Karaoke Forums

I have recently read posts regarding disc based hosts that tell me that long time PC hosts and those who have never been disc based are woefully mis-informed about modern disc player tech.

A modern player can:

Play virtually any format- be it DVD, VCD, MP3, MP4, HDCD, Blue Ray, JPEG, CDG, and pretty much anything else that you can think of, with no mods or upgrades required.

These media types are not restricted to discs, as modern players include USB ports and memory card ports.

They have (on board- no additions neccesary) virrtually any video / audio interface you can imagine.

They have on board effects that - while nowhere near as comprehensive or at the quality of a mixer - are equal to, and in some cases superior to ( especially in the case of key changing) that of software driven virtual mixers. Wouldn't want to run a show that way, but can be helpful in emergencies.

They can ( though I don't recommend it) - also onboard, no upgrade needed- record, sample, and /or burn performances automatically..

While many of these features, when combined with a full set-up, are unused in a public venue, come in handy for private events.

A full setup also allows the disc based host's equipment to switch automatically to filler or music videos between singers.

There is only one thing-at all- that a PC host can do that a disc based setup can't DURING THE SHOW : recall text based information.

This means that a disc host cannot recall singer history nor can he display rotation on the screen like, say, Compuhost.

Other than that, no difference in capabilities.

Do PCs have other features that are fun for the KJ, or interesting? Could be, but who cares? I run a business, not a hobby. The goal is to satisfy the CUSTOMERS, not me. They don't give a fat rat's a$$ WHAT makes the KJ happy. If it isn't integral to customer satisfaction, it's nothing but a zero to the business.

Of course, a PC host doesn't carry discs. Since I ( at almost 59) can carry 1800 discs in one arm, I don't think about this point much.

Loading speed? A dual player user can easily match a PC host. Of course, dual players mean instant backups in case of emergency as well.

SO- for me, spending literally MONTHS of business time ripping discs ( I do have a serious bunch of them) just for singer history and to display rotation on screen is a money loser.

I know that opinions differ. I am ONLY POSTING MY PERSONAL PREFERENCES - PERIOD! Heck, I also happen to prefer the handling of discs.

Now, I have posted an explaination of my personal preferances.

This is not a debate, so anyone who now bitches about my personal choice is merely being defensive for no reason.

I do what I do because I ENJOY doing it, and my patrons second my feelings.

For others? Whatever makes YOU and YOUR patrons happy. Isn't that more important than having the world do things only YOUR WAY?

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

From one DB KJ to another... I don't think that (legit) KJs spent time ripping Discs to HD for the reason you stated above.

I believe they did it primarily so that they wouldn't have to carry all those discs with them to use at a show. All the features that you mentioned (such as displaying Singer Info) are just additional perks to the software that they use to run their shows.

Modern karaoke music is primarily produced as MP3+G these days. Very little CD+G manufacturing going on. MP4 and WMV (HD Formats) are growing in popularity.

DVD, VCD, HDCD, BlueRay, JPEG are irrelevant to karaoke.



These ports simply add to the cost of the player. For professional use, they are again mostly irrelevant because the interface for leveraging USB media is horrible



Some will argue, but the only relevant interfaces are HDMI and VGA with VGA falling out of favor. Very few bars that have done upgrades to TV's in the past 5 years will have TV's that support RCA or even COAX connections. They are all HDMI and possibly VGA.



I think you said it all. Except I don't know of any emergency situation requiring reverb and/or echo.



Professionals will use the proper equipment for this.



I would define "private event" as primarily home use. The features described thus far do not really apply to professional use. They are like the fancy LED lights that are added many pieces of electronic equipment to make them eye catching.

The fact is this, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it will always still be a pig.





Lots of people drive older cars that have seatbelts, but no shoulder harnesses. But all modern new cars have shoulder harnesses because they save lives.

New karaoke hosts are NOT starting out as disc based host for the simple fact that discs aren't the prevailing method of obtaining music any longer, nor is it something that manufacturers are rushing to produce.

No matter how you position it, disc based karaoke hosting is falling out of favor and is slowly being relegated only to those that have been in the business for a LONG time and don't have the time, energy, or capability of converting to PC based hosting.

Modern day disc players are NOT being produced for the professional KJ market. They are being produced for the home, enthusiast market.



....except that everything....and I mean absolutely everything....can be performed faster and more efficiently using a PC.



My guess is that every single PC based host ever cares.



So do all the PC based hosts out there.



Which is where singer history, the ability to download on the fly, very quickly swap songs on demand, on screen scrollers and singer rotation lists, speed, efficiency and more blow away disc players.



I can carry 1800 discs would of karaoke......on my phone. But for pro use I can carry that on a thumb drive or a hard drive that fits in my pocket, thus keeping my hands free to carry other things perhaps saving me one trip. 4-5 shows a week x 52 weeks a year and I have saved 200-250 trips to the car. Many of those in sweltering heat, pouring rain, freezing cold. If it happens to be nice out side, that saved trip means stepping outside for a moment to watch a sunset just before show time.



Most PC based hosts I know have a spare PC available or at least a spare hard drive. But I am going to give this one because it does take time to connect, boot up, and get running. But this situation is so rare that it also is statistically irrelevant.



If you were 25 with a plan to host for another 20-30 years, then spending 2 years ripping would still be worth it. I would also argue that if you plan on continuing in this bus into your late 60's or 70's or until the day you pass, that it still is worth it. Those 1800 discs are only going to feel heavier over time.

If you are 45 and just starting out, it makes no sense to start out disc based even if it is an option because you will still have to buy digital download versions for new music because there are so few discs producers remaining. Then burn to disc if you want to run them on a player, thus increasing your cost and in effect doing a mirror image process of BURNING vs RIPPING which is opposite of where the industry has been heading for the last decade.

I know that opinions differ. I am ONLY POSTING MY PERSONAL PREFERENCES - PERIOD! Heck, I also happen to prefer the handling of discs.



I would argue that you are simply going down with a sinking ship. Which, while very noble, is unnecessary since everyone else is already safely on land.



It isn't MY way. It is the way of 95+ percent of the industry. PC based hosts are in the majority. We aren't here because it is the easy way out either. We are here partly because of necessity (as in future-proofing our careers from a technology perspective), partly out of necessity because the format of karaoke music shifted long ago to being PC based, partly because there are many distinct advantages to being a PC host that provide ease of use, speed, efficiency, less weight, more options, and more, and partly because it just makes common sense.

*IF* disc based hosting using dedicated players was a better way to go, then that would be what new hosts would choose to do. They are in fact choosing PC based hosting.

These are not only my opinions, but I hope common sense reasons why discs based hosting, while perfectly capable of running a modern day karaoke show, is not what new hosts are choosing to do, and also not where long term hosts have typically remained.

If I were to hazard a guess, there are more 20+ year karaoke hosts running on PC's then are running from discs these days.

I guess the only thing I have left to say on this matter is this.......

I can provide far more valid and even financial reasons why converting from disc to PC is a smart business move, allows for better customer service, and just makes sense, than you or anyone else can provide to convince anyone of the same reasons to convert from PC to disc.

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-Chris

LMFAOAPMP!!!


I have to disagree here (just with the use of the word "All"). There are many KJs out there who do do this as a hobby (to pick up some extra spending money).

I do it as a hobby, but there is no way I would work this hard for free or even cheap.

I never said anything about free or cheap. I know many KJs who do this as a hobby, and they command $200 per 4 hour show.

I KJ more as a hobby then for the income, but I do like the extra retirement cash! I also don't like to pack around the 40 lbs of disks and players I use to.

yep, even those hobby kj's that run disc with folders full of burned disc's

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Modern players - I am betting most do know what they are capable of. If not it's simply because they don't care because they are simply digital (yes players are digital too, I'm talking in the hard plastic needed to play the music). I still have my players & still get plenty of customers that bring in their own discs (and flash drives). But this is even falling short of what it used to be 5-10 years ago. At one time I could have as many as 5-10 customer discs on any given night. Now it's more like I will see 5-10 discs a week.
I agree a dual player or separate players are ever as good as loading. Except in the instance of a last minute change when someone asks to change a song to fit a flow of a show - in which PC users can do so in about 5 seconds - matter of typing in the new song & pulling it to playlist and hit play. While a disc user has to look up the song (if it isn't written down) to find the number, look through the discs to get the disc, pull out the old disc that is cued up, load new disc & hit the number.
For back up purposes - sure i'll give you that one (partly why I kept my discs on site for the last 8 years til this week), but like Chris stated it happens so rarely, that it's pretty much a moot stat. I am actually pulling all my discs out of the club I work for the first time in 20 years, why? I haven't needed them. On the rare instance there is a computer issue, I can just pull up the fill music for a couple dance songs while I either reboot or swap out the back up.

Well most (not going to say all) PC users did it primarily to not have to carry discs - everything else was an added value already included in the program. Yes that is the ONE thing you'd have to seriously take the time out of your schedule to do - but if it's truly a business, then you'd see the job as business related and once done - it's done. BTW, you don't have to sit glued to the computer while ripping - basically you load a disc, usually the software will be connected to a free database to populate the song/artist list, then you click start - walk away and do other tasks - (advertising, proofreading your books, ordering new music, other 'business' stuff - you make it sound like we all sat glued in front of our computers doing absolutely nothing but ripping discs day & night for months on end). Computer will typically let you know it's done, come back rinse & repeat. It took me 2 1/2 months (maybe 4-5 hours per day) to rip my 950+ cdgs and about 1 1/2 months to rip my laserdiscs.
But being a 'business' - the business time could be equated to a business say doing a computer switch over from a dos based system to a Windows based system where they have to manually transfer all data to the new system because the new & old aren't compatible. This happens all the time in business. A medical company my Mom works at just did this very thing a couple years ago. And happens a lot in the business world.

I loved handling discs - just not worth losing the PC benefits because of a ancient feeling I once grasped. I was a PC hold out several years after everyone had already jumped on the bandwagon - for years. Even then I only used the PC as a player only - didn't even start taking advantages of all the true benefits for another year. Now - wouldn't even think about running disc again. No benefit anymore.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

The bottom line is Joe is doing what works best for him. More power to him. He's obviously successful at what he does, or he wouldn't have been in business for as long as he has been.

The only thing that I could add to this conversation, as others have alluded to is that in another five years, I predict that it will be next to IMPOSSIBLE to get new music in disc format, which means that if Joe wants new music, he will be forced to purchase digital copies.

The only other disadvantage I can think of to discs, is that even after resurfacing them to fix scratches, the disc WILL eventually fail and no longer be playable. That is just a reality of disc media. Sure it make take years before that happens, but it eventually will.

-james

I'v had two break for no good reason. I can't get them replaces anymore for free (out of business ) I now keep them in the safe with the other valuables. When I have good to great WIFI I can download on the fly. It's so cool.

Actually I just thought of a couple of other reasons for the advantages of a pc. Backup.

Maybe it doesn't happen at joe's shows because he works at higher end establishments, but in a bar environment, discs will go missing. Drunk people will steal just about anything for no good reason.. i have even had books of mine go missing when i used to do shows.

Yes, you can make backups of your discs so that you can use blank media instead of the originals, but that is not an advantage because you spend just as much time making the backups as you would ripping them, and with a PC you only have to do it ONCE. You lose a drive, you're out 80 bucks, and it only takes a couple of seconds to plug in a backup drive. You lose your discs, you're completely and totally screwed!

Also it costs a lot of extra money to buy CDRs to make backups from, I'll wager the cost of making a complete set of backups for several hundred discs is a hell of a lot more expensive than the cost of a single hard drive.

Plus if you happened to lose those backups, you would have to make new ones from your originals.. More time and expense.. Once you rip to a hard drive, that is IT you are set for life, replacing your collections takes only a couple of hours at the most *you can leave it running overnight while your sleeping* and you can keep your discs somewhere secure that will protect them better against theft and fire.

and then there is the second reason, that was just brought up in the post above this.. INSTANT GRATIFICATION. Wifi access is getting more readily available, reliable and cheaper.. At least it is in the US *a little different in canada* You can get unlimited text and data for a fixed rate now.

So when a customer comes up to you and asks you if you have "XYZ" and after looking you find out you don't, you can answer "Not at the moment, but I can have that song ready and cued for you in the next rotation" and more often than not, people will PAY for it, so it doesn't even cost you anything personally. In fact, I have charged a $1 extra more than the cost of the download and people have payed it HAPPILY to sing the song they want to sing.

I don't care how good you are, you just CANNNOT do that with a player.

-James

I FULLY agree with that. That has NEVER been the issue!

The argument (which he brought over from the other thread about song history) is simply because he's making it seem like PC users have nothing better to do with their time than spend all their time ripping discs, organizing files, repairing bugs/viruses, allowing absolutely no time to do any kind of mingling, advertising, etc....while in most cases, we have a lot MORE time to do all that. Originally he stated history means nothing as he can remember everything everyone sings except for maybe a couple that have up to 100 songs in their list. I too can remember a time where I could remember nearly everything our singers sang - why? Because they only sang the same 5-10 songs each on a regular basis. Every once in a while some of those people still come out & 99.99% of the time they are still singing the same 5-10 songs even after years of not being at my show. I now have singers with an AVG 100-200 songs in their list which makes the history INVALUABLE to me AND them!


Exactly - discs are dying, harder and harder to find. Even out of the handful of manus that still make them, most of them don't even have them professionally pressed anymore, they are burning in house - it's cheaper.
And yes discs can break or get stolen/lost - but in that case burned discs for back ups won't be legal anyway as the 1:1 ratio would no longer be there. But that goes for PC users too.
A disc can only be resurfaced so many times - and depending on the scratches, may not ever be fixable.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I am quoting you because you are a prime example of what I expected.

First, the multimedia aspect is VERY useful for private events where the possible requests for blue ray, slide shows, and oher extras come into play. The same goes for the usb and card ports.

Anyway, the main point is that you and others simply had to do a point by point measurement. Read my post again. Do you see ANYTHING giving the opinikn that discs are better than PC? Do you see ANYTHING that states an opinion that discs even have an advantage over PCs (there actually are a couple, but I never brought them up.)???

You do not, because I never said that. I simply stated my reasons for doing my show my way.

I also posted the very few things that a PC KJ can do that disc host can't.

However, proving a point made elsewhere, PC hosts are extremely defensive. Thus we have folks either misunderstanding my post or twisting it.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

As for discs dying: could be, but not only are they not dead yet, in some cases people- including PC kjs and IP trolls feel that their ownership is REQUIRED, whether used in a show or not.

Also, a prediction: mp3s and downloads won't cut it when the giants fjnish remodeling the industry. There will be a return to some sort of hard media ( disc? Card? Stick? Something new?) For copyright protection, and hackable downloads and mp3s will be a memory. Ya heard it here first. PC hosts, prepare for an overhaul.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Joe:you stated that aside from the one reason that you gave *large singer history* there were NO other advantages to using a PC that cannot be done with a modern player.. That is simply NOT true.. In case you missed it, you cannot use a modern player to instantly connect to the internet, download a patrons song and cue it up and add it to/update your main catalog of songs, without any interaction from the host. At best, you would have to download it manually from a separate computer connected to the internet, transfer it to a USB stick, plug it into the other player and then cue it yourself from the stick.

Now if those advantages are not worth it for YOUR business, then so be it, i'm not going to argue with someone who is doing something that has been successful for as long as you have been doing karaoke.

What I do take issue with however, as Lonman has also stated, is your posting mis-information that could mislead people who are new to the industry.

A FEW things, sorry, but there quite a bit more than a few things a PC host has the ability to do - remember I was a disc based host for over 20 years, this isn't the thinking of someone who never used a disc in their life. Just because you don't see most of PC features as of value to a host or show or just plain not needed is the problem. If anything it's quite the direct opposite, there are a VERY FEW things a disc based host can do that a PC cannot.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I completely agree with you on the highlighted statement. For as long there are manu's defending their IP, the physical media will be needed for proof.

Joe.....The fact that you decided to write up a lengthy post about this in the first place suggests a defense of dedicated machine usage. I honestly don't care how anyone runs their shows. Whatever works for you is the best way for you. But when you look at the industry as a whole, PC based hosting is unquestionably the preferred way.....and there are plentiful and obvious reasons why.

btw......PC's are where all of the multi-media ports came from. PC's are vastly superior at managing, organizing and playing back blu-ray, pictures, videos, music, and anything else you want to throw out there. The same USB stick someone gives you at a private party will be much easier to work with on a PC than on any dedicated player.

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-Chris

Why would the giants demand that karaoke be on hard media when the source from which it comes is mostly sold through iTunes in a digital download format? Why would they want in increase the cost of production and distribution? The answer to that is.......they won't. They want to irk out every penny of profit they can. They will never realize that with physical media.

So....you have been hearing it from me for 3 years here and I have been telling lots of people for more than a decade - physical media is dead. Sure, lots of people are still buying physical media, but those people are older than 35. Take a poll of the folks that comes to your very karaoke shows. Ask the folks that are under 40 how much physical media they own and how much they buy on a regular basis. As a group, they buy very, very little physical media.

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-Chris