Got Hoster, got laptop...now what??

[George]

Jonocolin asked:

Which good KJ buys bad commercial discs?

Bad commercial CDG's can be bought in any brand by anybody, and there's no way of telling until you play it.

You mean to say you've never never played a commercially produced cdg that had a letter here ot there half misssing, or a random piece of junk on the screen?

That's generally a sign of poor media.

That's what I was referring to as a bad disc, and faster burns on good media can in many instances clear it up.

George

[gduns - with the Lord]

Jonocolin.
George is right. I have ran 1300+ through my plextor, and have very few failures at max speed. always bad media.

[admin]

Originally posted by starfire
I purchased the Hoster program for running my shows from a laptop. I went and purchased a laptop that met all the requirements as listed on the website. Now apparently I need to get a CDG burner?? When I bought the laptop...they sold me a DVD burner and said it was capable so I was not concerned. Now here I am ..thousands of dollars later - installed the Hoster program and it says NO for Karaoke. So I looked on the site for a solution- apparently I can get one from MTU but I have no idea which one I need and is that ALL I need...or with there be more? I have no idea about Microstudio...do I have to have that too??? It is turning out to be a huge expense for me...and I am feeling a bit concerned now that I have made 2 large purchases and I am still sitting here unable to use it. Please help me figure out what more I need and how much more money I am going to have to find to get this up and running....am I the only one that is this frustrated?? Also I am in Canada...so anything I buy is eeeekkk so much more than you guys pay for it...so thats why I need to know what my best options are...Thanx For Your Help !!

We've been buried with new developments and sales. Forgive our not answering earlier.

We will ship a CDR drive to Canada to you. I would recommend the USB 52x external mount drive. You don't need the DVDR, and with a laptop, you don't have room for the internal version of this 52x drive.

Why don't we tell model numbers? We did for years, and we warned that if you buy an uncertified drive, you may have problems. Many users went out and bought the same model we buy and test, and... got a dud! Then, they call and email MTU and curse us out for misleading them. So, we don't give model numbers any more.

When you buy from MTU you will get support to get up and running on your Karaoke CD+Graphics application. That is our business... period! We don't sell drives to make money. We sell drives to prevent our customers from having problems.

Microstudio allows you to make backup copies of your discs, make custom discs with only your favorite songs, and play your discs on your PC. However, with Hoster, you won't be needing your discs, except as proof of purchase.

As gduns pointed out, the Karaoke Suite 4 package allows you to create your own CDG songs (KHProducer), write them to a disc (Microstudio), key change them (Keyrite) and reduce vocals (vogone). If you want to make songs, this is the package to do it with. If you want to hosts shows, Hoster is all you need.

If you need help ordering, call Doug at 919-870-0344, x201 or email him from the Sales link on this page.

[starfire]

Well after all the confusion..I went ahead and ordered from MTU. I was told by Plextor Canada that it was available in Canada but when I went to order it they said it was no longer available in Canada and I would have to order from the US. So I decided to play it safe and buy from MTU. Only issue I have it the automatic $56.00 shipping charge to ship CDR drives to Canada...by the time that converts to Canadian $$$ I am looking at almost $100.00 to ship. On top of that I will get charged brokerage fees when the item arrives and that is calculated on the whole amount including that shipping cost. (Approx. $500.00 total with all costs incl.) So I am disapointed that more drives don't work with this program because it has been a huge expense to deal with after I had budgeted for the Hoster program and laptop and ended up needing to cough up more because of this surprise. Hopefully once I get it I will be forever grateful but at the moment...feeling really broke and not too positive that this will be my last problem to deal with....kinda scared cause I only had a 7 day exchange time on the laptop and I have already used my install of Hoster on it. So fingers crossed that the Laptop works out cause I am stuck with it. I am however, very grateful to all the help that this forum provides. It is great to see so many people that try to help each other on here. A very useful tool.. Thanx for all your replies.

[gduns - with the Lord]

Well, I am sorry to hear of all the costs, duties, taxes ect. However, am sure you wont be disappointed with your purchase.
I can only speak from my own experience. But I have used Brand "X" software that does support other than plextor drives. and made copies with it, only to find that a regular cdg player wouldn't read it on a regular basis. so I burned the same copy with microstudio with a plextor, and it will play in anything. the point here is. Plextor is the only really compatible cd r-w drive that will work.

BTW: I am not sure if this applies to you, but Hoster has just released the latest updated version, you might want to click your download link and update to it. It is head & Shoulders above the previous releases.

[wmorgan777]

Originally posted by mlepine
Who ever said Best Buy Canada doesn't carry Plextor is wrong!
This has to be a regional decision because I've seen it with my own eyes in Toronto last month.

Click on this linck to see model & CDN price:
http://www.plextorshopcanada.com/basket.asp

regards

Ebay is full of them