my HDD AND to get a faster reponse time from playing them back.

Thank

[admin]

Originally Posted by kevinkennedy

don't understand the 99 track limit thing, the software tells you that if you remove the disk id it will import all tracks. It say's
(Quote)
You are trying to import over 99 tracks and tells you to remove the disk id from the track name so Hoster can assign it's own numbers.
(end quote)

And it will, however on my software it only takes in about 160 tracks or so and then stops and askes for the brand name. It does copy the track name, track# and artist properly, but it stops before importing them all to prepare for conversion to Hoster format.

Kevin, your reports contain excellent details, and you are understanding the operatino correctly... I think, but not yet sure. It appears there may be a bug in 3.313. Since we are on 3.314 now, I'm very interesting in diagnosing if there is a bug, and we'll fix it.

QUESTION #1: Are you saying that Hoster 3.313 does properly import 160 files from the folder, saving them as KMA files?

QUESTION #2: Or, are you saying it is somehow identifying 160, but not importing them? If this is the case, please be very specific and give us the Field Formats you are entering and an example filename you selected.

Originally Posted by cbr929pilot

I hope there is a new release soon. I have 3 SCDG disk I would like to back up on my HDD AND to get a faster reponse time from playing them back.

Are you using CDGFix Super to convert your SCDG imported tracks into MP3+G file pairs (.mp3 + .cdg)? If not, we don't import SCDG custom format discs directly, and won't for some time to come (if ever).

Please post exactly what you are expecting the next release to do for YOU so we can try to meet your needs. Please don't say "import SCDG tracks" as I have covered that above. I'm looking for specific details what you want to do.

[kevinkennedy]

Hi
There is definitly a bug or 2 in the software I have, So if you have a new version send it to me before I wast any more time on this.

I have spent many hours importing thousands of tracks and quite frankly I'm kinda ticked off. I bought this software with the impression that it was tried and tested and now I'm finding that is maybe not the case. If I'm going to do your beta testing for you, then you charged me WAY TOO MUCH MONEY. Take a moment to look at my purchase history with MTU.

Now that I got that off my chest let's get down to solving these issues.

First I will answer your questions and clear up a previous statement that I made that was incorrect.

Answer to Question #1 I meant that it would load those tracks into the track list window, but I was wrong about the number of tracks due to the way it pulled them from the hard drive folder. It was really loading only 99 tracks but the last track number in the track list window was 160 due to the way it looked at the track #'s. This also covers Question #2

At first I was having problems for 2 reasons, 1 being I didn't fully understand the software and the Manual is not very clear about some things, and 2 is because my software has issues.

The problems I am having with the software at this point are.

(In this example I am trying to import 901 tracks from 1 folder named SCDG01 refering to the first SCDG of my colection) IE. SCDG01 to SCDG15

1. It makes no diff. if I choose batch or single the software does the same thing, it will take the first 99 tracks (From HD) and load them to the track list window.

2. The SCDG tracks were copied to HD using CDGFix and the structure is Disk ID_Track_Title_Artist.mp3 and I am using
(Define field order ingnore_track_title_artist)
As soon as you click on the add tracks button. the define field order seperators change from_ to_-_ so they have to be reset every time you load the next 99. Also the Brand box changes from *Custom assembly* to blank so that it has to be reset for every 99.

3. The book ID root does not change nor does it allow you to change it (it stays faded out). So what I ended up with is this.
15 folders containing all tracks from the SCDG's converted to .kma
So I do have all the tracks on the HD but the songbook will only see the first 99 tracks of each folder. IE. I end up with about 8400 .kma tracks but the songbook will only see about 1500 of them.

I hope that helps. Now since you asked, here are my thoughts on next versions.

First of all we need to realize that standard CDG's are a thing of the past and have been for a while. Anyone who is serious about this is either using HD files for their shows (I used Microstudio to convert mine) or at least super cdg's if they havn't yet figured out that they can extract SCDG data with the proper software.

(And by the way, for those of you who are reading this, the proper software will extract ALL track info from SCDG's, track, title, artist, etc. There is no need for any database, freedb etc.)

Dump that 99 track limit and allow batch conversion that will auto number the tracks after given a brand (*Cutom assembly*) disk id (My disk 1) and starting track # (001).

As I understand it now, I will have to redo all these tracks and will have to change the diskid for every 99 tracks IE. DiskID SCDG01-1 for the first 99 and SCDG01-02 for the next, please correct me if I am wrong.

Thank you,
Kevin Kennedy

[lmcmains]

First of all we need to realize that standard CDG's are a thing of the past and have been for a while. Anyone who is serious about this is either using HD files for their shows (I used Microstudio to convert mine) or at least super cdg's if they havn't yet figured out that they can extract SCDG data with the proper software.

I disagree with this. I for one still buy the CDG's. They are a good back up. I know lots of other KJ's that run "Hoster" and still buy CDG's. I never have any problems when I import CDG disc's. I've been a KJ for a long time and I still think it's still the best format to buy. That's just my 2 cents about formats.

[gduns - with the Lord]

I disagree with this. I for one still buy the CDG's. They are a good back up. I know lots of other KJ's that run "Hoster" and still buy CDG's. I never have any problems when I import CDG disc's. I've been a KJ for a long time and I still think it's still the best format to buy. That's just my 2 cents about formats

Ditto that.

I have to bite my tongue to keep from posting to this thread, I think the 99 track limit is a reasonable thing. I won't buy scdg's because of the fact if one gets cracked, or scratched, you are out much more than the 15.00 you have to pay now for a replacement. I dont see an over-abundance of kj's beating the door's down to buy them, or they wouldnt be still making cdg's.

Hoster was created as it is with the 99 track limit from the feedback of the thousands of hoster users. Maybe instead of being critical if you took a poll of the users who would like to change it to larger limit it could be done

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by gduns

Ditto that.

I have to bite my tongue to keep from posting to this thread, I think the 99 track limit is a reasonable thing. I won't buy scdg's because of the fact if one gets cracked, or scratched, you are out much more than the 15.00 you have to pay now for a replacement. I dont see an over-abundance of kj's beating the door's down to buy them, or they wouldnt be still making cdg's.

Hoster was created as it is with the 99 track limit from the feedback of the thousands of hoster users. Maybe instead of being critical if you took a poll of the users who would like to change it to larger limit it could be done

Gary I agree with you, except that some of us were unfortunately taken in by CAVS that may have had a good idea, but whose equipment and software really is very sub-quality. So to try to recoup some of our losses we have to turn to the great guys at MTU who at least listen to their customers far more than any other company.

Kevin, I have been there and just as frustrated as you with this particular situation. MTU has proposed a couple of solutions and I know one way or another they will come through but thiese kind of programming changes do not come over night. I don't know how you can say that they sold you a defective program because Hoster does work exactly as advertised.

[Beavis]

dale are you telling me i bought a defective program ??


can i get a refund admin ????

original purchase price $465 if i remember correctly.

then i can re-buy and save a bundle !

what is it now ?? about a buck and a half ??

[ddouglass]

Beavis....that is more than one line....you are ruining your reputation!