Key change problem with 4.11 - Solution Upgrade to Windows Media Player 11

[lpwalsh]

Dell Vostro 1500
XP home ed
Core 2 Duo
1.6ghz
2.5 GB ram

Clicks and pulsing in audio on key change. I saw the other thread on this problem and upgraded from 1gb ram to 2.5gb. The more steps the worse it is. Also some songs are worse than others. My backup computer is fine. It's a desktop HP Pentium 4, XP,3.2 GHZ, 2.5GB ram.

[ddouglass]

Have you checked the Microsoft "Custom" Updates lately to see if there is anything new?
Check Dell Support and see if there are any driver updates there. I did look and if you have the Nvidia video card there is a Jan 2009 updated driver for it.
Last would be to go to BlackViper.com and see what background services you can turn off.
The biggest problem with laptops and the greatly expanded Hoster version 4.xx series is the video memory on them. Video memory on these laptops is what is called "Shared Memory" and it takes a chunk of your main memory to run the video. This cuts down the memory available for the processor.
Changing the key on the fly has always been somewhat shakey and warbles a bit until it settles down at the new level. I think it just is getting a bit worse because of the demand on the processor by the new features added in.
So try changing the key before they start or take the time to stop the song, set the key , and restart it. You can do this key change by putting the amount in the column for Key by left-clicking twice on the Key block in the playlist line. This is the same way you can change the Singers Name.

[billyo]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

Have you checked the Microsoft "Custom" Updates lately to see if there is anything new?
Check Dell Support and see if there are any driver updates there. I did look and if you have the Nvidia video card there is a Jan 2009 updated driver for it.
Last would be to go to BlackViper.com and see what background services you can turn off.
The biggest problem with laptops and the greatly expanded Hoster version 4.xx series is the video memory on them. Video memory on these laptops is what is called "Shared Memory" and it takes a chunk of your main memory to run the video. This cuts down the memory available for the processor.
Changing the key on the fly has always been somewhat shakey and warbles a bit until it settles down at the new level. I think it just is getting a bit worse because of the demand on the processor by the new features added in.
So try changing the key before they start or take the time to stop the song, set the key , and restart it. You can do this key change by putting the amount in the column for Key by left-clicking twice on the Key block in the playlist line. This is the same way you can change the Singers Name.

i had never changed keys in any of my shows, but last night a kj friend came to my show who had the same problems changing keys on v.411 handed me a list of songs with key changes, when adding a song to the playlist i had to start the song first to changed keys, if you changed keys before you click play it will revert back to the orignal key, my solution was when you do a search of songs and found it click on the key changed first before adding it to the playlist , it worked for me ..

[ddouglass]

Billy I was not talking about using the immediate change buttons to change it. Left-click twice on the Key block for the song you want to change, type in "-2" for 2 steps down, hit enter, then start the song and it will play 2 down. This is if you forgot to do it before adding it to the playlist.
The problem seems to be showing up with those using the "on the fly" key change. I don't here any clicks, but I do get the warbling until it settles at the new level.

[lpwalsh]

Just found something interesting. I went to Microstudio and got the same results with the key change. I went through the process of marking the audio for the silence option when I upgraded. I tried disabling that function but it made no difference. Could it have altered the files in some way that affected the key operation in general??? I had a show last night and the worst one was New Kid in Town from Sound Choice, key change +1. I went to that same file and played it using MicroStudio with the same results. I'm going to find my CDG and try playing it from that instead of the imported file. Check back later.

[ddouglass]

Microstudio and Hoster share a lot of the same program code. Thus the Key change will be the same in both.
Are you saying this does it all the time, even if you set the key change before playing the song?
No the only thing the Remove Silence does is add to parameters to the Header (Start Offset and Edn Offset). If you turn off the Remove Silence then the song plays normally with all the silence still in it.
My recommendation is always to use the drivers from the manufacturer, in your case Dell. They have tested them on that specific equipment set-up.
I would pay particular attention to the sound card drivers as this is where the audio is processed.
Also, try going through the BlackViper recommendations for turning off background processes that aren't needed. This frees up not just memory, but Processor time as well.

[lpwalsh]

It doesn't matter if it's on the fly or not. Tried it every way I could think of. I used driver detective and updated my nvidia. No help. Do you think if I upgraded another 2GB it would help? I'm at 2.5 now. I can remove the other 512 and add another 2gb for a total of 4gb. But that's an expensive try though. Can I cut down on the amount of ram video uses somehow? I will go to the Dell site and check. I also tried an M-Audio external sound interface. Thanks for your quick response. I'll check back as I eliminate things.

[ddouglass]

You keep saying you are going to wait until it is stable. It is stable now. Just that older computers are going to find that it is too much for them unless they are tweaked. Better to find the problem than wait for the next release of Hoster which is going to include even more new features.
One thing Admin has been talking about is giving us the capability of turning off some of the new features so an older computer would be able to run Hoster without them and thus better, because the resource requirement would be less.

[lpwalsh]

I know that dog years and computer years don't compare to human years. But, I don't consider 2 years to be very old. I certainly would like to find it now. But, some customers act as though I've stepped on their favorite kitten when they try to sing with this distraction.

[marklwood]

Seriously, try http://www.blackviper.com/
I have always been a cheapskate and been behind the technology curve when it comes to having the fastest processor or graphics card. But with the help of Charles Sparks and his site, I have been able to squeeze everything possible out of a machine. When most were running Hoster 3.xx on a dual core pentium, I was running on a 700Mhz Duron processor.

Just spend a little time reading through the site and making all the changes. Nothing you do in the way of disabling services is permanent. Anything you turn off can be turned back on. I run the bare-bones setup on my show machine with the exception of a couple of items. My recommendation is to start with the "Safe" column and work from there. I would wager that just turning off the items in the "Safe" column will alleviate your issues.

[lpwalsh]

OK. I've tried stopping everything I can do without. Still there. I have now restored everything to before the upgrade. Works fine. I'm going to leave it, at least for now. And that's another thing. The upgrade works OK on my old Pentium 4 desktop. You would think that if it is a slow microprocessor that one would fail, instead of a Core2 Duo. Go figure!! Also during the process of working on this, Hoster got errors and shut down several times, not always but usually on program startup. Nothing significant was going on at the time just routine stuff. Thanks everyone. I'll keep checking back in case anyone has more ideas.

[marklwood]

I know we have problems with the Hoster 4x versions not playing nice with certain video cards. It seems to be especially bad for the shared memory cards in notebooks.

I hate for you to give up on this. You seem to be a lot more willing to help nail down this rather elusive issue. The next thing i would try, if I had the machine, is to try and tweak the video memory settings in BIOS. Since you have 2.5 gig, I would go for at least 512 meg set aside for video and work from there.

[lpwalsh]

Happy New Year!!! I posted just before Christmas about the key change problem that several people including myself had experienced after the 4.11 upgrade. One of my resolutions was to not let this dampen my start in 2010. I had gone back to 4.09d to get me through the holidays. Well, I'm back!!

Today I found it! It may not be a cure-all but it did fix mine. My laptop was bare bones, so I compared everything on it with what was on my slower desktop backup, which worked. Windows Media Player was version 9 on the laptop and version 11 on the desktop. So I updated. Didn't expect it to make a difference, but it did. Everything appears to be smooth so far. XXXXX

Now for the big question. Does anybody have a clue why?????

[ddouglass]

Easy, Hoster uses Windows Media Player to play the audio. The Audio in 4.11 is more complex now with the addition of the Remove Silence and the Fade In/Fade Out. This is obviously more than WMP 9 can handle.
Good find!!
I am going to move this to the tail-end of your other thread on this so it is all together.

[lpwalsh]

Thanks Dale. I put in about 30 to 40 songs with a key change on everything. Put it on auto and let it run. Didn't hang up like before either. Again, thanks for your help.

[dspins]

This key changing problem has been a rather big embarassment since the last upgrade. Whenever I try to change keys on a song for a customer, I get pops and clicks, and the music sounds horrid. I am using WMP 10, not 9 and still have this problem. The only reason I have not wanted to upgrade is that WMP 11 has alot of different changes and looks that make it more difficult to sort through DJ music between Karaoke sets.

Can anyone confirm any other way other than converting to 11 to fix this problem? I just find it so frustrating that every time Hoster is running fine, attempts to make changes to it keep breaking it. Suggestions as always are welcome. Thanks in advance.

[ddouglass]

All I can say is users have asked for all these changes and additions. MTU is one of the very few software companies that listen to their users and try to give them what they want. And it isn't just one person requesting, but when a group of users add their posts that they want it too.
Why use WMP for your DJ music between karaoke sets when Hoster can also handle this and the next upgrade will make handling these even better. MTU is trying to help us do both DJ and KJ duties with the least amount of hassles.
Look at this way if you have to buy a new computer it will most likely be Windows 7 or Vista and both of those come with WMP 11 installed. I am not crazy about WMP 11 myself, but on my show computer it is installed but never opened. This keeps its footprint (processor time down to a minimum. If you open it then it sets up its network service and starts trying to catalog all the music on your computer.....yech!!
As far as fixing the problem I don't think there is anyway, because Hoster is asking WMP 9 to do something it doesn't know how to do. WMP 10 & 11 handle this just fine, but I am not sure you can find WMP 10 anymore.

[Joe Nieves]

Originally Posted by lrn4569

I have upgraded my Windows Media Player to 11 and it still pops! I really like Hoster but this is very frustrating. This did not happen with older versions of Hoster so I hope they are working on a revision to 4.11 that could solve the problem

Loren

Originally Posted by dspins

This key changing problem has been a rather big embarassment since the last upgrade. Whenever I try to change keys on a song for a customer, I get pops and clicks, and the music sounds horrid. I am using WMP 10, not 9 and still have this problem. The only reason I have not wanted to upgrade is that WMP 11 has alot of different changes and looks that make it more difficult to sort through DJ music between Karaoke sets.

Can anyone confirm any other way other than converting to 11 to fix this problem? I just find it so frustrating that every time Hoster is running fine, attempts to make changes to it keep breaking it. Suggestions as always are welcome. Thanks in advance.

Hi Loren & dspins
You're probably having some background latency problem, here's a list of programs and steps that may help you solve these issues, you will need to start "Gamebooster" first before you start Hoster program.

Here's some other recommendations:

1. Do a registry clean up.here's one that's very good. http://www.winaso.com/ or Free program "Care" http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html

2. Do A windows defreg on the hard drive. Use this free program http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html?Str=download

3. Do A windows clean up of the hard drive.

4. Go to Start "Run", then type in "Temp" click ok, then delete all the temp files in that dir.you can, some you will be unable to delete.

5. If you use the computer every day you may want to remove some old restore points that will speed up things for you; go to start, my computer, right click over drive c:\ and choose properties, click disk clean Up, at dialog box choose "More Options" tab, go to System Restore at the bottom click "Clean Up", click yes to remove old restore points.

6. Turn off background services this tool will do it for you and it's free http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html?Str=download

7. This Is Very Important "Latency" get this tool and "Use It". http://www.thesycon.de/eng/home.shtml

8. Right click anywhere on the screen and choose properties, click "Settings" tab click square "1" lower "Screen resolution" to Hoster Recommended amount, I use 1152 by 864 pixels, then click "Apply" then ok.

9. Things you should turn off in "Device Manager", click on the device right click and choose disable. (Do This Procedure Before You Start Hoster)

1. Fingerprint Coprocessor
2. Bluetooth
3. USB Video Device
4. Modem
5. Any Bluetooth Audio
6. Internal Sound card your not using
7. Broadcom Netlink
8. Wireless Wifi Link
9. Under Batteries/ ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery
10. All above to Lower Latency levels down as mush as possible.


When you complete your show, turn them back "ON" again.

I believe the steps outlined above will give you better results.

Let me know how it worked out.


Good Luck
Joe...