CD Maintainence questions.

[George]

Picking up on what FLIPPER said regarding discs wearing, it was reported a couple of years ago on these forums that continually sliding the discs in and out of carriers was wearing the paint off the label side of Sound Choice cdg's rendering them useless.
Don't think there's any need mentioning Sound Choices concern over the matter.

[mlepine]

Just wish to reply to gdun's comment regarding wma versus mp3.

The mp3 format will be has good as the mp3 encoder it uses, ex: a Lame encoder version 3.94b will out perform a wma compression. Mp3 will let you compresse at 320k versus 192 with wma and when a Lame encoder is used no way can the windows format be superior.
I will get copies of some test I saw on the internet.

Also, with mp3+g you have the ability to play the file (music only) on any player or convert the file back to wave to normalised it and than compressed back to what ever size.

MTU still offers the best option with Hoster but his limiting it's self by only offering this format.

Regards

[gduns - with the Lord]

MLEPINE,
we are not talking apples for apples here. I compress wma's & kma's at 64k and it sounds just as good or better than mp3 at 128k.......and half the size to boot.

you are talking about 320k a file 4 times or more the size of mine. How many gigs do you want to carry around with you.

I have 16,000+ kma's on about 50 gigs and 10,000 wma's on 10 gigs. all fit on 1 drive.

[mlepine]

gduns,

sorry I wasn't very clear (as usual)... Both compressed at 128k for ex. the mp3 with the good encoder like Lame v3.94b will still be better than wma.

The problem is that most people are not using this encoder and therefore yes wma will be better than mp3 for the same compression ratio with the standard encoder.

The issue is more a question of cost of license more than quality and believe me I can understand MTU not wanting to spend the amount. At the moment, the Windows format is probably cheaper due to its low popularity.

My concern is that I'm afraid MTU might suffer in the long run by limiting them self to only one format and not been able to bring on new customers who has stored in their hard drive mp3+g format that would be interrested with Hoster.

A good friendly conversion tool would be a good option versus having to re-enter all cdg's.

Best Regards

[mlepine]

For those who wishes to find out more about mp3 versus the wma format please click on this linck:

www.mp3-tech.org/

Regards

[gduns - with the Lord]

Ok,
I read it, and it says that up to 128kbps wma is very little better. But the fact they don't tell you is that the the file size is 1/2 that of the mp3 for the same bitrate. Get real. if mp3 were that much better Mtu would be using it.

Mlepine, it almost sounds like you are trying to sell us on the competitions products here. By all means if you want to use mp3's and winamp, do it. For me, I like what MTU has to offer

[gduns - with the Lord]

oops

[mlepine]

I'm not trying to sell anyone a competition's product in fact I'm not using the brand you're talking about or any of the players they are selling!

Let me share with you & MTU why I believe it would be important to be able to offer more than one format for compression:

I've been using a Midi Karaoke player which is the original and also the best you can find on the market, it lets you use Roland SCV to play your Mid & Kar, extract the graphic, Excellent Pitch, Vocal remover just to name a few.
Well guess what? This product now has an MP3+G & a VCD player and will have in the coming weeks all the import & conversion tools you can imagine. Now, how much? It's a shareware that limits the midi player (only) to a window everytime you play a song but NOTHING on the mp3+g for now! For $40.00 US you can now get a cdg, midi, vcd, excellent key changer, all the necessary conversion tools and of course the graphic is played at the correct resolution which is low resolution.

I have no intention of saying what product it is but it's not from the US and its own by a programmer that's been in business for over 20 years!

I still believe that MTU has the best and easier CDG player on the market but should understand that by limiting them self they might have difficulties getting new customers. (my opinion of course)

What a hard business...
Best regards

[gduns - with the Lord]

Hoster will be modified shortly to support the drive for CDG, but it will take a bit more work to support playing VCD and DVD discs. That is in the works to be added.

That was from admin
I believe I also read where they were planning on adding wma, and mp3+g support. that is in the new features for hoster forum

[bobcox- with the Lord]

Louieoke. I have 1400 disc and i carry them in a single case . from DJ cases.com or 1-877-djcases mine is 20"Wx41"L with wheels on one end. 5yrs same case. But hoster is the only way to go to save your disc. also nu-finish auto polish works for me on my scratched disc. BOB

[gduns - with the Lord]

I've been using a Midi Karaoke player which is the original and also the best

I think I've read about as much about quality as I can from someone that actually believes this is true.