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KARMA karaoke program

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july22_m
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Joined: Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:23 am

KARMA karaoke program

Post by july22_m »

I have not seen any talk about KARMA Karaoke program.
I am not a KJ - just social Karaoke at friends' houses for free

I have been using the demo for home use - the demo limit is 5 singers and 5 songs and a play list of 5 items. We don't enter singer's names and pick only 2 - 3 songs at a time so the limits don't affect us. You can search you songs, mp3+g and videos.

I hook up my laptop to my plasma and a PA system plus a cheap set of wireless mics and it runs sweet. The coolest things I bought were speaker stands - 2 for $30 on ebay - plus $35 postage:O

I add media folders to the program; mp3+G, mp3 and a collection of music videos I have downloaded off of youtube and converted to avi.

The program lets me cue up a karaoke song, mp3 or a music video. Once I upgrade to windows 7, I will pay the $99 for the full version. I was using rockbox will plugins and winamp, which was a pain.


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wiseguy
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Post by wiseguy »

I think JustKaraoke is a better program and one forth the price.
How to Build a Home Karaoke System
mnementh
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Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:41 am
Location: Dundee, Scotland

Post by mnementh »

HI July22_m,
I think Karma is the best thing to hit the Karaoke scene in ages.

If you try a quick search, you will find a couple of posts on it, already on the board.

I've tried Roxbox, Sax & Dotty's, Tricerasofts free player, Karafun AND JustKaraoke and it makes them all look ill conceived and cumbersome to use.

Easy singer entry, powerful track search, very simple dual display function, user skins and definable Fx buttons, combined with singer history.

What's not to love? :mrgreen:

Forget the rest, you've found the best.

Sandy
How to Build a Home Karaoke System
july22_m
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:23 am

Post by july22_m »

I checked out Just Karaoke.

It does not play videos!

When we take a break I just cue a few music videos - an it plays them on my plasma.

I could not get a player to do that!

Strangely I have even watched a few avi movies using KARMA - since it is plugged into my PA it is just like the cinema :P

The only thing about KARMA that isn't good is when used on older computers it runs at 100% processor most of the time :shock:

Thanks
How to Build a Home Karaoke System
mnementh
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Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:41 am
Location: Dundee, Scotland

Post by mnementh »

july22_m wrote:I checked out Just Karaoke.

It does not play videos!

When we take a break I just cue a few music videos - an it plays them on my plasma.

I could not get a player to do that!

Strangely I have even watched a few avi movies using KARMA - since it is plugged into my PA it is just like the cinema :P

The only thing about KARMA that isn't good is when used on older computers it runs at 100% processor most of the time :shock:

Thanks
Hi July22_m,

I believe it says in "system requirements" that it recommends a dual core processor?

I have it running in trial mode on my PC at work and that's an old, old Pentium PIII (remember them? 8) ) and it loads slowly but works O.K.

My laptop system IS a dual core and runs at <10% when running stand alone but jumps to 35 - 40% in dual screen mode, so it is a bit processor hungry but apart from that, it's the Muttz Nutz. (Brit term for very, very good :roll: )

I certainly won't be using anything else for a while.

Sandy
How to Build a Home Karaoke System
mnementh
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Location: Dundee, Scotland

Post by mnementh »

wiseguy wrote:I think JustKaraoke is a better program and one forth the price.
O.K.,
In all honesty, I've had a more detailed look at JustKaraoke and it's actually quite impressive.

Price wise, it knocks everything else into a cocked hat. At 25$, it's hard to see why you would choose anything else.

It does pretty much everything that Karma does. at a much reduced processor overhead, so better for an older PC with a slower CPU.

However, I still have a couple of quibbles with the program, overall.

1) and this separates EVERY other computer Karaoke hoster program from Karma, very simple dual screen operation. In Karma, tick a check box and you have instant operation on the second screen. No dragging and resizing required. O.K, it's "picky" but many KJ's aren't really "computerate" and setting up a seconf screen can be difficult, to say the least.

2) "stupid quibble" but the program doesn't go "full screen! If you have a relatively high screen resolution, the prog sits in the middle of the screen like a lost lamb in the middle of a field.

It does have 20 user definable buttons against Karma's 10 but other than these minor issues, I would choose Karma over JustKaraoke every time.

Let's face it, how many user definable buttons do you need?

Karma looks better, has by far and away, better audio, simpler singer entry, and has more powerful features.

If Latshaw could make it less CPU hungry, then IMHO there simply isn't anything better on the market.

Sandy
How to Build a Home Karaoke System
DanG2006
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Post by DanG2006 »

They claim it plays wmv video and dat video so yes Justkaraoke plays video.
at least in the help file it say that.
How to Build a Home Karaoke System
mnementh
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Post by mnementh »

DanG2006 wrote:They claim it plays wmv video and dat video so yes Justkaraoke plays video.
at least in the help file it say that.
The problem is that most users will have videos in .AVI or .MPG format, that Justkaraoke "doesn't" play.

Again, to be fair, I haven't actually used my Karaoke software to play vids, so it doesn't really bother me that much.

Sandy
How to Build a Home Karaoke System
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wiseguy
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Post by wiseguy »

JustKaraoke supports DAT files because that is what you'll find on VCD discs. When you rip video files to a hard drive virtually all programs give you the option to save them as WMV files which typically produce a smaller file size than the AVI format while retaining the same quality.

Video karaoke files are also a non-issue for me as I don't have a single one on my karaoke hard drives.
How to Build a Home Karaoke System
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