Karaoke Forums

Hey folks, I have been hosting karaoke parties in my home for 20+ years. I would like to go computer with my music if it is not too involved. I am on the back side of 50 and not a computor geek, just a working man who has friends over and would like to spend more time socializing and less time swaping discs. I still have all my laser discs from way back when. Could I put them on computer? What software do you recommend and do you have to have a certain hardware or will any laptop work? Not trying to go public, just in my basement. Thanks, Kevin

What is your current hardware setup? Should be able to re-use some of it.

Converting Laser Disc to a computer based format is gonna be tougher than converting CD+G discs to MP3+G's. Since the computer cannot directly read a laser disc, you're probably going to have to play them from the laser disc player, through an encoder and then record it on the PC to a video file. The problem with this is your Karaoke tracks would be video files just like you'd watch from You Tube or something (either AVI, MP4, Quicktime or a similar format). This means you would not be able to use the tracks in many of the Karaoke software packages discussed on this forum.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

As I understand it, laserdiscs are not in MP3 format, but in CDV format, more like a DVD or Blueray disc. SO....off the top of my head, I can't think of a way to end up with a typical separated karaoke MP3+G track from a CDV file.

You could burn the laserdisc to DVD using a DVD burner, then burn it to your computer, or you could burn it straight to the computer using a video capture card.

Both of these ways, however, you are going to end up with a SINGLE file, not with a MP3+G file (separate MP3 and Graphics files) that would be easy to use within most karaoke hosting programs.

BUT, what you would end up with would be a 1:1 digital copy of each laserdisc file in something like a MPEG format that you could play through your computer. If you have a program like CompuHost, if one of these laserdisc songs was requested, you could take a little bit of extra time to map the MPEG to a VIDEO BITS button, push the button, and off you go. Not ideal, because that would be far from a seamless transition, but it would work.

Someone correct me if there is a better way!!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I converted my LD collection to my laptop and it's a lot of work. First, all the posts above is true. The lyric is embedded in the video data so it's impossible to get the lyric and audio out separately. I converted it to DVD then ripped it to the laptop. The hardest part is to make each song as a chapter so it will capture separately. It took a lot of time to set chapter marks on the LD before copying it to the DVD format. After that, it's just a straight tip to the computer.

I use MTU Hoster and it does play the video files fine. You just have to rip it to the right format (I believe mine was in WMV) and right codec and it plays fine.

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Seize the day and SING!!!