New to Karaoke - MP3 issues

[Flugelman]

I'm trying to help a friend upload MP3 files (Files he has downloaded previously) from his Acesonic KOD-1000 to a PC to be incorporated into Karma Karaoke. The files show an MP3 file extension and copy to the PC from the Acesonic hard drive OK but return an error when played.

Has anyone done this before? What am I missing here? Thanks in advance for any help.

[mr.dj]

I have never used an Acesonic system myself so weather they protect the content from being used any other way I don't know.

To play karaoke type files in most software you need 2 files for each track, An .mp3 file and a .cdg which must be in the same folder and be named exactly the same apart from the extension.

That is unless your player can read .zip files, in which case the 2 files will be enclosed in the zip file.

The .cdg file contains the graphics that appear, it may be your program is looking for this file and erroring out as it can't find it.

Does the mp3 file play just as audio track in windows media player ?
If it does then it probably isn't protected and your problem is related to not having the .cdg file loaded on your PC.

[wiseguy]

Like mr.dj said, the mp3 without its cdg counterpart is purely an audio file.

It appears that Karma has a problem playing VBR (variable bitrate) formatted mp3 files. I don't know if that is the case here but you might try repairing the mp3 files as explained at http://home.gna.org/vbrfix .

[Flugelman]

Thanks for the replies, gents.

There are 2 corresponding files in separate sub-folders. One has a file type of .MP3 and the other has type .CGX. When any media player tries to play an MP3 it comes back with an error stating that the player has encountered a problem with the file.

I am currently looking online for an up-converter that will take the Acesonic files back to standard MP3.

[mnementh]

Thanks for the replies, gents.

There are 2 corresponding files in separate sub-folders. One has a file type of .MP3 and the other has type .CGX. When any media player tries to play an MP3 it comes back with an error stating that the player has encountered a problem with the file.

I am currently looking online for an up-converter that will take the Acesonic files back to standard MP3.

Hi,
I use Karma and haven't had any problem with VBR files.

However, from your comment above, Re. the TWO sub folders, you need to move the files into the SAME folder.

However, yet again, you say your video extension is .CGX ??????

It should be .CDG

I've googled the .CGX extension and as far as I can find, this has nothing whatsover to do with video files ??

If you are correct and the file extension is indeed .CGX, I'd suggest copying a couple of .MP3 and your .CGX files into a separate folder, change the .CGX extension to .CDG, then import that folder into Karka to see if it works.

If the VBR issue is still causing problems, google for a program called vbrfix This will sort out most of your problems, Re. VBR.

Best of luck,
Sandy.

[Flugelman]

mnementh

Thanks for the info. I tried renaming the GCX to GCD but no joy there. The VBRFIX fails because the MP3 uses a "free bitrate" and is not supported.

I have an email in to the Acesonic support folks. Hopefully thay will be forthcoming.

[wiseguy]

I don't think there's any such thing as "free bitrate". There's Average Bitrate (ABR), Constant Bitrate (CBR) and Variable Bitrate (VBR). Might you be referring to freeformat where the mp3 is encoded beyond 320 kbit/s?

[Flugelman]

I don't think there's any such thing as "free bitrate". There's Average Bitrate (ABR), Constant Bitrate (CBR) and Variable Bitrate (VBR). Might you be referring to freeformat where the mp3 is encoded beyond 320 kbit/s?

That's the error report that comes up when the process fails.

[wiseguy]

Very strange. That would likely indicate that the mp3 files are encoded at a higher than 320 kbit/s which very few players support. They must have a very large file size by comparison to a standard 128 kbit/s mp3 of the same audio track.

It may be difficult to find an audio editor that will open them and allow you to re-encode them to a standard bitrate.

[Flugelman]

I have found a conversion program (Switch Audio File Converter from NCH Software) that will convert the MP3 file uploaded from the Acesonic into an MP3 file that will play on several player programs. The converted file size is about half of the original. The problem is that no Artist or Song data is displayed, so it is useless for Karaoke. The file names are in a generic format (F10001.mp3, F1 being the folder in which the file is stored)

My next hurdle is to find someway to extract the data from the .CDX files which are in an FF folder and named to correspond with the .mp3 files.

Thanks again for the input and help.

[mnementh]

As a rough guide, MP3 files will be about 1/10 the size of the audio/wave file.

Most audio needs about 10Mb/minute, so the equivalent MP3 at 128kb/s will be about 1Mb/minute.

In very rough terms, a 5 minute song will be 5Mb in size for 128kb/s MP3.

If you can get a program to drop your files to around 1Mb/min, that might sort you out.

As for naming the files, there should be software available to name the file from the ID1/2 tag information and visa versa.

The Switch Audio File Convertor you mention specifically states it retains the tag info.

There is shedloads of freeware MP3 tag tool programs online, so you can check the info prior to conversion.

Sandy.

[selectiveeye]

I purchased an Emerson GQ100 which plays CDG’s & MP3Gs. It has a USB port to connect a flash drive, to record and play mp3+G files. It also has the standard cd tray. It hooks up to a TV for the video/graphics to play on.

My issue is with the usb drive playing certain mp3+gs. The graphic files will not play on the screen. The screen just turns black as the music plays. These tracks/files came from a Magic Tracks 1208 compressed disc. I tested several different tracks and even explored the files using an editor. The file names are identical and I cannot find why this happens. Oddly it only happens to the Magic Track files through my player. The mp3g’s I purchased from Tricera work fine. The files on disk I converted to mp3G work fine too. Though, the Magic Tracks files work fine on my computer karaoke player.

I am new to the Karaoke thing, but willing to learn. I would love to know why these certain .cdg files do not display, so I can fix them or avoid purchasing them in the future. They seem identical to the .cdg files that do load correctly.
Thanks.

[DanG2006]

What is the naming format of the files. Although if they play in the computer they should play in the player but not all players are equal, I have a mad boy player that I took out of my system because certain discs of the Gem series won't even read

[Paradigm Karaoke]

i don't believe magic tracks files are mp3+g. that may be the hangup, a proprietary format.

[DanG2006]

If you are playing off of an original Magic Tracks disc in a player that only supports DVD/CDG /MP3+G you won't be able to play it. You need either a SuperCD+G player or a program to convert it to MP3+G to be able to play it.