I am a programmer and currently have
a Laptop DJ program that plays the
regular gambit of stuff .mp3 .cda bla bla bla.
It also has a requester program with it that
is just a touch screen so bar goers can request
songs just like (TouchTunes). you can stick in
any cd you like and It automatically rips the entire
cd to mp3 with all the Artist/Album/Title and even
lyrics and stores in a database.

Here Is The Kicker. A Customer Of mine has Requested
a karaoke player inside my application. I felt kind of stupid
because It seems that I should have thought of that first.
So I went and bought a karaoke cd and stuck in in my cd
drive to see what I could do with it. To my dismay not much.
Now I can read the entire disk and seperate out all the songs
and get the Side track data (where the lyrics are) off. Lucky
for me I new about the side track data from audio disks because
I get that information when i play regular audio cd's. Usually the
current duration/time remaning is stuck in there and saves me
some programming that way.

So, Now i got all the (Music Data Chunk) , (Lyric Data Chunk) and
(Timing Information) I realized I have no idea what should really be
done with it. So I am looking for sugestions and comments. I will
be glad to give the Karaoke Software (Not DJ Stuff) to anyone who
helps. Here is a list of my questions:

How Many Different Types Of Formats Are There?
I think I May Need To Just Support 1 or 2 So Which Ones?
Do You Want To Just Play The Tracks From The Cd Drive?
Do You Want Them To Be Ripped To The Hard Drive?
If Ripped What Are Common Formats That Are Followed? Ive Seen
Everything From .Avi to .Mp3 with a Tag File (Seems Dumb)

Do You Want To Create A Playlist?
How About Extra Video Out? Like If you are playing some audio
but the next song up is a karaoke. Would you like the video screen
to say something 2 minutes before.
eg. "Sara & John 2 Minute Warning"
eg. "Singing 'Just You And I'"


This Project Needs to be quick and simple. I can do any of the
stuff I had questions about. But I need to have a standard to
go by. If I tried to support everything I would never get done.

Thanks All, Sorry So Long.

Steve



:madhack:

Hi Steve.

The major format in karaoke is the cd+g format with tens of thousands of songs produced by many manufacturers worldwide.

Many of us rip the discs to separate files from the cd+g discs into .mp3 and .cdg files which means we can store thousands of songs on hard drives that are used to do karaoke shows.

I personally use goldenhawk cdrwin, mp3gtoolz, and wincdgpro2 but there are other combinations that work well.

Hope this helps

DDUK
:)

as DD says, most of us have the discs 'stored' as mp3+G mate (.mp3 file and corresponding .CDG file) I think you'd find most of us on here would recommend that as probably the best. Some (not me) have been using PC based karaoke systems for a couple of years now.

As above, we store mp3+g's on a hard disc, as it is easier and quicker to access.
Playlists are not very useful, as gigging is better done on the fly.
Video out is ideal as we can be cueing up the next song etc. on the laptop while the punters are checking out the upcoming track on the outward facing tv screen, and would be better if we could program our own message on the screen. At present this can be done with pcdj kj, one of the better karaoke programs - worth looking at for format.