Importing mp3g zip files to hoster

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by Mustangt93

I see there is a list on the top rt side of the formats that you can import your files in but it doesn't show the order I was talking about but there is the drop down menu about midway down the screen where you can put them in the order that you want to import. That is what I would need to use, correct? Since I don't see my format on the top rt side? So, how do I disable the list on the top rt side so that Im only using the define field order in the center? Does that one automatically supercede the list on the rt? I just notice I don't see a way to disable that list on the rt based on the list choices.

The list on the top right hand side you can just ignore, use the drop down menu midway.

As I have said before, you will learn far more by trying it first with just a few disc id, if you make a mistake and want to start again, use Hosters Edit dialog to delete your imported files, don't delete things in Windows Explorer.

[Mustangt93]

Ok. Sounds like I've got enough to go on. I'm going to sit down and give all this a try. Thanks.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by Mustangt93

Ok. Im not sure the best way to handle that just yet. I may just go ahead and convert everything to KMA files for ease since this is the only program I intend to use. IF I were to end up going with the another I know I could always just convert them to mp3g zip again. But, I will probably just go with the KMH files. I looked at that attachment that one of the admistrators sent me above. I see there is a list on the top rt side of the formats that you can import your files in but it doesn't show the order I was talking about but there is the drop down menu about midway down the screen where you can put them in the order that you want to import. That is what I would need to use, correct? Since I don't see my format on the top rt side? So, how do I disable the list on the top rt side so that Im only using the define field order in the center? Does that one automatically supercede the list on the rt? I just notice I don't see a way to disable that list on the rt based on the list choices.

If you do use the KMA format then Hoster copies your original ZIP file to another location and adds the Hoster header to the file. Your original ZIP files are not deleted or converted. They remain exactly as they are. So what you end up with is a KMA copy and the original ZIP file copy doubling the amount of space used. If you wish to use those ZIP files in another program there is nothing to convert to use them.
Since all of your library is already in MP3+G my suggestion would be to use the KMH import since that does not create a second copy (no extra space needed) and you can still use the same library location for other programs if needed.

[admin]

Since MTU was the first to ship computer karaoke software, we had to design a file format to import your CDG disc tracks into. We called it KMA, which was a single file containing the "audio + lyrics/highlighting + database fields header". It was the standard for years. Imported audio uses WMA compression, which allows 10:1 compression -vs- 8:1 for MP3 for the same audio quality. Compression damages your audio, so MP3 or WMA are inferior to WAV pure audio, and they take 1/8th to 1/10th the hard drive space. KMA files are created at around 8-20 seconds/song.

Several years ago, we created the .KMH "header" file that points to the audio+lyrics (mp3+g, wma+g, zip) file for which it stores the database fields. It can easily be edited to correct any mistakes. It does NOT duplicate the audio+lyrics and takes up 4KByte of hard drive space. Hoster can scan through MP3+G, ZIP, etc. files and create the KMH files for them at the rate of roughly 6 songs per second, which is MUCH faster than creating KMA files.

[Mustangt93]

So, compressing the files to mp3g damages the audio? So, what would I do if I don't want the audio damaged? You said the KMA is compressed, right? So, the audio is actually damaged in that form as well? Sorry, if I sound like a moron on this stuff but in actuality at this point in the game..I still am. Im sure in a year or so I will be where everyone else it.

[admin]

Originally Posted by Mustangt93

So, compressing the files to mp3g damages the audio? So, what would I do if I don't want the audio damaged? You said the KMA is compressed, right? So, the audio is actually damaged in that form as well? Sorry, if I sound like a moron on this stuff but in actuality at this point in the game..I still am. Im sure in a year or so I will be where everyone else it.

MTU is credited by Mix Magazine as being the "first in the world to ship a digital audio workstation (DAW) on a microcomputer." We were actually the first in the world to ship any DAW.

We sold to audiophiles with excellent hearing, and .wav files were the norm. Heck, MP3 wasn't even in general use then, and WMA from Microsoft didn't yet exist. There was no other format than pure samples without any compression.

I used to hear 22KHz frequencies, so our focus was absolutely the purest sound you could create, and we did it!

Today, most folks under 40 (maybe higher?) grew up with cruddy boom-boxes that destroyed the music. Thus, the CAN'T even hear the high frequencies and pure tones that the .wav format is able to deliver.

So, it's now a moot point what you are worrying about. I'm truly sorry I "jabbed" the MP3 and WMA compressors. You will probably already have MP3 songs in whatever compression ratio they were created with. For MP3's, a 160kb compression sounds to MOST people today, as good as a .wav. Your songs probably use 128kb, which ain't bad either. If they use 96kb, that's getting into a range where many users can hear the hissy damage done to the audio.

So, enjoy and don't worry about it unless you are going to turn into an audiophile!

[Mustangt93]

Well, I have to admit. I have noticed that high pitch hissy sound and don't really care for it that much. But, at the same time I don't want to have to have a 3 terabyte hard drive to hold all my files, either. But, as you said...the damage has already been done anyway, right? So, even if I converted my mp3g zip files to KMA it wouldn't really do any good, right? Hard to get back what's already been destroyed. But, I am kind of a stickler for good quality. I was known for that for years around my karaoke shows. The good singers came to my shows because they knew I had the best quality in karaoke CD's and in equipment.

[admin]

Originally Posted by Mustangt93

Well, I have to admit. I have noticed that high pitch hissy sound and don't really care for it that much. But, at the same time I don't want to have to have a 3 terabyte hard drive to hold all my files, either. But, as you said...the damage has already been done anyway, right? So, even if I converted my mp3g zip files to KMA it wouldn't really do any good, right? Hard to get back what's already been destroyed. But, I am kind of a stickler for good quality. I was known for that for years around my karaoke shows. The good singers came to my shows because they knew I had the best quality in karaoke CD's and in equipment.

If you have your original CDG discs, you can use Hoster to import them as KMA. We ALLOW you to select the WMA compression ratio for the quality -vs- storage you can live with. A 128Kb WMA ratio is equal to an MP3 160Kb ratio, but takes a lot less storage. That... is why MTU chose WMA for our compression in our KMA files; you get the best audio and smaller storage requirements.

[Mustangt93]

Well, the program that I used to originally upload my cdg's to my hard drive was the power CDG program. And that actually has a section where you can set the constant bit rate for the amount of quality that you want and I put the highest quality available so that may be close to where the KMA's that you guys have. But, I do definitely notice that high pitch noise you're talking about in the songs. I just try to compensate by bringing down the high levels on the EQ and bring the low and low mids up some. Seems to do ok. But, I do notice it for sure. Answer me this...is there a difference in quality between the mp3G and the mp3g zipped file? Does that compress it even more or just combine the files together in one folder but not do anything to the quality? Thats the way my files are right now...mp3g zipped.

[admin]

Originally Posted by Mustangt93

Well, the program that I used to originally upload my cdg's to my hard drive was the power CDG program. And that actually has a section where you can set the constant bit rate for the amount of quality that you want and I put the highest quality available so that may be close to where the KMA's that you guys have. But, I do definitely notice that high pitch noise you're talking about in the songs. I just try to compensate by bringing down the high levels on the EQ and bring the low and low mids up some. Seems to do ok. But, I do notice it for sure. Answer me this...is there a difference in quality between the mp3G and the mp3g zipped file? Does that compress it even more or just combine the files together in one folder but not do anything to the quality? Thats the way my files are right now...mp3g zipped.

They have absolutely identical sound quality.

MP3 and WMA do Audio psycho-acoustic compression that removes parts of the audio the human ear does not perceive.

ZIP does data compression that does not affect the audio quality.

Question: Since you used the Power product, do you see any random color changes in the files that came from disc tracks #10 and higher?

If so, would you try to import a few of those same tracks from Chartbuster discs into Hoster as KMA and then look at them?

I'd love to know the results. When we did this test in the past we found the Power files had lots of damage that continually degraded up to the last lyric panel.

[Mustangt93]

Are you talking about the chartbuster only or any of the CDG's that I've uploaded from track 10 and up? I haven't noticed anything on any of the other discs besides chartbuster. All my sound choice and DKK's and things seem to be fine. The chartbuster, however...do look strange from the first moment you pull it up. Im not sure why but the chartbusters seem to have something in them that keeps them from copying well. As a matter of fact...chartbusters used to look strange on even my regular vocopro players when I would play them. The vocopro I used to have actually cues the songs directly up to the music and bypasses that 7 second delay of silence at the beginning. Something about starting a charbuster CDG from anywhere but the beginning causes the track to degrade. It's like you will get words the end up showing up on the screen and will just STAY there the entire song making it difficult for the singers to read the words. All the other discs...like sound choice will do that when it first comes up...but as soon as the screen switches to the next set of lyrics...it goes away. The charterbusters won't go away on the next set of lyrics. So, when I pull up the chartbusters in the mp3g zip files...they look all blocky...kind of like old atari graphics or something. But, I will say I was at a guys karaoke show just a couple of weeks ago that uses the hoster and HIS chartbusters were doing that too. So, apparently it's something about the way they copy since it does it on the hoster or the power CDG.

[Mustangt93]

Did than answer your question?

[admin]

Originally Posted by admin

[b]Question: Since you used the Power product, do you see any random color changes in the files that came from disc tracks #10 and higher?

If so, would you try to import a few of those same tracks from Chartbuster discs into Hoster as KMA and then look at them?

I'd love to know the results. When we did this test in the past we found the Power files had lots of damage that continually degraded up to the last lyric panel.

Chartbuster uss WARPED disc media; so cheap we have never found their source.

As the disc rotates, it gets closer and further away from the reading optics, defocusing the reading light beam. We spent 3 years and close to $100,000 pefecting our error correction.

Thus, my question is if you import an MP3G using "Power", and then import the same song with Hoster as a KMA file, then play both back under Hoster (removes any variance between players), if you pause play in the last lyric panel, does the KMA file have a LOT less graphic clutter (uncorrected errors) than the Power MP3. That's the answer I'm looking for.

While the last lyric screen is paused, you can press the Alt key and the "PrtScn" button (Print Screen) and it will capture to the clipboard the "window" the mouse arrow is currently in. If this is the Hoster Show Display, this is what we need to see. Once you have the image from the Show Display, open Windows Paint program, click the Edit menu, and the Paste command and your image will appear in Paint. Click the File menu Save command and your image will save as a .bmp file.

Do this for the MP3G song and again the KMA song, and post both images as attachments. Then we all can see the difference. IF... "Power" has improved their import error correction equal to ours, their won't be much difference. However, I doubt if any competitor has equalled our error correction. Just my two cents.

Originally Posted by Mustangt93

Are you talking about the chartbuster only or any of the CDG's that I've uploaded from track 10 and up? I haven't noticed anything on any of the other discs besides chartbuster. All my sound choice and DKK's and things seem to be fine. The chartbuster, however...do look strange from the first moment you pull it up. Im not sure why but the chartbusters seem to have something in them that keeps them from copying well. As a matter of fact...chartbusters used to look strange on even my regular vocopro players when I would play them. The vocopro I used to have actually cues the songs directly up to the music and bypasses that 7 second delay of silence at the beginning. Something about starting a charbuster CDG from anywhere but the beginning causes the track to degrade. It's like you will get words the end up showing up on the screen and will just STAY there the entire song making it difficult for the singers to read the words. All the other discs...like sound choice will do that when it first comes up...but as soon as the screen switches to the next set of lyrics...it goes away. The charterbusters won't go away on the next set of lyrics. So, when I pull up the chartbusters in the mp3g zip files...they look all blocky...kind of like old atari graphics or something. But, I will say I was at a guys karaoke show just a couple of weeks ago that uses the hoster and HIS chartbusters were doing that too. So, apparently it's something about the way they copy since it does it on the hoster or the power CDG.

The warped discs from Chartbuster - look at them from the edge and you can see the warp - won't play well on Karaoke Players, or import without significant error correction. It is my current belief that Hoster and Microstudio have the best error correction on the market. It shows up best on Chartbuster discs.

Also, Chartbuster CDG songs don't have "clear screen" commands embeded with the lyrics that erases all past graphic errors from then on.

[Mustangt93]

Well, being that this is pretty new to me..the whole burning to hardrive and learning how to you use them...it may take me a while to get all this information you need and get it sent to you.

I do know notice a couple of things about power CDG that are a bit aggrivating. I can't use the player that I bought from you guys to import the songs in my computer with my windows 7 computer. It does work with the player in my older laptop with the windows XP on it. On the windows 7 on the newer computer it will detect the drive...its just that when I try to put a disc in and read it...it won't read. But, on my older one with XP it reads fine. Also, hoster doesn't play well on either of my computers. I went in and did the thing the instructions say on the hoster manual about changing the parameters and turning off automatic Disc detection and all that stuff but neither computer will play the software correctly...even after going thru all the steps in the tutorial. Im sure the main problem with my XP laptop is that it's older and probably doesnt' have enough memory to run it. The newer computer with the windows 7 will play the songs but the lyrics all run behind..they're not with the music. And I've tried everything the manual tells me to do to fix this problem. So, Im kind of stumped on this. The Siglos...which is the program that power CDG has to actually run the shows runs fine on both computers with no issues like that. So, Im not sure how to fix that problem on hoster since I've tried everything the manual says to do to correct it. Any suggestions? Also, I still only actually have the hoster demo since I'm trying to figure out what my issues are before I buy the complete program. Does that have anything to do with it?

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by Mustangt93

Well, being that this is pretty new to me..the whole burning to hardrive and learning how to you use them...it may take me a while to get all this information you need and get it sent to you.

I do know notice a couple of things about power CDG that are a bit aggrivating. I can't use the player that I bought from you guys to import the songs in my computer with my windows 7 computer. It does work with the player in my older laptop with the windows XP on it. On the windows 7 on the newer computer it will detect the drive...its just that when I try to put a disc in and read it...it won't read. But, on my older one with XP it reads fine. Also, hoster doesn't play well on either of my computers. I went in and did the thing the instructions say on the hoster manual about changing the parameters and turning off automatic Disc detection and all that stuff but neither computer will play the software correctly...even after going thru all the steps in the tutorial. Im sure the main problem with my XP laptop is that it's older and probably doesnt' have enough memory to run it. The newer computer with the windows 7 will play the songs but the lyrics all run behind..they're not with the music. And I've tried everything the manual tells me to do to fix this problem. So, Im kind of stumped on this. The Siglos...which is the program that power CDG has to actually run the shows runs fine on both computers with no issues like that. So, Im not sure how to fix that problem on hoster since I've tried everything the manual says to do to correct it. Any suggestions? Also, I still only actually have the hoster demo since I'm trying to figure out what my issues are before I buy the complete program. Does that have anything to do with it?

Try going to Tools/Options. The last item is an offset control. You can set this to a plus or minus amount to shift the lyrics into sync. This is only if the lyrics are consistently off for all tracks. This should be able to fix it.
Every computer can be different and that includes identical computers from the same company and from the same batch. This is the differences in the components production variances.

[Mustangt93]

Ok..thanks. I'll give that a try. It is consistently off. So, maybe that will work.

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by Mustangt93

I can't use the player that I bought from you guys to import the songs in my computer with my windows 7 computer. It does work with the player in my older laptop with the windows XP on it. ?

I'm a bit confused by your statments, In the above you refer to the player you bought from you guys, do you mean Hoster 5.02 or some of their other software ?

Originally Posted by Mustangt93

Also, hoster doesn't play well on either of my computers. I went in and did the thing the instructions say on the hoster manual about changing the parameters and turning off automatic Disc detection and all that stuff but neither computer will play the software correctly...even after going thru all the steps in the tutorial. Im sure the main problem with my XP laptop is that it's older and probably doesnt' have enough memory to run it. The newer computer with the windows 7 will play the songs but the lyrics all run behind..they're not with the music. And I've tried everything the manual tells me to do to fix this problem. So, Im kind of stumped on this. The Siglos...which is the program that power CDG has to actually run the shows runs fine on both computers with no issues like that. So, Im not sure how to fix that problem on hoster since I've tried everything the manual says to do to correct it. Any suggestions? Also, I still only actually have the hoster demo since I'm trying to figure out what my issues are before I buy the complete program. Does that have anything to do with it?

In this next part you mention that you only have a demo version, so what program was it you bought ?

Regarding the lyrics being behind, Did you try as Dale suggested ?
Other than that, do you have other programs running in the background like spyware etc. or any other program running at the same time as Hoster ?
Regarding your drive, from the Tools Tab select CD/DVD drives, Highlight your drive & press the retest button then check that it still shows status as good then press save and see if it reads OK then.

[Mustangt93]

Sorry, as far as the player goes. I am referring to a a cd burner that I bought from MTU. The player in my laptop doesn't have the capability to burn cdg's. I bought this a few months back when I starting burning songs to my laptop using the power CDG I had been talking about in previous threads. At this moment I have only purchased microstudio and keywright from you guys (besides the cdg burner).

I downloaded the demo version of hoster as your website suggests to make sure that it's going to work with my computer before purchasing the full version. And I guess I've been having some issues and that's prevented me from going ahead and purchasing the full version until I can get the bugs worked out. I haven't a chance yet to go in and try what was suggested to try and slow down the lyrics on the screen just yet. I will probably be able to get to that Saturday.

I have had only the power CDG for a few months and recently saw a show where someone was using the Hoster software and loved it much more than the power CDG so that's why I downloaded the demo version and started working with it to make sure that it works with my computer. Sorry, if I've caused any confusion. Sometimes I start typing and don't go back to see if what I typed made any sense or not. Thanks!

[Roy Dennis]

Open Tools/CD/DVD drives, in this dialog make sure when your new usb drive is plugged in that it shows in the main window and shows as status good. Then make sure that in the drop down at the bottom where it states "Default Read Drive" that the one listed is the one you purchased from MTU and press save.
If you start Hoster up without this drive plugged in it may automatically alter this drive selection to your internal drive. So if you don't always have the external plugged in, when you do decide to use it you should check this selection box hasn't defaulted to your internal.

[Mustangt93]

Well, the drive works fine with my microstuido and the hoster demo Im running. It reads discs fine with the MTU stuff.

It's when I try to run it with the power CDG that there's a problem with it reading discs. Not that I care about that anymore since I'm planning on going with hoster. Its just that back when I WAS using power CDG to upload my tracks orginally it was a little frustrating when I couldn't use that drive.

I had to go back to my desktop which had LONG been down and pull my plextor internal drive out of that and then buy the adapter to convert it an external drive before I could upload any songs. Like I said before...it [Power CDG] WOULD detect the drive...it would be in the drop down window. It's just that it wouldnt' read any disc I put in there. Original discs or burned ones or anything.

But, only with my laptop that has windows 7. When I use it with my laptop that has XP [and a Plextor drive]..it reads discs just fine. Weird situation. According to Power CDG forum their software is supposed to support windows 7. Doesn't really matter anymore since I'm going to be use hoster. Just kind of a weird glitch I guess.