Category: Software Updates

Rotation notes and tips

To turn on Rotation in Hoster 5.40 do the following:

1) Open Hoster

2) Click on Tools\Settings

3) Click on Playlist

Different Options and what they will do.

1) Manage the singers in a Singers List, show the List on the, left or right – This turns on the Singer List, and must be on for any rotation features to work. If you only check this one Box, it will work as a Notepad List with More features as you can still right click on the Singers names, etc… while keeping all the stats for them  through the show.

2) If you turn on “Let Hoster Determine Initial Placement for new Songs added to the Playlist.” it will do as stated below:

Example – Singer 1 gives you 3 songs so they are the only one in the Playlist right now.

Singer 1

Singer 1

Singer 1

Singer 2 now send you 5 songs, now your playlist will look like this:

Singer 1

Singer 2

Singer 1

Singer 2

Singer 1

Singer 2

Singer 2

Singer 2

Singer 3 Now sends you 5 songs, now the playlist will look like this:

Singer 1

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 1

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 1

Singer 2

Singer 3

(Singer 1 only had 3 Songs so far)

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 4 Now sends you 5 songs,  now the playlist will look like this.

Singer 1

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 4

Singer 1

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 4

Singer 1

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 4

(Singer 1 only had 3 Songs so far)

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 4

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 4

Singer 2

Singer 3

Singer 4

3) Run Your Show as Rotation – When checked, your show will be run by the Singers Names/Rotation instead of by  the Playlist.  You can left click any Singers name and hit play to play their next song in their list.  If you  do not have this Checked, it will play through the Playlist from the Top to the Bottom, of course this is only  when Auto is selected.  If you are in Manual you would need to click play to start playing after a song had  finished. This Option being turned on will always show you the NEXT Song as Blue, if following the Rotation, this will be shown in Manual or Auto Mode.

4) Auto Stop at Rotation Markers – You can right click in the Playlist to set Rotation Markers, by left clicking  on them.  Once you have set these where you wish to take a break, etc… then your show running in Auto Mode  will stop at these Markers.

Right Clicking on a Singers Name in Singers List Options

1) Mark Inactive/Active – When you select this item on a singers name, it will Mark that singer as Inactive, turn them to a Red Color in the Singer’s list and then set their songs in the playlist to SKIP.

2) Show Current Songs – When selecting this, it will show you every song that singer has in the Playlist.  You can then move their songs up or down in the list, which will then change the order of them for that singer in the Playlist.  Click Update to make your changes to the playlist. This would be used if they want to change say Song 2, to Song 4, and vice Versa.

3) Show Song History – This will let you see all Songs that you have saved for that Singer in their Singers Database, when they sang them last, how many times, and what key they wish to use.  You can also use this to add a song very fast for the Singer, once it has been saved in their Singers Database for future use.  There is a new Setting in the Tools Menu\Settings under Playlist and named “When adding songs, automatically add the Singer Name to the Singer Database.” – This allows saving all Singers/Songs to the Singers database when they are added to any Playlist. If you do not have this turned on, then you must manually add the Song to the Singers database by using the S+ button in the Search dialog to add the song to the Playlist/Rotation.

4) Remove Singer – This will give you a message to make sure that you wish to remove this singer and ALL their songs from the Playlist.  It also gives you an option on the dialog to just set them as Inactive.

5) Clear – This gives you 2 options to clear the Singers List items for this Singer’s Name. 1) # of Songs Sung by Singer X – If you left click on it, it will Reset it Back to 0. 2) Last time Sung for Singer X – Left clicking this will set Last Column for this singer back to blank.

6) Add Singer – This allows you to Add a New Singer to the Singers List to keep their Place, without having any Songs Added at the time.

Other Notes and Tips

1) Font Changes – Click on Tools\Settings Under the General Button you will see the Fonts.  They will work as follows “Set Playlist Font” will change the Size of the Text in the Playlist only, NOT the Singers List, this allows you to have 2 different Fonts for the 2 lists. “Set Search Font” This sets the Size of the Font’s in the “Search” dialog and the “Singers List” allowing you to control the size of the Font’s you wish to use. “Set Print Font” changes the Size of the fonts that you will be using for the “Export” Button located in the Singers Database, or Song History Dialog. This allows you to Export the Singers History into an HTML file, that you can then Print for them, or Email to them.

2) Countdown Timer in Marquee for Playing Song – We have added a Countdown timer to show for the Host, if they are out in the Audience, so they can see how much time is left on a playing song.  This shows the Host when to get back to the computer! To turn this On, select Tools\Show Display and set the Marquee to Countdown it will then show when you play a Song in the top right hand corner.

3) Singers Name Display – There are many settings for this, and some new ones were added.  We have added where you can set this to the Left or Right side of the Screen instead of only at the bottom.  When set to the Left or Right, you can now see the Number of Songs beside a Singers Name (from the Singers List/Rotation) they currently have in the Playlist.  If they have no songs, it will show 0, so they know they need to add songs.

There are different settings for each Display type in the Show Display.  Here are what each button does.

Lyrics Button – Click this Button to Make changes to what the Singer will see when they are Singing a Karaoke Song. In this view you may want to click the Checkbox beside Hide, for Marquee and Singers Names Display. The reason for this, it would allow the Lyrics to cover the Entire Screen.

Intermission Button – This is where you make changes that  show when there is no Karaoke Song or Music Video Playing. This display shows when a Singer is leaving the Stage and now Karaoke Song is playing, or you have the Background Audio playing Music. This screen most people would want to have the Singers Names Display and Marquee turned on (HIDE NOT Checked on this Page) if using these features. This way it does not distract the singer, and their customers can now see the screen.

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.

Be sure to ‘Like’ us on Facebook and be among the first to hear about our new releases and promotions so that you can be sure that you’re running the best show in town and save money while you do it!

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!