Karaoke Forums

So insignificant Chris that no one even thinks they are important enough to sue? I guess size does matter, they must really be flying under the radar screen. Oh by the way Chris you didn't piss me off.

Yes I spoke with people who have been to "brewtus's "shows on multiple occasions, they even forwarded pics from a birthday party that was held there (including a few with a great view of the corner he was set up in and the entire system, no room for even 1 disc binder, very close quarters). From what they have said he is a very good host. (they have also never seen him load a disc). In the news article he did have 3 binders of discs that he says no-one ever asked him to see, he never stated he did not media-shift, just that he had the discs....I wish the film portion was still online so you could watch it again.

NO manufacture has to allow for preemptive audits......they do not even have to allow shifting at all. PR appears to be handling the lawsuits they file quite differently from those filed by SC ....that is apparent from the legal documentation available.

_________________
"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

Just another reason Athena to cave in and pay off PR before they become a problem, since that would be the only preemptive way to head things off. Once you are named in a suit you will have to pony up some money. I mean what are we talking about here 99.00 a month to subscribe to Cloud a drop in the bucket. It was said at the summit they will welcome back all who settle in this manner with open arms.

OR if you own your discs get on the list for an audit I have

_________________
"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

Those are not "jukeboxes" Lone Ranger they are CAV's units( I do not think there are any knock offs...but there may be). The do require media shifting unless you buy CAVS discs. We had a couple of those over the years as well...they have issues of their own. If a host uses one of those they are safe IF they only used CAV's discs to load them...IF not they could have problems if they do not act proactively just like any computerized host (Stellar still makes and sells CAV's discs but there are no others that I am aware of).

_________________
"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

What you described Athena is the old carousel machine with discs held in place by an inside rack that went around in a circle, thus the name carousel. The CAVS machine is different I still have one of these around someplace, they play the SCDG's and you punch the number for that particular disc, you also have to change the disc. What I'm talking about is the hard drive karaoke jukebox type of machine ACE has a model, RSQ has a model, U-Best Media has several models, 168, 268 and now 368 you can find them on Ebay, or Amazon.com. They have up to a 2 TB capacity and can hold up to 50,000 individual karaoke tracks. I'm not talking about a CAVS machine although they run on a similar principle. Punching the number and going.

If I wanted to be on a list Athena and wait in line I would have stayed in the military. Have you ever thought that list might be used instead of an audit for subscription to the Cloud. Like you have pointed out they could forbid the shifting of CB product altogether, if you want to use on the CB on your PC you have to join Cloud.

we have 2 CAVs machines in storage with the HD built in....I would not have been looking for the knock offs sold by RSQ or ubest...the Caves were first out unless I am mistaken...that's why they were sued. A local store sold the preloaded CAV's units for a year or two. If the RSQ's and UBests require ripping from CDG then they are no different from a computer....a proactive audit would prevent a host/venue from being named in a lawsuit.

I guess you mail order groceries right ? you wouldn't want to stand in line

_________________
"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

The CAV's is not truly a hard drive system Athena the information is not stored in the machine, it is stored on the discs placed into the machine. All the CAV's machine really does is read the formatted discs. It is quite plain you know very little about the hard drive karaoke machines, the disc is downloaded directly onto the hard drive with no compression of the information. This is a very time consuming and labor intense process. When completed it is one of the easiest systems to run, just punch and go. Just ask mr.marog.

wrong look up the specs of the JB199...no discs were ever used in the machine after loading...there were a number of other models that worked the same way

http://cavsusa.com/199.html

_________________
"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

The JB199 is a Jukebox HD you are correct Athena made by CAVS it is a different machine than the little player that plays the SCDG's the 203 I think that's the number. That is the machine I was referring to. The Chinese machines are not knock offs it was CAVS that copied them, they have been around a long time. At least the U-Best Media has been around along time, there are at least four versions of the Jukebox HD system.

cavs SCDG players are a whole different line...CAV's players were very hot around here for a few years...most came with large illegally preloaded HD's and at least 1 large company was sued out of business for selling them...it was BIG news

_________________
"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

If they are so bad Athena why do you have two in storage?

i think he was referring to CAVS style jukebox systems, not the carousel style systems.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Because my wonderful husband is a hoarder when it comes to equipment and discs....he still buys his favorite dual drawer pioneer CDG player even though we have 4 in there...and 6 LD players as well.(and I even think I saw a few CAV's SCDG players as well)and yes a few carousel jukeboxes too.

_________________
"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

I hope you are not paying storage for all of this that could get quite expensive. If anybody should be helping Smoothedge with equipment it should be you. It sounds like you have enough to equip at least 4 or 5 more operators.

Actually in a muddled sort of way me Athena have been discussing various karaoke delivery systems in no real logical order. The carousel machine came out in the 90's and for a short time was state of the art. This is before the rise of the PC, then you had the small CAVS players that played the SCDG's and I guess somewhere along the line came the JB 199 which is a true HD system. I do believe that U-Best Media is the real pioneer of the HD Jukebox. They started with the model 168, then came the 268 and now they have the 368-E, they also make a model 2000 I believe. The 368-E has it's own USB port and you can format your own discs with a keyboard attached. The HD Jukebox is a compromise between ODB and the PC host. Many would say it's a folly and that the Chinese machine is unreliable. I guess it does not hurt to admit that I have used both the 168 and the 268 for the last ten years, for the nine years prior to that I was ODB. Since you need a disc to download the machine I have always considered this delivery system more disc based than PC. It is one of my trade secrets, since I'm the only host I know of that uses such a system, when I said I only saw one host use such a machine with no problem, I was looking in the mirror. That is probably why I have never been sued the investigator didn't even know what he was looking at. As far a sound quality is concerned the music is stored with no compression and can't be told from the disc it came from. Once the material is loaded you no longer had to cart around your discs and worry about them becoming damaged. As far a reliability is concerned my 168 still works after all these years, the only reason I moved up to the 268 is because I needed more storage space. It currently holds over 18,000 karaoke tracks and 6,000 audio, and still has room for 26,000 more karaoke tracks. If I were going to stay in the business I would seriously consider buying a 368-E. I hope this puts to rest some of the myths concerning the HD Jukebox machine. It has worked well for me for a little more than half my karaoke hosting career. It has proven more reliable than some PC based shows with better sound quality than most.

I have to eat I don't need an audit, there is a difference.

the "jukeboxes" you are speaking off are specialized computers...nothing more and nothing less. They require media shifting from disc to the HD in the unit. We did try one for a bit of time while we were converting because it came with an entire system we purchased from someone getting out of the business(complete with discs, wires, speakers,stands ect). Personally we found it to be slower to load than we wanted.

Yes we do pay for storage space each and every month, 1 unit for equipment and 1 for discs only.. Insurance to cover business losses costs MUCH less because we use highly secured, air conditioned, fireproofed storage. If our house was to be robbed homeowners would not cover any business items, If the storage facility was robbed, they would have multiple video coverage of anyone going in and out of not only the facility but the specific building and even our specific units. Every unit has fire suppression, motion activated lights and alarms. The facility is on much higher ground and was built to handle a level 4 hurricane. And our insurance would cover all losses minus a $500.00 deductible. The insurance even covers loses during transportation and at venues.( the costs for Storage and insurance are completely deductible as business expenses as well).

Our home is smallish, with no garage.and we live in a 100 year flood zone close to the coast. We have had water to the threshold (but not in the house) 3 times in 12 years .If we built a air conditioned storage building with alarms we could still be exposed to fire/flood/and hurricanes and it would take us over 15 years to break even and our insurance would still be triple IF we could purchase it.

As far as helping newbie KJ's we do. We have helped 9 KJ's get started over the years, provided loaner equipment to others when they were in need, even given equipment to some and helped with repairs and education.

Since most of our shows are perm installs that only require the computer and HD (or electronics road case )to be carried we need to have a large variety of parts/electronics to customize systems for each room.

We are very happy with the way we have decide to handle things.

_________________
"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

The jukeboxes are really closer to disc based than computer, they require no computer keyboard and are totally run either manually or with the remote control. I have found no problem with the loading time. If a show were run completely from my song books, and if the singers let me know their song selections for the evening; I could put up to 100 songs in the machine, and play them one after the other with no down time. The major drawback to the jukebox is the amount of time and effort to setup a numbering system and download each song one by one on to the HD. Of course you have to make special books with numbers rather than disc #'s and track #'s. Once you have done the heavy lifting up front then operation is simple. Truly one of the easiest systems to use and carry. Like I have said I'm the only host in my area using one all the time, and it has never failed me. Unless you are using the original disc in a simple player everything requires shifting Athena. That is why I don't use SC they object to the shifting, it still remains to be seen if CB with all their transformations are going to be able to win a suit. By the time the dust settles in Tennessee I will be retired.