Karaoke Forums

The real Y2K problem started with punch cards.. They only had 80 positions for data..

That's why the 2 digit date codes..

So when 2000 came around, the computer thought it muight be 1900

Paychecks were not printed..

I think we (the KJ/karaoke community) should be more focused on getting more karaoke tracks produced, rather than arguing about what format they should be. Karaoke manus are dropping like flies due to lawsuits and costs.


I can't wait for the day when the record companies start producing karaoke track along side the original tracks when they release new albums. It would be simple for them, all they have to do is mute the vocal tracks on the master, and find some monkey to key in the lyrics/graphics, and viola, they have a whole new market!!!!

Most of my Malay/Indon/ mandarin songs are by original artis.

1) Hardware or not, the very limited problem that occurred had an effect ONLY on Windows- Not Linux, Dos, or even PICK. Just windows- and the problem was solved with software, not hardware, upgrades. And if I was COMPLETELY wrong on this particular issue, Windows would still be crap.


2) Ok so it was a LACK of marketing expertise. Same result, and my answere remains the same:

Gonna have to show some HUGE gains before consumers will change their standard....

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I think the Software the OP might want is UnifyKaraoke www.unifykaraoke.com

You see these systems in most asian own karaoke clubs.

I myself dont like their interface as they haven't update it for years. It also doesn't behave well under Vista so I haven't bought it yet.

I got myself a cheap DIVX/XVID/MPEG karaoke on demand hard drive player from China which I converted 2,000 or so of my karaoke VCD and DVD to DIVX. Works well but there are two issues:

-Image quality looks worse then VCD quality but you can read the text easily, so I guess that's all it matters.

-I rip all my audio inteo dual streams, Stream 1 Karaoke, Stream 2 - Vocal. Going from song to song it doesn't seem to remember the stream number and always switch to stream 1. Can be annoying as you cannot use it as a juke box.

Actually if re-read, the OP is trying to create their own software, not looking for something already available.

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Yes I understand. But that software will cover his point a,b, and c he was requesting from the software.

I would be interested in seeing the software if it gets release here. I was looking to do one myself at one stage.

You are right. I am looking at all options including this particular software from China..... I am not particular amused as there were so many little bugs with the software and strange behavior if the data were not entered right. I would rather not invent something new if the market already has something similar and unify karaoke may be applicable. I think Ace Karaoke was selling this, or may still do.... but they seemed to tone down the support for this as I guess very few people know how to set up both hardware and software till it works.

I am slowly licking this... but the software support from the developer in China is still very patchy... They could not even properly answer to my queries about the software menu display problems. The database interface they have is one big unconventional windows process. You simply cannot cut and paste in their database interface. You will have to export the database into Access by hacking the security code. When pressed further, the tech support simply quit answering.

Anyways here's the first graphic menu screen as a teaser.

I think a big reason for the difference is legal not technical.

In the US it is not going to be practical to play the appropriate music video or original artis in the background of each song because of copyright issues.

Even If one had the music video for a song, and a karaoke version as well the timing would probably be off by a second or two most of the time, and that would end up being distracting as they would be sending different singnals on the timeing. This is because the Karaoke here in the US was generally made by studeo musicians unlike in Asia, and most of the time they are not going to be exactly true to the original artist recording in timing. Accurate syncronizing of the karaoke track and video for more than a few songs sounds like a very intimidating and time consumeing task. Not only that it probably is illegal without prior approval of the owner of video rights.

Vocal removal from the origonal artist's video is an option, followed by adding the syncronized lyrics to the screen. But that is difficult and rarely works well, and again takes a lot of time.

While one may have a very rare artist here or there who has made the karaoke tracks in the US, it is the norm in most of Asia so far as I understand. With the origional artist doing the karaoke backing tracks of course it is much easier to get the appropriate video or images for the band.

When it is not possible to have the orgional artists doing their thing in the background, many of the other options in terms of graphics/videos sorta end up being cheesey, as the production cost in time and effort makes it very hard to do for all the songs one has in their books.

If you can find a few exceptions, mainly made for the asian market, to this rule such as the old Pioneer discs that were made by regular music publishers, but using only such songs (where avalible in English) would severely limit your song selection.

It is interesting to see the previous post showing software from China that have linked images of the Artists. This is very rare in the English karaoke, again because of copyright laws (and apparently those are viewd very differently in China).

A few other images of the touch screen interface.

Pioneer Lasers & DVDs have a video.

Using a song with a video running in the backgroud lowers the overall crowd noise. Because instead of talking they are watching the video.

I have seen this happen with every video song ever played. Some of the story lines are funny and people are laughing at them. They do get watched by the non singers. So the overall "entertainment value" of video songs is actually higher. Do you only want to entertain the singers or everyone present?

Not always, but sometimes can help the crowd. Although it does take focus off of the singer.

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