Karaoke Forums

I doubt that that's going to happen right away. It may take years for them to get to that point.

You can call it whatever you wish, but I will still be a Disc-Based Host, because that will be the medium that I will still be using at my shows. If I have to pay for a download of the tracks I want (like I already do with SBI Karaoke), I will still convert them to disc to play at my shows. Maybe the term for me (and others like me) will be ODB/OSB Host.

I have nothing against ODB hosts. But I do think it is silly to convert downloaded files to CD+G and then play them on a player. Seems like a cost (no matter how small it is) being added to your business for a medium that is going to go away sooner than most realize.

-Chris


-Chris

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-Chris

That's if the Cloud ever takes off. For small companies, $199 a month, or even $600 every six months could be a deal breaker. It will only work for the bigger karaoke companies.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

...And it will also work for Venue Owner's who wish to do in-house karaoke vs. subbing out to mobile KJ...again, just think about it in the long haul, crunch the numbers. Sure, it takes a certain personality to run a show and bring in PAYING customers but figure in the cost of hiring a Mobile KJ vs the Venue buying their own system and cloud service, running the shows themselves and or hiring someone with a good to great personality to host shows anytime of the week.

Actually, for Venue Owners it's $299 a month.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

...I did watch it live today. Nothing is set in stone as far as price. BUT the point I'm trying to make is a Venue could buy or may already have their own sound system and with little or minimal cost could add whatever is needed to complete their sound system to be able to host Karaoke Shows using a Karaoke Subscription Service and hire someone (individual) to run the show (do it themselves, find a local patron and offer them little pay or a free tab of food & drinks) vs. the Mobile KJ who might charge $150.00 - $300.00 per night. Plus the Venue could run karaoke anytime they desire.

...If a Venue offers Karaoke two nights per week at a cost of $150.00 per night times 52 weeks, that's $15,600.00 per year. If the Venue does it in-house. Perhaps the sound system runs them $6000.00 plus $300.00 Subscription Fee times 12 months ($3,600.00 per year) plus $100.00 per week (food & drink tab for host two nights per week = $50.00 per night) which comes to $5,200.00 for a grand total of $14,800.00 vs. $15,600.00 for the Mobile KJ. Not to mention no worrying about the KJ having illegal music, no fear of lawsuit. The Venue can run other nights, only cost is to hire host. Plus, Venue now owns all of the sound system and has most of it paid for after first year of running Karaoke.

I have already complained directly to them about the pricing. Anyone that has been in business doing karaoke for more than a year or two and has any sizable library will see no benefit to paying $199 or more for monthly access to everything they already have and the few new/user requested tracks that would need.

Someone who is just trying to break into the business *OR* for pirates wanting to go legit, then the price is fantastic. But even then, the price is only fantastic for about a year then, the math doesn't work out. That is why I posted the survey. If you aren't already paying $199/mo or more for new music, then the service is an incremental cost that you can't get back unless you can reduce costs elsewhere or raise your rates. Neither of which the market supports right now. If they want to attract hosts that already have established libraries, they will have to either drop the price or somehow sweeten the pot.

None of this changes the fact that ALL karaoke will end up in the cloud over the next 5-10 years. DigiTrax will not be the only player in town. New manufacturers (if any pop up) will not be able to justify capital expenditures to produces physical media vs the cheaper cost to distibute via the cloud. Established vendors will feel the squeeze and have to remain competitive as the new models created different and higher margins.

Any way you slice this, CD+G is going to go away pretty quickly. You can still use what you have, but you will see less and less distibuted on CD. I give it 5 or less years before CD+G is all but extinct from new production.

-Chris

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-Chris

The problem I see is that you are getting nothing for your money. You just use the tracks. The mfrs get all this money, but really offer no product. When you decide your time is done, what do you have besides your equipment? You have no music. With Cloud service, you have paid and paid and paid, and you walk away with empty hands. Really the true benefit goes to the Mfrs and not the hosts.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Is that too much different than it is now? You pay and pay for iTunes and you don't "own" that either. No more than you own the music you consume on Spotify, Pandora, or Zune. No more than you own the movies you stream from Amazon or Netflix.

Today, you pay and pay for karaoke music that loses its value the moment you buy it. You generally can't resell it for what you paid for it and, given the changes to the industry, in 5-10 years you won't be able to resell it for anything at all since everyone will be using a different system.

-Chris

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-Chris

I don't have the time or the patience that would be needed to convert my discs to a HD. It took me almost 6 months just to finish what I had started about 10 years ago... making a backup copy/burn of all of my originals. I had about 600 discs that weren't backed up, and there were about a dozen discs that I discovered I needed to replace (because my Plextor couldn't read them due to pin-holes or other damages/deteriorations).

I already have a working player (and 2 backup players just in case something happens). I am quite satisfied with my sound system (which has nothing to do with what we're talking about here anyway).

The medium may be going away at some point in time (as you keep saying), but that only means that they will stop producing in the old(er) formats. You make it sound like I won't have a choice... "for a medium that is going to go away sooner than most realize." It won't happen all of a sudden. It will be phased out slowly (just like they did with VHS to DVDs... the stores and rental places started carrying less and less of the VHS format until they eventually just stopped altogether). Keep in mind, that doesn't mean that you won't be able to use what you already have (just like I still occasionally watch a movie from one of my VHS tapes (yes... I still have a working VHS player (and a hybrid VHS/DVD player as well)).

Now explain to me how it's going to be a (financial) cost to me to continue as I am. I would still have to buy my music, so that remains a constant. I'm sure the sites that offer downloads of Karaoke tracks (such as SBI, Karaoke-Version, Tricerasoft) will still be around for the long haul. They'll probaly step it up a notch (to be current with the technology), and I'm sure they will still offer you the option of how you want your downloads. The only extra step would be for me to buy blank CD-R's. That's a minimal expense (that costs me about $20 for a spindle of 100 discs (I use Sony and TDK)). With a library of about 1,100 discs, I don't anticipate purchasing 100 new Karaoke discs a year.... maybe 50. So, that would mean I would be spending $20 a year extra (for the media which I choose to continue to use). Now, how much are you going to be spending on that Cloud Technology?

There really is no sense in us going back and forth. If you want to stick with discs, go right ahead. I don't hold it against you personally.

But you said yourself that it took you 6 months recently just to finish a back up process you started a decade ago. I can press a couple of buttons and backup everything in a few hours overnight while I am sleeping. I can do it again the next night and have a copy that I can store off-site to mitigate a local catastrophic circumstance. Also, MP3+G doesn't get pin-holes and they don't deteriorate......ever. Over time, your discs will degrade, break or otherwise become unplayable. Once those originals are gone, they are gone forever. Computerized versions can be replicated exactly with no loss or damage and will always be usable.

Had you started converting 10 years ago instead of waiting, then you could be doing the same thing. You now have a glimpse at the future and an opportunity to be ahead of the curve instead of several generations behind.

What I will be paying for the cloud......unless they make some drastic changes, I don't plan on using the services that were discussed at the summit today. The cost to benefit ratio doesn't work out for me. I suspect it won't work out for most hosts that have actually paid for karaoke music for more than a year or two.

You are correct, it won't change overnight, but it will change. That much is inevitable. I am investigating and educating myself on what is going on, and remain open to the changes as they take place. Once they change the value proposition, and I firmly believe they will have to if they want to actually sell the services, then I will consider moving to cloud based karaoke. Until then, i will stick with the current standard of local computerized karaoke.

-Chris

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-Chris

If I had the files all on one HD, I could do it overnight too. Now, how long did it take you (and the kid you hired) to take your CDGs and copy them to HD? You can't do that overnight. That takes much more time. And then there's the naming convention... more time.

I'm not in this for a living. It's just a hobby for me. I do (maybe) 10 shows in the year. As I stated, it would take too much time for me to have to go through my discs 1 by one and convert them to a HD, and I just don't feel it's worth it for me.

Cueball,
I know you weren't asking me but had to jump in and answer anyways...when we converted it took us over 3 years of working every minute we could find to convert our CDG's and the work related to doing so(this was with 3 people working on it). This was after we finally found an acceptable process to do so and after a few false starts. This did not count the time converting the LD files. I must say I am sure happy its done and we dont have to repeat the process. Of course we do have a disc whore's collection.

Athena

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

Cue, it's not as bad as it sounds. It takes a bit of time for each disc to rip. In that time you can go about your business and just change discs as they get finished. If you are working on your books, for example, you can still do that and rip your discs at the same time. You don't have to watch them rip.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Was unable to watch the stream summit, Joe. Sorry. I was called to do a last minute anniversary party gig from 1-5 pm. A little disappointed especially after finding out the topics that were discussed. Could’ve been interesting to watch. Selected Topics of Discussion
“The State of the Disunion”
– Joseph Vangieri, DigiTrax Entertainment
“Feels Like The First Time”
– Greg Lazzaroni, Karaoke.com
“Look What They Done To My Song – UGC on YouTube”
– Doug DeLuca
“A Change Is Gonna Come”
– Bernardo Melo, The Singing Machine
“The Name Game”
– Bob Latshaw, Latshaw Systems
“I Fought The Law”
– Allen Jacobi, Allen Jacobi Law, and Vincent Castellucci,
Castellucci Consulting Corp.
“TLC – Red Light Special”
– Kurt Slep, Sound Choice
“TLC – Technology, Licensing & Content”
– Derek Slep, Stingray Music USA
“Workingman’s Blues”
– Ryan Sherr, PCDJ, Glen Hughes, CompuHost, and
Jonathan Apostoles, JoltSoft
“On A Cloud”
– Joseph Vangieri

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

Many hours/days/months and I am still not finished. But I am also very much in the duplication of songs phase so I am not rushing to finish ripping what I have. Naming takes place as part of the rip so that adds zero to the process. In the off that naming does get wonky, I use MP3+GToolz to bulk name change which again is a few clicks then go to bed.

I forgot you do this as a hobby. That adds perspective to this that I was missing. it would not make sense at all for you to rips it all down for 10 shows a year.

-Chris

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-Chris

They pretty well were ignoring any benefits for legit host anyway as they once again pointed out that 95% of KJ's were illegal as far as they could figure out.

If they can set me up with a way to purchase tracks from the cloud during shows or after shows from credits, I'm all for it, But a subscription service to play 20+ years of music I already own doesn't do me squat.

The "cloud" may be it - for now, until the next "best thing" comes by. We have over 27,000 songs on over 2,000 discs. We can never buy another disc and still have more than enough for the next 20 years. Very few new songs have a long shelf life. Yes, you may not have to be there while the disc is being copied onto the harddrive but you have to be there to change the discs. I have better things to do with my time. Now if one is just starting out, it may be different.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

You mean the Cloud is the next best thing since White Bread???? What was the next best thing before White Bread??????

White bread is NOTHING compared to SLICED bread.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE