Buykaraoke Website

[gpayne]

I recently had a friend of mine send me an email stating you could download MP3+g files from this website. I checked it out and they get $1.49 for new releases and $.99 for older releases. Does anyone know if this website is on the up & up?

gpayne

[mindonstrike]

They would appear to be. I've bought several songs from them. Most have no brand but I've been told they are made by Panorama (makers of THM) They also have some THM, MM and Sunfly.

I don't like that they don't tell you the brands upfront, which is particularly frustrating when there is more than one listing for a song - I'd like to pick and choose when there's a choice.

Also their unbranded Panorama's as well as the THM's tend to have the music and lyrics just a bit out of sync so I've taken to shaving about 3/10 of a second of the front end of most songs.

The unbranded Panorama's have decent music but the lyrics tend to be blue words with a white wipe on a black background so the words I'm about to sing can be difficult to read while the ones I've already sung are easy especially at a distance, so I've been changing the lyrics to bright yellow with a purple wipe.

Even if you don't like 'em they are cheap way to get those must-have-now songs until your'e regular brand comes out with'em.

Sam

[gpayne]

Thanks!!! I think I'll download a few just to see. The price range seems to be about what I usually pay per song for a whole disc. I buy most of my discs from doowop in Louisville Ky. They average around $18.00 for 17 songs. That comes out to around $1.00 per song. Being able to buy a single song or 4 or 5 songs when you need specific songs for $.99 or $1.49 seems to be what it should be.

gpayne

[madjim- with the Lord]

TriceraSoft created the MP3+G format, they say. They have a gift card system that lets you buy MP3+G's for $.99 each.

Jim

[mindonstrike]

I may have spoken too soon.

I just bought Blake Sheltons "The More I drink" and it turned out to be a Stardisk brand which quality wise is on par with SAV (IMO). The bad part was that it is full of graphic flecks and spots, as if it was ripped from a poor quality disk and/or with a cdrom not really meant for CDG's. This makes me a little suspicious as to whether they are authorized to offer them for sale. I would have expected their supplier would get them the songs in digital format for the best quality.

I'll probably try to contact them tomorrow about re-ripping that song since it will take a long time and hard work to repair the lyrics.

Sam

[madjim- with the Lord]

Originally Posted by mindonstrike

This makes me a little suspicious as to whether they are authorized to offer them for sale. I would have expected their supplier would get them the songs in digital format for the best quality.

Sam

I believe that is is the sellers resposability to assure that the tracks they sell are legal. If we buy a track legaly with no intention of breaking any law, we have committed no crime. The seller would be gulty of selling tracks uder false pretenses. If I pay $.99 for a track and I have a recipt, I feel that I have bought the rights to use that track.

Sam,
Have you had any contact with TricearaSoft?

Jim

[admin]

Originally Posted by madjim

TriceraSoft created the MP3+G format, they say. They have a gift card system that lets you buy MP3+G's for $.99 each.

Jim

Their ZIP format files use MAX compression which lots of programs won't handle.

MTU's new Songverter(tm) 1.000 software... releasing this morning... can convert KMA (which MTU designed and introduced before MP3+G), BIN, ZIP, MP3+G, WMA+G, WAV+G to any other format.

It converts ZIPs with Max compression (used by Tricerasoft) to ZIPs with Standard compression to be compatible with the rest of the World.

Also, you can strip the lyrics and convert to WMA, MP3 or WAV.

Also, you can convert WMA, MP3 or WAV to any of the karaoke formats with blank lyrics.

Download our Songverter demo and check it out! $29.99 price special is through September 15th, then $39.99.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Originally Posted by admin

Download our Songverter demo and check it out! $29.99 price special is through September 15th, then $39.99.

When will the full version be available for purchase?

Jim

[madjim- with the Lord]

Originally Posted by madjim

When will the full version be available for purchase?

Jim

Found it, thanks!

http://www.mtu.com/basics/songverter.htm

Jim

[gpayne]

Originally Posted by mindonstrike

I may have spoken too soon.

I just bought Blake Sheltons "The More I drink" and it turned out to be a Stardisk brand which quality wise is on par with SAV (IMO). The bad part was that it is full of graphic flecks and spots, as if it was ripped from a poor quality disk and/or with a cdrom not really meant for CDG's. This makes me a little suspicious as to whether they are authorized to offer them for sale. I would have expected their supplier would get them the songs in digital format for the best quality.

I'll probably try to contact them tomorrow about re-ripping that song since it will take a long time and hard work to repair the lyrics.

Sam

I bought the same song with the same results. I have just recently (Yesterday) bought Songverter and it does have a zip to zip feature. It seems to work very well. I have not tried to use it on this particular song though I will. I am very happy to be able to buy single karaoke songs that are legal downloads. I hope they are legal. I buy almost all of my regular music songs from the Walmart music download website. If anyone finds that Buykaraoke is not legal for any reason, I would hope they would report it in these forums. We as buyers should not knowingly support illegal karaoke or any other illegal websites.

gpayne

[mindonstrike]

Originally Posted by gpayne

I bought the same song with the same results. I have just recently (Yesterday) bought Songverter and it does have a zip to zip feature. It seems to work very well. I have not tried to use it on this particular song though I will. I am very happy to be able to buy single karaoke songs that are legal downloads. I hope they are legal. I buy almost all of my regular music songs from the Walmart music download website. If anyone finds that Buykaraoke is not legal for any reason, I would hope they would report it in these forums. We as buyers should not knowingly support illegal karaoke or any other illegal websites.

gpayne

I emailed them about that song and they emailed me right back and said they would fix it that day - almost a week now I think. I've redownloaded it almost every day hoping it was fixed. At least it's usuable until I can pick it up on a different brand.

Why would you need to run it through Songverter, it should import into Hoster without a problem, mine did anyhow.

Sam

[mindonstrike]

Originally Posted by madjim

I believe that is is the sellers resposability to assure that the tracks they sell are legal. If we buy a track legaly with no intention of breaking any law, we have committed no crime. The seller would be gulty of selling tracks uder false pretenses. If I pay $.99 for a track and I have a recipt, I feel that I have bought the rights to use that track.

Sam,
Have you had any contact with TricearaSoft?

Jim

At the risk of getting stung playing armchair lawyer again - I'll bite.

If that were true I could buy a HD with a 100,000 songs from KoolKaraoke on ebay for $500. and have a reciept from him or paypal or whatever and then claim to be 100% legal. Now if all your other stuff were legal you could maybe use this as a defense in court to avoid/reduce the fines or punishment, but I don't think they would give you back your HD just because you bought it in good faith. The more reputable the company you bought it from might give you a better shot at plausable deniability, but in the end I think you'd be ordered to cease and disist using those songs.

Just my opinion
Sam

PS: I just made up the Koolkaraoke ebay name for illustrative purposes. If there is an ebay user by that name (and there probably is), this would be purely coincidental and I'm sure he/she is a fine person.

[bryant]

Wow. Our name is "Suzie Q's Kool Karaoke"!

[madjim- with the Lord]

Originally Posted by mindonstrike

At the risk of getting stung playing armchair lawyer again - I'll bite.

If that were true I could buy a HD with a 100,000 songs from KoolKaraoke on ebay for $500. and have a reciept from him or paypal or whatever and then claim to be 100% legal. Now if all your other stuff were legal you could maybe use this as a defense in court to avoid/reduce the fines or punishment, but I don't think they would give you back your HD just because you bought it in good faith. The more reputable the company you bought it from might give you a better shot at plausable deniability, but in the end I think you'd be ordered to cease and disist using those songs.

Just my opinion
Sam

PS: I just made up the Koolkaraoke ebay name for illustrative purposes. If there is an ebay user by that name (and there probably is), this would be purely coincidental and I'm sure he/she is a fine person.

Sam,

If somebody buys 100,000 tracks at $.99 each they would pay $99,000.00. This would make the $500 price very illeagal (they are not paying writers roalayties). You are correct about KoolKaraoke selling illeagal tracks.

Here is the point I am trying to make. If I buy an single track from an online company that sells them LEGALY (they pay witers royalties) and it turns out to be from a company that only sells their tracks on disc, I feel I have paid for the right to use the track. The company that only sells their tracks on disc would have an issue with the legal company that sold thier track, not me.

I did not intend to do anything illegal. I paid $.99 for the track and I have a receipt showing I purchased it from a legal company. From my armchair I believe this would float.


Jim

[gpayne]

Originally Posted by mindonstrike

I emailed them about that song and they emailed me right back and said they would fix it that day - almost a week now I think. I've redownloaded it almost every day hoping it was fixed. At least it's usuable until I can pick it up on a different brand.

Why would you need to run it through Songverter, it should import into Hoster without a problem, mine did anyhow.

Sam

Read Admin's post above. It could be that they are using max compression when they zip those files. If so, songverter will rewrite them as zip files using standard compression. They say some programs do not handle zip files with max compression well and their zip to zip conversion makes it better. I did not try it. If I had, it's possible that when I imported it into Hoster it might not have had as many snowflakes etc. The song is usuable the way it is but should have been perfect. I am not saying in any way that Hoster will not handle max compression zip files. I am saying that if you have songverter you should probably do a zip to zip conversion on it before importing it as surely you could not get a better file to import.

gpayne


P.S. Go to Tricerasofts website where they offer their songs for $1.49. Their download page looks almost exactly the same as buykaraokdownload's does. To me their is clearly some association. The files you are getting from buykaraokedownloads could be the same files you would get if you bought from Tricerasoft and therefore be max compression zip files.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Originally Posted by gpayne

P.S. Go to Tricerasofts website where they offer their songs for $1.49. Their download page looks almost exactly the same as buykaraokdownload's does. To me their is clearly some association. The files you are getting from buykaraokedownloads could be the same files you would get if you bought from Tricerasoft and therefore be max compression zip files.

gpayne,

Tricerasoft and buykaraoke.com may be using the same shopping cart program to sell their tracks but that doesn't mean they are associated. Coke and Pepsi both come in plastic bottles but they are not associated. The Coke you buy from one store is just like the Coke you buy from their competition. In this same manner it's possible that Tricerasoft and buykaraoke.com are getting their files from their suppliers in the same format.

You can buy ANY track from Tricerasoft for $.99 if you use their Gift Pack system at the $100.00 level. I've been dealing with them for quite some time and their system of downloading the MP3+G zip files is a good one.

I have never bought an MP3+G zip file from Tricerasoft that I could not get to load into Hoster. I have to un-zip/re-zip and rename them but they work great. While working with the zip files to get them to load I did an experiment. I re-zipped an MP3+G zip file using the zero "0" compression setting on my zip program and the file would not load into Hoster. This tells me that an MP3+G Zip file has to be zipped with some compression to work in Hoster. I assumed that this is why the tracks I downloaded from Tricerasoft would not load into Hoster but admin has made it clear that they don't load because of Max compression, not Zero compression.

Their ZIP format files use MAX compression which lots of programs won't handle.

With the release of Songverter this is no longer an issue. Thanks MTU!

Jim

[mindonstrike]

Originally Posted by gpayne

Read Admin's post above. It could be that they are using max compression when they zip those files. If so, songverter will rewrite them as zip files using standard compression. They say some programs do not handle zip files with max compression well and their zip to zip conversion makes it better. I did not try it. If I had, it's possible that when I imported it into Hoster it might not have had as many snowflakes etc. The song is usuable the way it is but should have been perfect. I am not saying in any way that Hoster will not handle max compression zip files. I am saying that if you have songverter you should probably do a zip to zip conversion on it before importing it as surely you could not get a better file to import.

Zipping has no effect on the lyric file (.cdg), even if it did it would be random and different each time I downloaded the song which it was not. The max compression Admin refered to is an issue only because some programs including Hoster (at the time of this posting) can not play it, it will produce an error when attempted. Since I either edit the mp3 or cdg files or both before I use them I unzip them first anyhow and import as mp3g instead of as a zip. I know Hoster will play the zips as downloaded from buykaraokedownloads so they are apparently not max compressed.

P.S. Go to Tricerasofts website where they offer their songs for $1.49. Their download page looks almost exactly the same as buykaraokdownload's does. To me their is clearly some association. The files you are getting from buykaraokedownloads could be the same files you would get if you bought from Tricerasoft and therefore be max compression zip files.

I checked out tricerasofts site. Except for Panorama they both sell different brands, there song browsing and selecting are different and their shopping cart is different. I didn't purchase anything so I don't know what the download page looked like. I couldn't see any similarities between the two.
Tricerasoft did make a statement about their downloads being legal which Buykaraokedownload did not.

[mindonstrike]

Originally Posted by mindonstrike

I emailed them about that song and they emailed me right back and said they would fix it that day - almost a week now I think. I've redownloaded it almost every day hoping it was fixed. At least it's usuable until I can pick it up on a different brand.

Sam

They never did fix it (kind of) but they did put up a new version alongside the old. To shorten a long story involving several emails. They gave me a $1 credit (I paid $1.49) I reordered the new version. The new version turned out to be the same as the old, a Stardisc brand except that the graphics were nice and clean. Maybe the only way to fix something on their site is to put up a fixed version alongside a problem one I don't know.

For anyone interested, the crappy graphics version of that song is titled "The More I Drink". The good graphics version is titled "More I Drink, The"

Sam