Karaoke Forums

Hi guys,

I am needing to get a karaoke sytsem which is quite a big project, and am needing suggestions for hardware or ideas as to how it can be done.

Basically i am looking to set up a karaoke system something like what the karaoke bars in hong kong have, where there will be about 20 machines connected to 1 central server hosting all the songs. I am wanting to have individual booths each with a karaoke machine that can access and play songs from a central location.

I do not know if there is a dedicated set up for this or if it is a combination of computer and karaoke machines.

I have been looking around and have found a CAV JB199 i think it is, that has internal hard disk for storing songs, but does have network connection, so not sure if this unit can be used to access songs stored on a central server, i did notice that this box runs windows xp so could be hacked to allow network access. Downside to this is that each box would cost about $2700.

A karaoke place suggested using 20 machines that have usb ports and getting 20 hard disks plugged into the machine via usb port, but then theres the hassle of updating every single hard disk from a master when new songs are required.

Another thing which i require advice is copyright, i don't know if i would need a single copyright license or if i would need a license for eveysong, or for everymachine.

I know i ask alot but any help would be very much appreciated, thanks.

Let me just start by saying, I'm not sure how the licensing would work, I would Think you would need 1 license for each song for each machine, but I would talk to the manufacturers individually.  As far as how to do it, I would set up 20 comupters, all networked to a central server that contains all of the karaoke songs, on a large hardrive.  You then setup the karaoke file server as a networked drive for all of the clients.  It really shoudn't be too difficult a project if you have some basic networking experience.

Hi, yeh was thinking of doing it that way, any ideas on what software to use, looking for software thats easy to use.

Will be the genreal public using it so would need it to be user friendly and look as though it is a dedicated program, ie no windows taskbar, no way of getting into windows.

thanks

I find that sax n dotty is the easiest to use, however you cannot full screen that app and it would look silly with just  little sax n dotty box floating in the middle of nowhere.  My second choice on ease of use is roxbox, but that's probably a little bit more than you're gonna need for this.  You could go with hoster from mtu but that's gonna be expensive.  PCKJ way to complicated, same with karaoke-go-round.  I think your best two options are sax n dotty or roxbox.  You can download free demos of both to try them out, I would try them.

before attempting to build a computer network to do what ya want, ya might wanna check out systems already built to do what you want....

http://www.kodonline.com/systemyoushi_english.htm
the page can take a few seconds to load...just wait...

and from Unify Karaoke... check out the pics at the bottom of the firts page- it is exactly what you are looking for...
http://www.unifykaraoke.com/english/kar ... system.htm
http://www.unifykaraoke.com/english/kar ... player.htm
they also offer to sell just their software if you have an existing PC setup, and from the screen shots, it looks pretty cool...

this is another site with private rooms for karaoke... looks like they have individual systems in each room though, but it gives ya another idea of how rooms are laid out...
http://www.sbkaraoke.com/pages/party-rooms.html

those are a couple of already established setups with no need to build a huge computer based system... good luck- tig