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.