Karaoke Forums

Hello fellow singers and techies,

I have about 55 Pioneer LDs and I am trying to figure out a reasonable way to convert these to either CDGs or on to my laptop.   The most painful way is to connect my LD player to my laptop and babysit a video capture software for several days straight. There is a data port on the back of the player for a 23 pin D shell cable but I don't even know if there is any compatability with current computer technology.


Any ideas or has anyone done this before?   I saw one guy selling DVDs on eBay who had done this.  

Thanks in advance

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Terryoke
Krazy Kanuck Karaokeist

Karaoke is the only social disease that you can get in public and not get arrested.

In the same boat as far as converting, have a comfortable chair  :wave:

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Matt had done it with his collection, if I recall correctly.

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

I did three full laserdiscs. But I ran into someone that had them all ripped. I then only had to rip the ones that weren't done, or ones that were done incorrectly!


And yes, the only way to do it is to sit there real time and record them like a VCR. What makes this tedious is the songs are only 3-5 mins long, so you have to sit there, manually start the recorder, press the play button on the player, stop the player, stop the recording software, and then label it.  Took about ten mins per 3 min track!

If I remember correctly, you can only convert the laser discs to either VCD or DVD. I haven't heard of anyone converting them to CD+G, BUT...I may be mistaken. Just thought I'd throw that out there because it wasn't actually addressed.

                                 Donny "B"  

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It's a wonderful life!!

Agreed, converting laser disc to CD+G is not possible.

You could convert them to CDG -- by using Karaoke Home Producer or the like to edit and sync the words yourself. There is no automatic transfer.

I have seen them turned into AVI or MPG files for simply playing like a video. I don't know what that does to sound quality, but I presume it shouldn't be too bad.

No way  :no:

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

No way what? I agree there is no way someone would want to make a custom karaoke track to the musical backing of the lasers, but it can be done. You lose the video, of course, and just get the audio.

That is an option.

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

C'mon people. The original question was if the Pioneer laser disc, I'm assuming in it's entirety, can be converted to cd+g. In that format, again, it can only be done via VCD or DVD. Now if you know of a DIRECT conversion from laser to cdg, it would be nice to share. BUT, I've never heard of that happening....yet.

                            Donny "B"    8)

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It's a wonderful life!!

Simply not true. You can record the video to any format, and a disk need not be involved.


Nor will you ever, because it is technically nearly impossible. If it were within the slimmest realm, it would certainly never be done because of the effort.

There is a local pirate who DID convert ALL of his Pioneer LDs to computer format. Don't know how...not a technie myself...but he said it took a long time. He goes by the name BBG - maybe you can google the name (maybe in Mount Vernon Washington?)  - or maybe "La Hacienda BBG karaoke" or something like that, and ask him how he did it.
K

They can be converted to play with Sax & Dottys just like the cd+gs, with the right hardware and several different programs.

I went into my "archives" and according to a guy I was in contact with last year, when I was going to convert my lasers to either vcd or dvd, he mentioned that each track when captured/loaded to the harddrive would take up to 1GB of space. So..if one wanted to load them into a computer, I'm guessing one would need an external drive of at least 500 to 750 GB's to allow for lasers, cd+g, as well as regular DJ music if one wanted to encompass the whole picture. So, each laser disc has 28 songs, 28 GB per disc, times say...57..the number of the original pioneers...would be ....1,596...."Think we're gonna need a bigger boat"!!. Or, you pick and choose which songs you want, which saves space. Realistically, I still contend that the person who initially posted this was trying to find a way to convert pioneer laserdiscs, [highlight=deepskyblue]IN THEIR ENTIRETY[/highlight], to cd+g. AND to that I STILL say, regardless of what mckyj57 says, IT CAN'T BE DONE.  :roll:
Terryoke, try the following link, http://www.thekteam.co.uk When you get on the site...go to "contact", send a message to "Steve", and explain, IN DETAIL, what you want to do. Actually, he'll also tell you that you can't tranfer the lasers to cd+g, BUT, he CAN tell you how to do it to either vcd, dvd, and probably how to "load up" your computer, and suggest which programs would work the best. All that, without going through the "he says you can, I say you can't" bull. With that, I wish you luck and good fortune in your endeavor .

                      Donny "B"    

btw: Hey mckyj57,  :headscratch:.. were you and sideWHINER seperated at birth??!!  :jk:

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It's a wonderful life!!

First of all a CD+G is totally different in the way the media is done.  Laser is a video, graphics and music.  CD+G is graphics and music which isn't excatly a video file.  I'm no comptech and i don't know how to explain it.    But how do you think you can change a video into a graphic file and it will automatically become a CD+G?   You can transplant a pig nose onto a chicken, but it still won't oink.    A laser disc is one format.  A CD+G is another format.   DVD is different and so is VCD and Video Disc.


Prism Video Converter
Convert a range of video file formats

I just found this site.  It's freeware and i don't know a thing about it.   Check it out.

Hey Terryoke, one more thing I forgot to mention. To hook up your Laser Disc Player to your lap top, try looking into "Dazzle". I'm pretty sure they may have the "connection" you're looking for, along with either Studio 9 or Nero for capturing software. Just a thought, but the link I gave in the previous post should take you to the answers to ALL your questions.  :handshake:

                              Donny "B"    

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It's a wonderful life!!

First of all, not every song would be 1GB. Many of the 3 minute songs came up to be 60MB, and songs like "Silent Lucidity" were 110MB. I used a converter to do a compression, similar to the wav to .mp3g. I experimented with the settings, and for the most part, decided on no more than 35% on average. The video sometimes is noticably changed.

Hey knightshow. Long time my friend. Yeah you're right. I should have said "could'
be, not "would" be. Still, if he wants to go that route, he'd need a lot of space, wouldn't he?
   
                Donny "B"  

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It's a wonderful life!!

no doubt about it! I have an entire 300 gb hard drive JUST for my video files and pioneer lasers! The Pioneers themselves are almost 220GB!