Karaoke Forums

I am looking for some software to add background images into the cdg files so that I can see something other than a blue screen when I play them on the computer.

Also, could someone recommend a good place to buy MP3+G song files online? I would like to be able to purchase them in this format rather than buy discs and have to rip them.

Best Regards

Ty

The best source for mp3+G is Sound Choice although they do not do downloads. Instead they have a series out called the GEM series that are mp3+G discs that you can transfer over to hard drive with a license to do so. It's the only source that has such a license. Pop Hits also has their stuff in MP3+G form discs.
Chartbusters offer downloads, but if you are looking to use them commercially it is a bit of a grey area whether you can do so.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Siglos has a karaoke player that will allow you to display pictures behind the graphics of the song. It comes with some stock photos but you can add your own as well.

And I can't at all understand why anyone would want that.

For me, it is bad, because I don't really read the lyrics, I pretty well know them from practice. I *do* glance over from time to time on songs where I am not 100% confident about the lyrics without a safety net. Glancing over is easy when you can pick the words out of a high-contrast background, but not so easy when you have to pull them out of a graphic.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

I prefer song with video in the background instead of plain one. That's why I usually get the video karaoke if it's available instead of CDG. I consider karaoke as a form of entertainment so usually I like to have to people get to read and maybe can hum along.

Is there a program that could modify the cdg itself so it would show the background regardless of the player?

A better looking player that will allow backgrounds is JustKaraoke. Comes with backgrounds installed. They are moving too. Not just your bitmaps pictures but more like screensavers.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

A free one you can try is

http://www.karafun.com/

No, yes and kinda. The CDG standard supports a transparent color (a color that doesn't get printed to the screen) but few if any players recognize this command. So, in theory...Yes. In practice...No.

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Okay, who took my pants?

Thanks everyone for your answers, this has given me a good start.

I came across this program http://www.karaokebuilder.com that says it can add images to the cdg files, but I have not verified it. I just got PyKaraoke up and running yesterday ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/pykaraoke/ ) and the author has promised video as a future feature so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

How about key changes? If I could run karaoke on Linux, you bet I would do it!

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Siglos will let you do this... (Drop a background photo behind the karaoke lyrics) and you can turn the feature on and off.

The photos at changed at random from a folder with images in it.

You can run PyKaraoke on linux. I was running it on Ubuntu 9.04 without any problems. It runs the same as on Windows XP.

Yes, do you know of a key changer for it?

You can't do that because being able to have video background will depend on the player itself. The only thing you can do is redefine the transparency if it doesn't exist already.

I don't know if you can use your own video with Karafun or not. I know you need to build something to use your own video. JustKaraoke also allow to to use video background. Walaoke is another one that allow you to use Video background. It even allow you to use your video camera (such as webcam) as the background.

I know it runs on Linux (when it does -- latest segfaults for me today). But I wouldn't consider using it without a key changer.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.