• 1
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27(current)
  • 28
.CDG Karaoke-files support for music
MrT Wrote:Works like a charm for me. Don't have a mic right now, but the function in Xbmc works fine (running on Windows).

Yeah, the lyrics show up fine when I enable .cdg. I was wondering if anyone had the mic setup working. I know on the old xbox version there was lots of settings for the mic. As far as I can tell there is nothing like this on the linux build. I might just plug my xbmc box into my PA and the mic into the PA on a seperate channel and use the PA's mixer board for dialing in the proper levels. I was hoping I could run it all through my surround sound system (ie plug the mic into the linux box). That way I wouldn't have to set up and take down the PA whenever we Karaoke. My setup is in the living room and it gets used mostly for movies and other family stuff. Leaving the PA up all the time wouldn't be possible. Anyway, cheers for the great addition!
Reply
Thanks for putting this in!

Is there any way to speed up or slow down the music or video? On my system the video portion is much faster than the music. There was a delay setting in the old XBMC that allowed to tune this.

Also I would like to turn off the visualization, but when I do I get a white background screen. In the old XBMC we used to be able to turn the visualization down or off, while still keeping the karaoke part.
Reply
Rand Al Thor Wrote:Yeah, the lyrics show up fine when I enable .cdg. I was wondering if anyone had the mic setup working.

I was thinking about it, but it's hard to me to see any value of having mic sound captured, processed and mixed inside XBMC. I'd rather use external mixer - they're cheap, and the quality is much better. Most PC sound cards I've seen are AWFUL in terms of handling mic input. I mean, it's good enough for talking through Skype, but definitely not for Karaoke. Not to mention other issues it gonna add, like the hardware-specific delay between the moment the sound is captured and the moment the sound is played.

This is something which could be done, but first I'd like to get your opinion if it's worth it, considering all drawbacks.
Reply
black88mx6 Wrote:Thanks for putting this in!
Is there any way to speed up or slow down the music or video? On my system the video portion is much faster than the music. There was a delay setting in the old XBMC that allowed to tune this.

Is the video portion on your system ALWAYS faster than music? Could you please try with different MP3 files (cbr/vbr with different bitrate)? Could you confirm (by using another player) that the problem is in XBMC and not in the files? Are you using Linux and MP3?

So far I didn't get any skews in MP3 playback. I'm getting a lot in .ogg and .kar playback, but this is something in heavy development, so not an issue.

Quote:Also I would like to turn off the visualization, but when I do I get a white background screen. In the old XBMC we used to be able to turn the visualization down or off, while still keeping the karaoke part.

I'll take a look on it. Could you please file a bug report on Trac? Thank you.
Reply
oldnemesis Wrote:I was thinking about it, but it's hard to me to see any value of having mic sound captured, processed and mixed inside XBMC. I'd rather use external mixer - they're cheap, and the quality is much better. Most PC sound cards I've seen are AWFUL in terms of handling mic input. I mean, it's good enough for talking through Skype, but definitely not for Karaoke. Not to mention other issues it gonna add, like the hardware-specific delay between the moment the sound is captured and the moment the sound is played.

This is something which could be done, but first I'd like to get your opinion if it's worth it, considering all drawbacks.

That makes total sense from a functionality standpoint. There are a few reasons thought that I think it might be a good idea to support mic input. First, not everyone has a mixer, whereas lots of people have at least some sort of computer mic laying around (even if it is not a very good quality mic as you mentioned above).

The second thing is that the original xbox karaoke setup supported voice augmentation. This would be great for people who are not the best singers Wink I am a musician and as a result I have a ton of recording equipment at the house. I have very nice quality condenser mics, nice PA, a mixer board and enough hardware effects processors that I can make anyone sound like David Lee Roth Wink Unfortunately, I don't think most people have access to this kind of setup. The average user would probably really appreciate some sort of simple voice augmentation that wouldn't cost them any more than they have already spent building an htpc. Also, it is a little inconvenient to set up all that equipment each time we Karaoke.
That being said, I am not the one coding this project. I respect that it is ultimately your decision and I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth! Thanks for all the great work you have put in. Everyone at my Christmas party thanks you! Cheers.
Reply
Rand Al Thor Wrote:The average user would probably really appreciate some sort of simple voice augmentation that wouldn't cost them any more than they have already spent building an htpc. Also, it is a little inconvenient to set up all that equipment each time we Karaoke.

You're obviously right. However this will come with the cost the users will have to accept - there will be a delay between voice and song, which will be very hard to compensate as it's hardware-specific. I do not know how it was handled on original xbox (in fact I have never seen xbox itself!) but I doubt there wasn't a delay.
Reply
IIRC, there was no perceptible lag on the xbox. However, as you mentioned all this will be hardware specific and the xbox hardware did not change. With HTPC's we will have far too many hardware configurations to try and fine tune it so there is no perceptible lag. So, I guess it is pretty much a moot point. Cheers and thanks again.
Reply
On my old xbox, at least, there was a small discernible lag in the voice. Not horrible, but noticeable enough that it made me not want to use it (lag can tremendously annoying to musicians, especially those of precision instruments). I imagine most people that have speaker setups nice/loud enough to want use it for karaoke would also have some sort of external device that would allow inputing audio from a regular mic. Mics really aren't that expensive, you can get surprisingly decent ones in the 10-15 dollar range on ebay shipped or even at radioshack
Reply
erm, turns out i was wrong. Almost no home theater amplifiers/receivers have mic inputs (mine included)
Reply
Anyone that really wants to do karaoke will have a seperate unit (mixer) that allows mic inputs. These are very inexpesive and will hook up to current amplifiers.

I have one of the units here that I used with my original xbox, and will now use with the XBMC on the PC.

http://www.audio2000s.com/products/mixer...s_amps.htm
Reply
apparently "very inexpensive" is a relative term because the cheapest one i found there was almost 200 dollars. Admittedly I didn't check all of them but that seemed to be the trend. Do you have a link to one of the cheaper ones? That site doesn't provide prices so you have to do a google search for each one
Reply
I picked one up on ebay a couple years back for about $100. It really works well. There are several AKJ7041 up on ebay for $119 right now. I see a few other other "karaoke mixers" up ther for $80 (one made by SOGO). Pioneer used to make one, and that one goes for around $20-40. Do a look around and I am sure you will find one in the price range your looking for.
Reply
Are there any blank visualizations out there? Karaoke still gives me a white screeen when selecting none. Its distracting to have stuff jumping around behind the words.
Reply
black88mx6 Wrote:Are there any blank visualizations out there? Karaoke still gives me a white screeen when selecting none. Its distracting to have stuff jumping around behind the words.

That's probably a bug, you might want to see if those responsible for karaoke development at the moment are aware of it, maybe submit a bug on trac? Anyway, as an temporary alternative you could probably just choose one of the more subtle non-flashy visualizations and just lock it on that. I can think of a couple that shouldn't be too distracting, though i don't know their names.

BTW, black88mx6, thanks for the tip on the cheaper pioneer model. I was able to find a few used ones available for around 30 bucks, but figured out an alternate way to avoid the need for a mixer. I'm just going to be plugging the mic into the TV which actually has very good speakers, and xbmc itself is only hooked up to the surround.
Reply
timdog82001 Wrote:BTW, black88mx6, thanks for the tip on the cheaper pioneer model. I was able to find a few used ones available for around 30 bucks, but figured out an alternate way to avoid the need for a mixer. I'm just going to be plugging the mic into the TV which actually has very good speakers, and xbmc itself is only hooked up to the surround.

Glad you found a solution, my wife would not let me sing without a mixer that has serious amounds of echo.
Reply
  • 1
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27(current)
  • 28

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
.CDG Karaoke-files support for music0