Karaoke Forums

Is a karaoke player in essence a CD or DVD player with a line in allowing a person to mix in a microphone, and possibly transpose the pitch ?
I went over to "Sound Choice" for the first time, and noticed they offer DVD format type Karaoke music.
Prior to buying a Karaoke system, I'm wondering if I need one.

Questions I have pertain to pro's and con's of:

Actual Karaoke player
DVD player (assuming a person owns a PA system and mixer, and
player allows broad selection of formats)
Computer as karaoke player

dvd may be the wave of the future... it's unclear now. There's still shake ups going on in the dvd universe, such as the blue ray dvd, etc.

the regular dvd may go the way of the betamax. I certainly hope not, but you never know.

For now, cdg is the way to go. Some have tried the mp3g and the supercdg (which is the dvd version OF mp3g! !)... but the standard is STILL cdg.

The main difference in 'normal' karaoke players is the format. Mic inputs are not 'required' on karaoke players but they are common. Typically you'll find 1/4" unbalanced mic connections which are not consider professional quality mic connections (XLR balanced connections are considered professional). These mic connections are acceptable for occasional home use but most of your better mics don't come with 1/4" connections, thus making the mic connections on the front useless.

CDG or Compact Disc+Graphics is a format that actually uses spare bits of space in the normal audio stream to provide graphic information. This format is widely accepted and a subset of the Red Book standard (red book is the compact disc audio standard). While not all players will read the subcoding for CDG all players support reading Red Book audio or normal CD's. The abillity to read 'karaoke discs' or CDG's is the main differentiator between players.

DVD players will all play DVD karaoke discs. There are DVD players that have 'karaoke functions' built into them. These typically allow key changes (or shifts as they are sometimes called) and have mic inputs. The key change and mic inputs are typically turned on through a setup menu built into the player. Keep in mind that unless the player specifically says it will play CD+G discs it likely will NOT be able to play them - even if it says it's a karaoke player.

You can also use your computer to play karaoke but it works best if you feed the music and lyrics from the computer and use a mixer to add the mics. To play the music on the computer you'll need a player that supports reading CDG formats as well as DVD's (depending on the media of choice). If you use CDG's you can either play them directly with some software that's available or convert your media to MP3+cdg files. You can also rip DVD's to unencoded mpeg (or divx) video for playback on your computer as well.

One other alternative is to use an XBox for karaoke. With the addition of a mod chip and a large hard drive you can use it as a media server for playing music, karaoke and movies from the hard drive. While not suitable for professional use, for home use it might be a viable alternative.

There are pro's and cons to each format. Mainly the bulk of the music available is on CDG with more and more becoming available on SCDG (a DVD disc with a proprietary format of mp3+cdg files) and DVD in recent months. CDG and VCD still carry much of the market for karaoke since they are typically the cheapest to manufacture and the number of tracks is a comfortable 'range' for most people (typically 8 or 16 tracks per disc). With more and more music coming out on DVD there are some home users moving to that format, but most of the professionals I see are either sticking with CDG or moving to computer based solutions. I see a few moving to the proprietary CAVS based players like the 99 or 199 series, but those are usually club installatiions and not mobile.

Thanks guys, I have to look into this, and read up on it. The CAV JB-99 Monster Jukebox that held midi-files is what I used for a little over a year. That thing was big. Yet I liked that it held all sorts of songs on a harddrive. Seemed convenient to have thousands of songs available just at the touch of a keypad.

IIRC the CAVS JB-99 is a MP3+CDG proprietary format player and not midi.

Midi is instantly recognizable because the music lacks any depth and everything usually sounds very synthesized unlike MP3 and similar sources which sound like a regular band.

wait-a-minute??? 1/4" not professional??

Oh poo! Guess I better go back to workin' at K-mart!

Knightshow, you know what I mean...

I'm specifically referring to the unbalanced mic connection on the karoke and DVD players and not any other connections like the 1/4" TRS balanced connections or Hi-Z 1/4" connections.

FYI - the best mic I can find that actually comes with a 1/4" unbalanced connection is the Shure PG59.

Ok.. perhaps it was a poor choice of words. Balanced mic connections are PREFERRED for suprerior noise reduction among other things.... sheesh...

it's okay meister. One thing I've learned is that there's more than one way to play a fiddle.

Well Matt you may play a fiddle, I play a violin (an air one anyways).

_________________
You can be strange but not a stranger