Karaoke Forums

I looked at the RoxBox website and it doesn't show minimum requirements needed..or what windows program needed..

If you are going to go external with a majority of files then it really doesn't matter what size the drive in the laptop is. it all depends on how many songs you have.
The biggest issue isn't the size of  the hard drive but is your cd drive compatable with cd+G subcodes.  Also you might want to go and purchase a 4 port usb2 hub pcmia card for the laptop.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Roxbox works perfectly with my backup system which I am considering to use for my portable system is a 366 mhz 256 mb ram laptop with an 80 gig hard drive and runs windows 98se as an operating system. the 300 mhz one I was talking about was running windows 2000 and my main system runs windows xp Pro.  I believe the one on the laptop site with 512 already installed is running xp pro w/ sp2, which is more than enough to run roxbox.  The only things I don't use on the laptop that I have now is the search as you type function and the recorder that is built into roxbox. I don't use the recorder on my main computer either. I only use that function on my girlfriend's computer to help me submit songs to the showcase.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Whats  a 4 port usb2 hub pcmia card ? How will I know if a lap top has a cd drive thats compatable with cd+g sub codes? I have about 3000 cdg songs and 3000 cd songs..

I use both a lap top and a 3 tray cdg player. I run both into my 12 channel mixer/amp and the video from both go to an auto switchiong splitter. So far, I have had no problems and sound is great. Lap top has 512ram and 2x40mg hard drives. One is for music only. The program I run is Karafun. It's freeware and plays commecial cdg right off the disk or mp3+cdg off the hard drive. It also plays mpg vids. It has good controls and has a built in recorder. SO far, I have not seen any need for anything else. It also plays Midi and Kar file. All with full controls. You can also dedicate your own back grounds. But that takes a bit of time, but the audience seems to like that. Hope this helps some..

Most laptops have slots built into them that are used for PCMia cards. These cards could either be ethernet cards or contain 4 usb 2.0 ports. Most laptops and desktops come with 1.1 usb ports. The advantage of 2.0 is that most usb external drives are usb 2.0 compatable and if you have a hub that is usb 2.0 it means faster communication between the laptop and the external drive. If you can find firewire it is even faster.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

nice for home use. for professional use it is like trying to play midi karaoke as there is no rotation to it. True professional karaoke software has the ability to allocate songs with names of the singers singing them. The future of karaoke has Singers entering their requests via computer terminals and show hosts will have no choice but to use rotation software to help them maintain control over their shows.
There is already three such software programs that combine what Hoster does and what Songfinder does and that is Autokdj, Sacks-O-nuts and Karaoke Go-Round.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

This is the set-up that I use in my shows, and from what I've seen, so far, most of the singers here prefer the simple way of doing things. I also prefer the way I have it set up as I have more control over the whole thing. I have to fit as many singers in as I can. No time for chit chat over the mic anyways. Just call the next singer and tell people to clap as they leave the stage. If you try to add anything else, they don't come back as often. I do like the ability to have singer preferences kept, but here, it's not a biggy. Not as many Pro singers.  
I prefer the personal touch to almost anything. I can see the benefit of the kiosk and having the songs cued up by them selves, but my little strips of paper have not failed me yet, and costs a darn site less.. and the more you automate it, the less control you have over it and the more chances of problems arising.
The old adage " KEEP IT SIMPLE " works fine here and most places I have been. Eventually, I will have to GET WITH THE TIMES, But for now........  :no: [/quote]

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"Real life doesn't start untill the music plays." LSK.