good points Lonnie!
Remember too guys that it's in what exactly you want the program to DO. Also, what kind of computer you're going to use (with laptops, you'll have to have an external hard drive...), video card, etc.
If you want all the bells and whistles of a "hoster" type of program that monitors the singers, keeps stastics, remembers their songs, etc, then the MTU or other types of "show" programs work very well.
I personally love winamp and it's plugins as I prefer to do the show myself... the computer is JUST the player of the tunes. I keep it pretty simple. I WILL admit I use a much older version of winamp for my uses... but I know plenty of folks that use the newer 5.x version and love it.
When I got to using videos on the PC, because I wanted a simple player WITHOUT rotational software, I loved CLUBDJ Pro2... absolutely one of the simplest and easiest pieces of software anyone ever showed me! It's not easy to find on the net (at least it wasn't for me), but I do listen when other people recommend stuff for me to check out.
Do a search in the tech forum and the archives for things like this (I WILL admit the search engine here is a bit weak, so you might have to do some reading on it!). A real good thread is
http://www.karaoke-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9565 Tig talks about CLUBDJ Pro2 on this one.
A good one for the ripping process, and some discussion about various programs is
http://www.karaoke-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9575 as well as
http://www.karaoke-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=6131
Another good link is
http://www.karaoke-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9358 (knowing what kind of drives are capable of doing the ripping)... remember that you need to be able to read the subcode of karaoke files. A simple ripper/burner may not work.
Powerkaraoke purports to being able to use most burners on the ability to read and rip the karaoke. I know I fully believe in Plextors, but some of their newer models will not work correctly. They may rip, but never burn (to make backup discs, compilation copies, etc.)... this was all due to pressure from the karaoke manus.
As Lonnie pointed out, there's also the problem of illegal behavior.
Some karaoke manus will say that you don't have the right to convert their discs to computer. This is a fairly hot topic right about now, and it's not been tried in court! Bottom line, make certain you at least own the discs. A CAVS machine preloaded is illegal, as are the hard drives that are sold on auction sites!! But even if you DO own all the discs, you might eventually come under fire for using a computer for karaoke... just giving you fair warning!
Best of luck to you! If you have other questions, many folks on here are quite knowledgeable!
Matt