re: Playing DVD, DIVS, and MPEG

[Debassman]

Dave I absolutely love your program, but we need some kind of solution for playing DVD, DIVS and MPEG. The standalone karaoke players were about to play these DVD's, DIVS, and MPEG's irregardless of what formats they were. Hopefully speaking for other Kjams users, how soon is this gonna be reality. The present workarounds are a hassle in downloading this program, that program in order to use one karaoke program. What is on the horizon for myself and other folks using this program with the format limitation?

[dave]

the long term plan is absolutely yes, kJams will play DVDs and VCDs (which have MPEG) (umm, what, exactly is a DIV??)
however, that will likely be quite a while from now.
even with kJams, you will be ripping said formats as you play them (streaming off disc) or ripping them before playing them (storing them in your library). So, frankly, it is merely a convenience to use kJams to do the ripping, when currently, that is, TODAY, you may achieve the same effect using HandBrake for DVDs and "VCD and MPEG Tools" to rip your VCD files. These programs are not very difficult to use, and are available right now. And yes, kJams will make ripping these formats a one-click thing, as it is for CD+Gs and SuperCDG discs currently.

But it will be a while, just so you know. I am well aware of how vitally important DVD and VCD ripping are in the asian markets, which are, as you know, where the money is, so you may rest assured that barring a lightning strike on my head, these features WILL get done.

Meanwhile, use the tools which are available today.

http://karaoke.kjams.com/wiki/Ripping_Other_Formats

-dave

[Antony]

Hi Dave, is there any progression on being able to automatically play DVD karaoke disc's yet? that feature would be great as i now preffer DVD karaoke with its greater audio and video options. this is the one feature that probably keeps hardware karaoke players ahead of kjams.

i downloaded and tried the HandBrake program to play DVD karaoke discs on kjams, but i couldnt get it to work. when i was in Handbrake and i selected 'Source', and selected the Karaoke DVD disc then 'Open', it scanned for it, then says, "Source: No Valid Title Found'. I also selected ipod from the Presets as your description explained.

anyway, this seems alot of trouble only being able to import 1 DVD track at a time. I just want to play DVD karaoke disc's, and be able to Pitch Shift. Can you include that soon please Dave?

otherwise a great program,

regards,

Antony

[dave]

Well, it's pretty bad news if HandBrake can't "see" your disc, because kJams will be using the same source code to rip the disc, (which is "DeCss" under the hood) So if HandBrake can't see it, that means kJams can't rip it, which means you won't be able to do pitch shifting on it from kJams, even if kJams can play the disc, you'd have to use the disc's navigation menu, and in that case you may as well use the built in "DVD Player" application.

I'm well aware that DVD playback at the very least is a required feature, especially for the Asian market. But it will be quite a while before i've got any DVD / VCD ability built into kJams.

[Antony]

well it turns out its only certain DVD karaoke disc's HandBrake isent reconizing. it Doesent seem to reconize the interactivekaraoke.com disc's. ive tried 2 of them with the same problem. but HandBrake IS reconizing a Startrax Karaoke disc. im not sure what the problem is. ive had a wee look on the HandBrake forum but ive not found anything yet.

i did however come accross another software program that can play DVDs and has the Pitchshift function, showing it can be done at least. its called 'Ultimate DVD Player' by ronimusic.com. it only Pichshifts by 2 semitones though, so is rather limiting.

hopefully sometime in the future kjams will be able to play DVD Karaoke discs with Pitchshift without any issues.

[dave]

That is the plan. If it can be done, you can bet money that I will do it.

[Antony]

if anyone can do it you can dave . keep up the good work and i'l keep checking back every now and then to see what youve been up to with kjams..

btw, i ripped a DVD karaoke disc with HandBrake. the results werent good. it only reconized one track. not only that the video was all choppy and no use. it also took over an hour to do it. the disc has 9 tracks on it, and each track has about 3 audio options and 3 video options. HandBrake didnt pick up any of that. idealy what would be great in kjams is the ability to just put in a DVD karaoke disc for playback, have all the audio and video options it holds,(as apple DVD Player can do etc), and be able to Pitchshift it.

i know its a tall order, but were all allowed to live in hope

[dave]

did you follow the directions for HandBrake?
http://karaoke.kjams.com/wiki/HandBrake
it requires VLC to be installed.

[Antony]

i did have VLC installed, but there were a few other settings i didnt have correct in HandBrake it seems. it may work better if i did it exactly as your instructions suggested. but i dont think doing it this method will give you all the audio and video options on each track that a DVD karaoke disc has, so therefor defeats the purpose somewhat for me

[dave]

correct. when ripping with handbrake, you are committing to a single audio / video format for the song. if you need all the options for playback, you might want to continue to use "Ultimate DVD Player" for now, until i can get this all going within kJams.

[Antony]

well, it seems Ultimate DVD Player isent without its problems either. it apears that when you change an audio option on Ultimate DVD Player whilste the DVD is playing, it always goes back to the begining of the track. this doesent happen on Apples DVD player, or on my hardware dvd player. what i can do with them both is toggle between the vocal version, and the non vocal version while the track keeps running. (good for people who what to hear how a track goes exactly). therefor i would say that if you where going to base any new kjams feature that plays karaoke dvds, i would say base it on Apples dvd player, but with pitchshift . also i dont think the video options are quite as important as the audio options on a DVD karaoke disc, so even if just the audio options where implimented first on kjams, that would be super fab. however, in the meantime, i think im just going to invest in a hardware karaoke player just now, as there is no issues playing all formats, and with pitchshift. but they dont have the portabilty of a laptop, so maybe in the future kjams will have these features.

[dave]

yep. my idea is that DVDs with double tracks (lead vocal/instrumental) will be ripped in the standard "multiplex" format, so that kJams can play the audio or cancel it.

[Antony]

ok cool, looking forward to trying it when it gets implemented dave..

[chikibabe]

Bumped to see if this has been resolved in the current version?

[dave]

You can now rip VCD discs (you can't play them directly off disc, however). But there is still no built-in support for ripping DVD discs. For that you need Handbrake.