Consolidating Music for a back up system & KMA Vs. KMH

[DuetEntertainment]

Good day -
My wife and I, KJ locally and use the Hoster program with the recommendation of a very good KJ Friend.

My problem is that in our first set up over a year ago, we did not pay too much attention to detail on where KMA/KMH were stored and now that I am getting ready to install Hoster on a back up Laptop, I am running into many inconstencies that are driving me batty.

In our first setup:

1. Disks that were originally imported into Hoster had been saved as KMA files in the C:/MTU/KMA directory.
2. All of the KMH files were imported from many different file folders from a User directory and reside along with the original HD/Zip files in those folders.

As you are probably aware, KMA files run in Hoster without the need of the MP3-CDG file. In contrast, KMH files are really only a short cut to the original HD/Zip file that must reside in the same folder as the KMH files for Hoster to find and play.

For space, but mostly simplicity, I would like to:

• Remove all of the original music files off Laptop A & B and store them only on our back up HD.
• Have all of our Hoster music saved a single folder in the C: directory and preferrably as KMA files to ease duplication from laptop A to laptop B.

Is there an "easy" fix for turning our current KMH files into KMA files??

Is there a reason that HD/Zip files can not be imported as KMA files without having to convert to a BIN file first?

Thanks in advance for your time to read and any assistance you may be able to offfer.

Sam
Duet Ent.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by DuetEntertainment

Good day -
My wife and I, KJ locally and use the Hoster program with the recommendation of a very good KJ Friend.

My problem is that in our first set up over a year ago, we did not pay too much attention to detail on where KMA/KMH were stored and now that I am getting ready to install Hoster on a back up Laptop, I am running into many inconstencies that are driving me batty.


In our first setup:

1. Disks that were originally imported into Hoster had been saved as KMA files in the C:/MTU/KMA directory.
2. All of the KMH files were imported from many different file folders from a User directory and reside along with the original HD/Zip files in those folders.

As you are probably aware, KMA files run in Hoster without the need of the MP3-CDG file. In contrast, KMH files are really only a short cut to the original HD/Zip file that must reside in the same folder as the KMH files for Hoster to find and play.


For space, but mostly simplicity, I would like to:

• Remove all of the original music files off Laptop A & B and store them only on our back up HD.
• Have all of our Hoster music saved a single folder in the C: directory and preferrably as KMA files to ease duplication from laptop A to laptop B.

Is there an "easy" fix for turning our current KMH files into KMA files??

Is there a reason that HD/Zip files can not be imported as KMA files without having to convert to a BIN file first?

Thanks in advance for your time to read and any assistance you may be able to offfer.

Sam
Duet Ent.

Currently MP3+G cannot be imported as KMA files. There was a request with lots of support back before version 4 was produced to keep from needing to keep two copies of of the music (KMA and the MP3+G) to cut down on space used on hard drive specially for laptops.
MTU set this up so that all of the previously compressed file types (MP3+G, WMA+G, ZIP, etc) would get a small header file (256 bytes) added (KMH) which would conserve space on the hard drive.
My method of setup is to create two folders. One is all my KMA files and the other contains all my MP3+G along with their associated KMH files. This way it isn't spread out all over the place , being contained in one of two locations.

[DuetEntertainment]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

Currently MP3+G cannot be imported as KMA files. There was a request with lots of support back before version 4 was produced to keep from needing to keep two copies of of the music (KMA and the MP3+G) to cut down on space used on hard drive specially for laptops.
MTU set this up so that all of the previously compressed file types (MP3+G, WMA+G, ZIP, etc) would get a small header file (256 bytes) added (KMH) which would conserve space on the hard drive.
My method of setup is to create two folders. One is all my KMA files and the other contains all my MP3+G along with their associated KMH files. This way it isn't spread out all over the place , being contained in one of two locations.

Dale - Thank you for your comment.
Your set up is exactly what I had come up with as well when I realized that the KMH files would not play without it's original Music files (MP3+G or ZIP) in the same folder location.

I would still love to hear what others have done to see if something else may work for me...

Sam
Duet Ent.

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by DuetEntertainment

Is there a reason that HD/Zip files can not be imported as KMA files without having to convert to a BIN file first?

Thanks in advance for your time to read and any assistance you may be able to offfer.

Sam
Duet Ent.

HD/Zip files can be converted to kma with songverter but the problem is you have no way to control how it names or numbers the files in Hoster, it can then take a lot of work editing the information after. They have to be added to the rebuild list using the ADD button.
If you wanted to try it just put a small amount in a test folder to see the type of results you get. It depends somewhat on the way your files are named.

Dales suggestion is the best. To keep it as simple as possible if all your HD/Zip files are in different folders, copy all their contents into one folder.
Having said this my own are like yours spread in many different folders but I have my own reasons for this and are happy to leave them that way.

[Deeter]

If you move all your zip files into one folder, wouldn't you have to do a "rebuild database"?. Also, if you have one folder for the zips and then add 12 new ones, how do you add only those to the database? I have been making subset folders with the new adds and selecting only that folder to add to database and I would like to get all the zips at one level.

[DuetEntertainment]

Originally Posted by Deeter

If you move all your zip files into one folder, wouldn't you have to do a "rebuild database"?. Also, if you have one folder for the zips and then add 12 new ones, how do you add only those to the database? I have been making subset folders with the new adds and selecting only that folder to add to database and I would like to get all the zips at one level.

After moving the HD/Zip music files, yes, you will need to rebuild the song database otherwise Hoster will not know where to look for your files.

It is also my understanding that when you add new songs in a single folder, the rebuild checks for duplicates first and adds only songs not already in the song database.

Please correct me if I am mistaken.
Sam
Duet Ent.

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by DuetEntertainment

It is also my understanding that when you add new songs in a single folder, the rebuild checks for duplicates first and adds only songs not already in the song database.

Please correct me if I am mistaken.
Sam
Duet Ent.

Correct, but duplicates in this case means same disk id and track #, not necessarily same song title and artist.

Getting back to the original question as to keeping your database easy. If you create a folder on your external hard drive to hold all your Hoster song files, you can create a number of sub folders within the main folder. This would still keep things nice and tidy so you know where to look for them. If you do it this way you would have to list all the sub folders in the rebuild list then rebuild the list. Later if you want to use the add files feature be sure to move the folders with the new files in to the main folder before using the Add feature.

[xxyzz]

I think the whole KMH vs KMA file types have just confused people. At least I am. All my files are KMA direct from CD+G but if I understand correctly if I am going to import any zip karaoke zip files then I will have to put all my zip files into the same folder where my KMA files are stored.

I just tried importing a zip file as a KMA file and it worked just fine. I am not sure what the dirrerence is now. I though the KMH was the only choice you could pick if you were importing zip files. I also thought the KMH will allow a smaller file size but since you have to add the zip files to your destination folder then I don't see what the advantage is.