Bryan and Admin Black Discs EZKaraoke From Fla.

[memphisdave]

Bryan, you recently spoke with Andy A. from Fla. ref the problem he was having 'backing up' his two EZKaraoke black cdg's using MS. Specifically, of MS not recognizing that the cdg was even in the burner, and/or saying the burner wasn't ready, etc. Believe it gave you the same or similar result when you tried with the same brand cdg or two you had lying arnd in your 'shop'. He has your new OptiArc(?) burner.

Ok... my PX 48-24-48A gave the same results. Same with a Phillips burner, same with a ht-st-blah blah etc. No luck.

However! The 48-24-48 when used with Hoster 3.316 did recognize the black cdg, and after aprox 5 mins of trying to make up it's mind, finally started importing the 5 tracks checked for import per normal Hoster Import function. It did take aprox 15 mins for 5 songs on the first black cdg, and only about a normal length of time to import 5 songs off the second black cdg. Btw, I got the idea because I dnloaded the new Hoster demo and it imported the 90 sec length tracks off the black cdg with the Phillips burner in my laptop. That was a shot in the dark that worked. I then went to the box with the 48-24-48 and 3.316 and tried it out and it worked. I then used my MS 4.004 to burn Andy his backup disc from .kma files created using the Hoster import.

So, if you have Hoster 3.316 or the latest version as of 3/14/08, and MS 4.004, then you might also be able to use this work arnd to backup the black discs from EZKaraoke. At least it worked for me on these two in question.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to ye all!

Dave
Using Windows XP Home SP2... both laptop and desktop
Single cpu chips, nothing fancy on either computer.
Dell XPS MXC051 1.73ghz Pentium 4 with 1 gig ram laptop
Dell DE051 2.8ghz Pentium 4 with 512mg ram desktop

[Shaza]

Hit here

I'm searching for a solution to a problem I have and read your post. I think you may be talking about the problem I have but you lost me in all the tech talk, sorry! I have the latest Microstudio version and have MTU's own Optiarc dvd rw ad-7170a. When I place the EK custom CD into the drive it says "disk not ready", like it can't see one in there. Any suggestions would be greatfully received!!!!

Sharon

[memphisdave]

Hey, Sharon.

The discs in question were EZKaraoke Custom Song Discs. Ya know where ya choose x number of songs and they are burnt to a custom disc by one company offering this svc or another. In this case, it is/was EZKaraoke.

Bryan had worked with my buddy via phone trying to solve the same problem that you mention, and that I was trying to address. I get a little wordy sometimes, sorry.

I don't know why MicroStudio won't/wouldn't recognize the disc/s in question, and still don't know the answer relative to MS. Bryan was stymied while working on the phone with my friend also. It happened that he had a disc or couple of discs of the same make/manufactorer that he was able to experiment with, and had the same problem with them not being recognized by MS. So as far as I know there is still no way to work arnd the problem purely within and using MS, at least the later/current version that I'm using now.

My work arnd involves also having access to the Hoster program, at least version 3.316 that I can use, or higher. Without access to Hoster, I know of no way to get past the 'not recognizing disc, etc.' problem.

I have MS 4.004 and Hoster 3.316 on the same computer. I imported per normal using Hoster, which created a normal .kma file. Just as one does when importing songs into the Hoster program. Then I opened MS 4.004 and since it will access .kma files as an option, I just was able to do a normal procedure and burn the files to disc with MS as a normal karaoke disc. Again, the only way I could make this work was by first importing of the black discs using Hoster. Then being on the same cpu, was able to access them and use MS, etc.

Hope this helps, babe. Gotta leave for an appt. Will chk when I get back to see if you got clarified or if I could help any other way.

Dave

[mindonstrike]

Hmmm...Interesting.

After reading this thread I dug out a Proburn custom disk I got from Doowop.com. It had the one track I ordered (Priddis brand), and a second track listed on the label as Easy Karaoke theme. It wasn't black, it had a silver face and blue data side. Verbatim Datalife CD-R was printed on the inner ring.

Sure enough MS could not detect its presence although Hoster had no problem with it except for the 18 second EK theme track Hoster quickly imported the first 5/6 of it and then hung for about 10 seconds before finishing. This track had no graphics, just a little music.

I was able to play it with VLC player although track 2 hung at about 15 seconds and crashed the computer when I tried to get out of it.

Sam

[Shaza]

Dave you're a star!

I downloaded the demo version of Hoster to see if it would play ball with me. It actually read the cd ok then imported the tracks. I then managed to get Microstudio to burn to cd. When I played it in my CDG player.....IT WORKED!!! Obviously I only got 90 seconds of tracks but it made its point.

The question is......will I get away with buying the Hoster home version and not the pro version as I will probably not use it other than for doing those problem EK disks!? A little more help please, hee!

Sharon

[memphisdave]

Hey!

Good for you. Now.... on your second thought about the 'home' or 'pro' versions you mention, I assume you mean Hoster Lite or the full version...?

I would assume there'd be no diff in the importing ability of either version, but that is an Assumption only on my part, ok? Def don't consider that an okey-dokey, on account of I got no idea.

Speaking for myself only, and both MS and Hoster/Lite are all really fine programs for what they are designed to do, but that is starting to add up to a bit of the ole quid just to back up a small number of songs and/or discs.

Too bad you can't/couldn't use Hoster for it's designed purpose... with which to do karaoke shows. MS has been ahead of Hoster, generally speaking, in it's reading and/or disc or burner recognizing capabilities for some time now. Quite possibly now that this seemingly small glitch in MS has been discovered..... hopefully admin is aware of this by now, the next version or so may have a correction for the problem. The guys are pretty good at MTU.

Anyway, Miss Sharon, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Dave

[ddouglass]

Sharon, both versions will import from the CDs. The difference between the versions are the Lite/Home version does not create a printable songbook and you can not temporarily import a singer's song (main screen control). These are things you would only need if you were doing professional karaoke shows.

[Shaza]

I have another problem which I am stumped about. I was reburning a few disks that were playing up at the last gig I did (one of them being the problem EK black disk which we've hopefully sorted out now!). One of the disks is Sunfly Volume 1. The original plays fine on the PC and in the player, but it's having issues copying it. It appears to copy ok but won't play in the player properly, the main issue being that some of the tracks start 20 seconds in then the words are all out of sync and running across each other. When I play the tracks on the PC with MS they play fine, which would suggest they are copying onto the PC ok, but something is going wrong with the burning process I would imagine?

I have tried duplicating the disk, importing the tracks individually both in MS, then I tried the Hoster thing we discussed earlier in the hope that would solve it, but alas no! Any ideas? Oh and I have tried 3 different types of media, including MTU own certified disks.

Sharon