Karaoke Forums

We were not apart of this conversation, so forgive us if we are making the wrong assumption. I am assuming this is a debate over transfering your soundchoice disc over to a computer. If so, there seems to be many different views on this. Our position is if you have the original disc, why would anyone ever give a legit kj a problem for backing up to a computer or anything like that. There are conflicting reports out there and in all honesty, we live in a digital age. The crime would be to surpress technology! Concentrate on going after those who are stealing music. When you do shows, it is a nightmare to go down in the middle of a show, so I am a personal believer that any legit kj that purchased legit karaoke disc should be able to have 100 backups if they wanted them just to feel safe that there show will go on. The guys that put it on a computer, I am sure they are honest enough to not use the disc and the computer at the same time. A 1;1 ratio seems to be the overall reasonable concensous.

We even are stunned that there is not a multi rig license. That's sad that a kj has 5 systems and they are forced to purchase 5 sets at full price each time. It ethically should be no different than having a software for your computer and you buy a few licenses to have it used for so many systems. That's logical. Yet we live in a world that is propelled by whatever means possible to squeeze another dollar out of the hard working mans pocket.

EX MILITARY

"When others were figuring out what karaoke song to sing, I was on standby during the Iraq war to defend your freedom to make another persons ears bleed, all in good humor of course regarding ear bleeding "

Actually HarringtonLaw has answered that question not too long ago.

As for the extra licences, it is not for the manufacturers to grant as they are working off a licence of the copyright owner of the original work. As HarringtonLaw explained the manufacturers have to obtain at least three different licences plus they are only allowed to manufacture a limited amount, ie 1,000, 5,000 or whatever the number is.

One of the Canadian munufacturers ran out of product and wanted to repress more dics and when they went to get the licence the costs went up 5x.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

We can only police what we can see. If that's the case, you should replace that disc.



I didn't see the further question. I had two major travel events last week and haven't had a lot of extra time.

You're not causing damage to SC's ability to control the use of its trademark. SC chose to put its product out on discs, knowing that those discs can develop imperfections. That was a choice that preserves SC's control. Of course we'd prefer that you replace a damaged disc. I expect that if the disc is still in print, Kurt would probably exchange it for a nominal charge, but I can't speak for him on that point.

There is no such thing as a "perfect rip." (For the GEM series, technically speaking, it's not a rip but a bitwise copy, which does represent the same quality choices that SC made in creating the GEM series.)

Mr. Harrington, could you please tell me the difference between a "bitwise copy", and a "ripped copy", and how someone could tell the difference by looking at it displayed on a monitor screen at a venue. For that matter, I'd like ANYONE to tell me how they can tell the difference between the screen shot of a karaoke track being played from a disc, and a track that's been ripped. In other words, if you couldn't see the kj's work space, and all you could see was what was on the monitor, could you identify whether disc, ripped, or bitwise copy, and if so, HOW?

Srnitynow

You can tell between the two. A computer played song usually has softer edges and often fills up the entire screens where as a disc played song has sharper edges & the words are more condensed.
Plus one can obviously tell a computer played song 99% of time when other things are also running like rotation cue, marquee, other kinds of slides shows going on, background pics under the words.

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In most cases, ripping involves a format shift from native CD+G, a lossless format, to MP3G, a lossy format. When that happens, information is lost and quality goes down. The GEM series is already in MP3G, so there is no loss of information. When you copy it over, you're just copying bit by bit, one for one.

The losses manifest in lots of ways, but mostly on the audio side. The original disc will sound richer than a rip.

Duh, I TOTALLY forgot about the issue of the hosting program, but I guess i was thinking, without all of the hosting amenities, and strictly the song and title screen, how could someone tell the difference, and if so, what percentage of the time. I guess I've never really looked THAT close to the edges of the letters to assess the difference, but I'm DEFINATELY going to start looking at it closely. I think I'd be willing to challenge some of my singers to identify whether disc, or ripped? Might even be worth it as a new addition to the show. It's worth a free drink for the winner. Guess 2 out of 3 for a drink.

Srnitynow

BULL!!! Unless you have super hearing you will NOT notice a difference between the two in a show setting, especially if ripped at 320 KB/s. The areas of the music that are removed during compression are inaudible to begin with. If you rip at 96 KB/s you will hear a difference, not if you rip at 320.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Like I said without the hosting program ammenities, the computer graphics are softer & fill up the screen more and disc graphics are edgier & are more condensed in comparison.

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i rip to .wav, technically .bin, and always have. no loss, and higher sound quality than the GEM series.

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

wav files take up a lot of hard drive space, of course if you have a huge drive it doesn't matter.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

my point was that it is perfectly acceptable for me to play this if it is on a disc and does not hurt SC because it is on disc, but my perfect rip on PC is hurting SC. play a beat up disc, ok, play a clean rip on pc, get sued.

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

not as bad as you may think. an $80.00 1.5tb drive with ~13,000 karaoke tracks only is filled to 685gb at wav format. i would need about 30,000 tracks to fill that drive.

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

It is certainly not news that SC is being unreasonable. I told you, it's all about control, and money. They want to control how you use the product you BOUGHT from them, and they want to CHARGE for that control.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

1) Watch out Jim, or some folks will jump on you like they do on me! Though what you say is absolutely true, there a few here that just don't believe it!

2) Whoops. If the Gems are converted from SC's original CDGs, than they HAVE lost audio information. I think you mean that one who copies the GEMS to their PC doesn't lose any MORE.


3) Yup, and many, many, many, many thanks for posting that. You heard it from a representative of a manufacturer, folks. This is the reason I am still disc. Jim, so you know, this was my OTHER big debate prior to the SC stuff.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

but Joe, cassette is so much warmer than CD.......

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

While I agree that playing from CD - *with headphones on* -or- *in my own home with a quality sound system* makes for much better sound, I have never walked into any karaoke bar (or any club for that matter) and thought "Holy Crap! They are playing from CD!!!! It sound soooooooo good!". It just doesn't happen that way. The best sounding clubs I have been to have been all digital with no physical media.

-Chris

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-Chris

The best clubs I've been in are full of people talking and laughing and having a good time and you can't tell what medium or even what frickin' version the track is because there is such a joyful noise of people having fun. If you can hear the difference in what medium someone is playing then you don't have enough business.

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Birdofsong

Exactly.....

-Chris

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-Chris

You're right, and I started with them, then to LDs, then CD+Gs. However, CD's offer a clear BUSINESS advantage, where MP3s are simply a downgraded convenience for the host. Since I believe that we are paid to WORK, and since certain companies use frivolous litigation for income production, I don't see any reason to change. However, if a new media comes out that is advantageous to my business, I will change over in a heartbeat.

As a matter of fact, if the mfrs. produced their tracks in .WAV or similar files, and knocked off all of the litigous crap, I would change over as well. Unfortunately, business acumen seems to run a bit short in the karaoke music production field.....

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."