Karaoke Forums

I just purchased a couple of songs from Karaoke Version for 2.99 a pop and lo and behold they play really fine right in Windows Media Player. Many of their songs are just backing tracks (very good quality) but they also have what they call "Video Karaoke" tracks that play in Windows Media Player. Here is their description of these files:

WMV file
The WMV (Windows Media Video) format is a audio and video compression system (codec) developed by Microsoft.
In order to read the karaoke video files, you need to use a software or a hardware that is compatible with this format. The free Windows Media Player, distributed with Windows, can read these files.

Have any of you had experience with these WMV files? What are the pro's & con's?

http://www.karaoke-version.com/en/

Wmv is just one of the format for video file. ALL my karaoke CDs are video and multiplex and not cdg. I can convert it to wmv, avi or mpeg.
There are program that can convert cdg to video.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

cdg2vcd is an excellent little prog I use it all the time

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Stupid question: What would be the advantage to convert it from mp3+g to video format?

not a stupid question.

but here is one answer:
If you already have a dvd player at home that do not play cdg dics, then that is one way to solve the problem.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Oh ok, I see. In that case it makes sense. Thanks for clarifying!

The advantage of .wmv files is the small size - I made some tests and typically one song is 100% in MPEG2, 70% in AVI and 50% in .wmv - so you can save some harddisk space by using .wmv.

I am using the AVS Video Tools (http://www.avsmedia.com/VideoTools/index.aspx) but any other converter will do the job in the same way.

There is one disadvantage with .wmv which I figured out, so better try before with your system:

My system is a laptop and a flat screen, the laptop for the Karaoke Software (Karafun) and the big screen for the singers text. The .wmv files only plays on the monitor which you define as screen number 1 - regardless if this is the laptop or the flat screen.

Of course, you can run the Karaoke Software from screen number 2, but any error message (e.g. File not found) will show up in screen number 1 - which is not really good.

This only happens with .wmv files, not with .mpg , so better try with your system if you can see .wmv files on your singers screen,  before you convert all your media.

Wolfgang

Since hard drive space is not really an issue anymore, I just keep it in mp3+g.