Category: Video Hoster

This article will show you how to Import MP3+g or .zip, mp3, videos, or any other Hard drive files into your Video Hoster Karaoke Software.

1) Open Video Hoster

2) Left click Import Songs then  left click Index Song Files

3) Left click KMH under the Select Type as selection.

4) Left click on ZIP or MP3G depending on the type of files you are trying to import.  This will now open the Windows Open File dialog.  Find the folder where your files are stored, that you want to import into Video Hoster.  Make sure you have the correct folder in the Look In Field, once you see the files below, left click Select.

5) This will show the files in Import Songs Dialog. If you do not see the files, then left click the check box beside Include Sub-folders this will show all files listed in multiple folders.

6) Left click one of the Song Files, to select it, then Follow the instructions on the left hand side of this dialog,  to match the Define Field order to match your File Names.

This is the MOST Critical part of importing your files to have the correct data for the Search/Songbook.

For example:

A file that is named Barefoot_Blue_Jean_Night-Jake_Owen-7128-NV.zip  would need to have the define field order set to Title-Artist-Ignore.

If the file is named KBA22792-01 – Estefan, Gloria – Santo, Santo.zip you would set the Define Field order to DiscID-Track – Artist – Title.

7) Once you have the correct Define Field order settings, select either Single or Batch depending on how many files you  have to import.  You may want to try Single first, to make sure that the Define Field Order is set correctly.

8) Make any other changes to the Brand, DiscID, Genre, Language that are needed.

9) If you are in Single Mode, when you left click Add Files it will show the files listed below.

Note: Using Batch Mode you will not see the files displayed below as you do in Single mode.

This is the most critical part, so make sure to take your time and get it right.

Hello, MTU Community!

As many of you know, just a few weeks ago we released Hoster version 5.33.01!  We’ve included a new feature that MANY of you have been asking for in the new ‘Mark Songs As Played’ feature, read more below!  Our product developers and beta testers have worked hard to continue to bring you exciting new and improved features for Hoster, making it easier and more fun for you to run your shows!  Tell us what YOU would like to see added into Hoster!  Leave requests in the comments or visit our Facebook page and leave us a note there!

Here is a Video showing how easy it is to upgrade your Current Video Hoster Software! Watch Now!

     Check out the list of new and improved features!

1. NEW – Fade Out/In for Pause/Resume – Pausing and Resuming songs in both Hoster and the Background Audio Player will now Fade Out and back In depending on the Fade settings for that player. To check the Fade setting for Hoster, go to Tools > Audio Controls…. For the BA Player, go to Settings > Fade In/Out….
2. NEW – Mark Songs as Played – This new feature will give you a visual cue when a song has been played in the current show. Played songs will be displayed in red with a strike-thru line. They will appear in your Search, Singer’s List and Edit Singers windows. You can set this in one of four ways:
   • None – Turn this option off.
   • BookID – Mark only the exact BookID as “Played”.
   • Title Only – Mark all songs with the exact same Title as “Played”.
   • Artist & Title – Mark songs with the exact same Artist & Title as “Played”.

   You make this selection in the Tools > Options… window. This feature works whether you Keep Songs After Play or not. When you close and reopen Hoster, this information is reset to start anew.

   Along with this change, you can also Reset any Played Song to be displayed normally. To do this, simply right-click on the song in any of the three windows listed above, and select Mark As > Available.

   Note: Since this feature uses the Red font color, if your background color is Red, you will not see the marked songs in the windows listed above.

3. CHANGED – Playback Offset – This setting is now in the “Audio Controls” window instead of the “Options” window. It has no other changes.

     PLAYLIST

1. CHANGED – Find Same… – The search results that you get will no longer contain the song that you clicked on in Hoster’s Playlist. This was done because you are either going to replace the selected song with a new song, or you are going to add a new song (probably not a duplicate).
2. FIXED – Find Same… – If you replace a “PLAYED” song in the Playlist, that song will now show up as “READY”, and you can play it immediately.
3. FIXED – Ctrl-Space to Start Play – When your Show Display is in fullscreen mode, and Hoster is hidden behind it (single monitor, e.g.), you can Start and Stop the songs by pressing and holding a “Ctrl” key and then pressing the “Space bar”.

     SEARCH

1. FIXED – Enter Key – Clicking the “Enter” key when your cursor is in the Singers box will open or update the Singers List window, instead of adding the selected song(s) to Hoster’s Playlist.

     BUILD SONG DATABASE

1. CHANGED – Remove Folders – If you are Removing multiple folders, Hoster will prompt you only once to choose whether the .KMH files should be deleted as well, instead of repeatedly for each folder.

     BACKGROUND AUDIO

1. NEW – BA Player Option – You can now set your Background Audio Player to Pause the currently playing song when you start playing something in Hoster. Then when that song ends, the BA Player will Resume the same song that was paused. You also have the option to Stop the current song when Hoster starts, and Start a New Song when Hoster stops.Set this using the BA Player Settings > When Show Starts… menu option.

     SONGS DATABASE

1. FIXED – Errors Launching Hoster – If you have ever had difficulty opening Hoster stating that your Songs Database could not be opened, this will fix your situation.
2. FIXED – Duplicate DiscID & Track – If Hoster finds two songs with the same DiscID & Track but different BookIDs, the second one found will be Quarantined, as there is no way that it can be successfully Merged into the Songs Database.

     MARQUEE

1. CHANGED – Automatic Marquee Update – The Marquee and SND will no longer automatically update every minute. This should make your Marquees flow a little better.

     SHOW DISPLAY WINDOW

1. CHANGED – Double-Click to Full screen – If you have more than one monitor, the Show Display will now be set to Full screen on the monitor that does not have the main Hoster window. In other words, you can now control which monitor gets the Full screen Show Display by placing Hoster onto the other monitor.

     PREVIEW WINDOW

1. CHANGED – Double-Click to Resize – If you have set your Preview Sizer to anything but None and double-click on the un-docked preview window, you will be unable to move or resize it until you double-click on it again.

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Version 5.06 is a MASSIVE upgrade with many long asked for New features, Changes and bug fixes. It started out to only prevent dropping audio, but expanded to include TEMPO, instantaneous search results, a new “Words” search mode, and more. Many bugs are fixed, some in code written in 2000, but now showing up as crashes and lockups. This promises to be a very stable version! However, due to the massive changes, we are ready to fix any reported problems ASAP!

Anyone able to install version 503.09 with an “Install Date” of Sept. 19, 2012 can install the 506.09 for free. We also provide 506.03 with the most current Import Database identifying more CDG Discs.

1. FIXED – Prevent Audio Dropouts – Microsoft Windows changes and Laptop “Power Management” settings caused audio dropouts while playing songs from the Playlist. Read the Tools menu Audio Controls Dialog Prevent Audio Dropouts. If you hear audio dropouts change the factory default from “10” that should work for all computers, to a higher selection (12, 14… 20).

Search & Singers Dialog and Edit Songs Dialog Changes

1. NEW – Archive Singers Database Made When 5.06 Installed – This is titled C:/MTU/Hoster/singersBackupPrior5.03.mdb before a singers.mdb (created before 5.03) is converted to the new indexed format. If anything damages your database you can rename singersBackupPrior5.03.mdb to singers.mdb and use it. However, it does not contain changes made since it was created.
2. NEW Active Singers Database Backup Maintained – This is titled C:/MTU/Hoster/singers2.mdb. It is automatically created, and updated while Hoster is running when 50 changes have been made to the singers.mdb. You can rename it to singers.mdb if the original is ever damaged, and a new singers2.mdb is automatically created.
3. CHANGE – Playlist “Search” and “Singers” Buttons – These are now combined as the new Search & Singers button. It displays the prior Search dialog that now also shows a redesigned Singer’s Songs dialog that appeared in prior versions when you clicked an “Open Folder” icon. Operations between both dialogs are fully integrated, making it much faster and easier to search for songs, or select a Singer’s Song, change Tempo and Key and add it/them to the Playlist.
4. NEW – String -vs- Words Search Mode – Prior Hoster versions only allowed “String” search. A new and extremely powerful “Words” search mode is now available in both these dialogs independently settable of the other. The last selection in each appears when Hoster runs again.
5. NEW – Instantaneous Searches – The search code used in both dialogs was totally rewritten to instantly find matching songs, displaying them in the Results window.
6. FIXED – White Screens – Due to the more efficient search code, dialogs no longer appear “whited out” when many search results are returned.
7. CHANGE – Search Fields Defaults – Whenever Hoster runs, the search Title and Artist fields are enabled, but the BookID and other fields are disabled, can be enabled while Hoster runs, but disables when closed.
8. FIXED – Triple Clicking to Add Song to Playlist – Now double-clicking adds a song to the Playlist from Search & Singers button.

Tempo Change

1. NEW – Adjust Range – Songs can now can adjust Tempo from 80% to 120% in ±5% steps by mouse or keyboard.
2. NEW – Search & Singers Dialog Tempo Slider – This allows adjusting to preset a Tempo change when adding a Song to the Playlist and/or to the Singers Database.
3. NEW – Edit Singers Database Dialog Tempo Slider – This allows adjusting to preset a Tempo change when adding a Song to the Playlist, and/or saved to the Singers Database.
4. NEW – Edit Playlist Tempo Field – Double-click and edit this new field to change Tempo on a Song before it plays. When play stops or ends, if the Song was added from the Singers Database, its record updates.
5. NEW – Change Hoster Screen Live Tempo Slider – This allows adjusting the Tempo change live while playing. When play stops or ends, if the Song was added from the Singers Database, its record updates.

Singers Button in Playlist is Now Edit Singers Database

1. CHANGE Renamed as Tools Menu Edit Singers Database… Command – This command dialog allows editing records in the Singers Database. It operates the same as before and can be open to edit Singer’s records during a show, and add Singer’s favorite Songs (example: the Host’s favorite Songs) to the Playlist. However, the Search & Singers dialog upgrades make it much easier to add Singer’s favorite Songs to the Playlist.
2. CHANGE Export and Refresh Buttons Disable – These operations now disable while Songs are playing to prevent audio dropouts and other problems.
3. CHANGE – Edit Singers Database – The Singers drop down list field does not allow entering a new Singer’s name. It did before, but it would not allow adding a Singer with this field, which now only allows selecting existing Singers.
4. FIXED – Triple Clicking to Add Song to Playlist – Now double-clicking adds a song to the Playlist from Edit Singers Database button.
5. FIXED – Invalid Songs in Singers Database Don’t Lock Hoster – Trying to add a Song to the Playlist that is not in the Songs Database now shows a message, then allows adding other Songs.

Songbook Changes

1. CHANGE – Removed Mux “Both” – When preparing Songbooks, if you enable the Mux field to appear, only Left or Right appear; no longer showing Both.
2. FIXED – Artist Names Like “10,000” – “10,000 Maniacs”, which contains a “,” that is used to separate Lastname, Firstname, would appear as “00 Maniacs 10”. It now appears alphabetized and appears as “10,000 Maniacs”.

Build Songs Database

1. FIXED – Damaged Indexed/Excluded Folders – The Indexed Folders list and Excluded Folders list were both stored in HosterInfo.ini file in version 5.05 and prior. This sometimes caused problems when rebuilding the Database. When Hoster 5.06 first runs, it converts HosterInfo.ini file into separate HosterInfoIndexed.ini and HosterInfoExcluded.ini files to be safe.
2. FIXED – Rebuilding Songs Database Halting – While songs were indexed into the Songs Database, if a bad file was found it halted rebuilding and wouldn’t go further. Hoster now quarantines all bad files and continues indexing.

Remove Silence Operations

1. FIXED – Remove Silence Command Lock Up – In this dialog when scanning Karaoke files to set start-stop pointers, files with newly identified problems found while processing would lock Hoster. These are now added to the C:\MTU\Hoster\SetStartEndErrors.txt file and ignored, continuing to the next Song.
2. FIXED – Edit Songs Command Remove Silence Locked Hoster – This dialog also could cause Hoster to lock up when bad files were encountered. Bad files are logged, ignored now and in future, and processing continues to the next Song.

Miscellaneous Changes

1. NEW – #Times Fields in Singers.mdb Database – We added a Singer #Times field and a Song #Times field. These increment by one each time a Singer sings, or a Song is performed.
2. NEW – Report Shows Every Song Performed – Hoster now saves each Song name played from the Playlist (added from any source) into the C:\MTU\Hoster\PlaylistTracking.csv file including; date, time, Singer name, Song name.
3. NEW – Slider Tic Marks – These now appear in Tempo, Volume, and Lyrics Sync sliders.
4. CHANGE – Tools Menu Options Command “Keep Songs After Played” Checkbox – The default shipped state now is ENABLED (checked). In prior versions it defaulted to NOT Keep, which deleted each Song after it played to the end.
5. FIXED – CRASH In Auto Mode When Playing – Playing MP3 Audio or Karaoke Songs didn’t report it was finished as WMA files do, and Hoster could lock up. This is fixed.
6. FIXED – Playlist Highlighting No Longer Erases – In the Playlist, if you clicked in the area below all songs, it would erase the current highlighted Song. Highlighting now remains.

After releasing Video Hoster and Lite 5.00 on April 25, 2011 the number of reported problems has been very low. One problem that still persisted after much work was editing the Singers field in the Playlist could still crash Hoster. We created 8 “trace versions” that finally showed us exactly what was going wrong.

What we discovered was shocking! When Windows was called to open either the htm page for showing the Singers Names Display or the Marquee in the Snow Display, it was randomly returning “file not found”. Now that was truly unexpected, but is in line with several “Windows caused” crashes that we fixed in 5.00.

So, today we released Video Hoster and Lite 5.01 with this crash problem fixed, along with several new Genre and Language listings.

You can download the demo from the web site to see the changes, and how it performs on your computer.

Enjoy!