New Web Site is in place! www.HomeKaraokePC.com

Finally, after so many months of tinkering, I have decided to put this system that I have installed onto the web for anyone who may be interested in having a more luxurious, computerized and functional home karaoke system to enjoy. OK, I have also thrown in all the video karaoke tracks that I have received from the software vendor and more for free! Check out my web site at www.HomeKaraokePC.com

Enjoy Computerized Karaoke Lounge Set-Up At Home

I have visited quite a few karaoke bars and lounges in Asia and in America. In America, the karaoke bars are none other than having a VJ to play you your selected CD-G song on the disc and plain lyrics pop up on the small monitor in front of you while you are on stage belting it out in public. While such public karaoke places do exist in Asia, there are unique differences from the North American bars. First, they rarely, if ever, use CD-G discs in Asia. All the karaoke videos are either original MTVs or they come with fancy background videos for each song played. Second, they have more private, comfy and intimate karaoke rooms for your own private parties with friends and family to wild the night away in songs (with good and bad vocals depending on your alcohol content) and drinks. Karaoke rooms for bookings are now getting more and more prevalent in North American cities where there are higher number of Asian population, such as in California. But these are almost like best kept secrets from the mainstream caucasian markets to enjoy.

Culturally this trend may make sense. Caucasian karaoke singers love all attention to focus on them when they are on stage. No background videos are supposed to distract the audience or to share the limelight or accolades given. Asian karaoke singers and audience are perhaps more forgiving in this respect. They love background videos to accompany the latest hits or Mandarin oldies. For them, a karaoke screen with just lyrical words is simply a el-cheapo production, a less than desirable feast for the eyes. Appreciation for the whole experience, aural and visual, comes first rather than the expectation of a professional singer for the night. With that expectation, Asians feel that they can better enjoy the night as a singer as well as a listener in the audience. Afterall, if the singer is really bad, they can bear with it by watching the karaoke video in the background if necessary.

Other than the usual amplifier, speakers and wireless microphones, when it comes to the technical aspects of a good karaoke song selection/interfacing system, I personally feel that Asians seem to have a leg up on it. Hmmm... didn't the Asians invented the karaoke anyway?

Many karaoke player machines are made in China nowaday. However, they do come up short in terms of accomplishing the actual experience similar to the Asian karaoke lounges. I suspect that perhaps design and innovation of these so-called karaoke DVD players and video-on-demand (VOD) units may still be dictated by Western engineers. Many disc players you can find in the market tried to strike a balance between the need for a substantial song library and affordability. They ended up with MIDI music playing disc units. While others may come with added hardware features like a hard disk, they are comparatively expensive, lack a karaoke-lounge type menu interface/features and is extremely complicated to use/setup.

A fully computerized touch-screen-select karaoke system that mirrors the look and feel of karaoke lounges in Asia at home will be an ideal solution for karaoke aficionados. One can then enjoy the karaoke experience with family and friends in the comforts and familiarity of one's own home.

Sourcing for such a system is a difficult expedition. Most of the developed software are from China and are tailored for the Chinese market only. Interface screens are all in Mandarin and if your DIY made-in-China bicycle assembly instruction manual is a good reference, no understandable software instruction exists.

This is a fully computerized karaoke system for your home enjoyment with families and friends. There are a mix of over 3,500 English and Chinese songs all digitized and ready for your touch screen selection just like what you have experienced in karaoke lounges in Asia. The majority if not all the karaoke videos are in high quality file formats, not RMVBs or poor quality compressed MPEGs. Song selection can be done by original singer, in alphabetical order, by types of songs, or language.

All you need is to connect this computer to your karaoke amplifier and big screen television set. The touch screen selection menu can be position about 12 feet away from your audio and computer setup next to your cozy sofa.

No more flipping LDs, DVDs, VCDs and CD-Gs. This system can play all these files after you load them into the system if you wish to add more. Your guests will not be too shy to ask you to be their VJ for each song they choose. You can enhance karaoke participation fun, family and friends can now select and add their songs to play on their own using the touchscreen LCD panel placed in a common area.

This computerized system is like none other. Forget about the stand alone DVD units that play MIDI karaoke tracks or that claimed to have a hard disk to store them. Don't pay for some system that does not show you a nice and spiffy song menu selection screen that you can feel refreshed to use each time. And throw away those outrageously expensive units from CAVS that can only play CDG songs with limited repetitive hard-coded video library... these are no karaoke MTVs.

This is as close to what you can find in a commercial karaoke lounges in Asia! And you can have that in your own home!

This system has the following features:

• Touch screen menu control, and 12-inch touch screen monitor included.
• Dedicated PC to run this whole karaoke system. You can use this system for your other work, but not recommended.
• Versatile song selection. You can select by singers' pictures, or alphabetically. You can also perform search of the songs by keying in the first characters of each word of the song using the touch screen menu.
• Clean screen interface that you and your friends can easily master and use.
• All songs selected are queued sequentially for playback, and on-screen scrolling prompts for next song is visible on TV monitor as well as on the touch screen panel.
• Each song will have up to 10 seconds of on-screen count-down delay to get the singer ready.
• You can control karaoke music or vocal accompaniment from the touch screen panel if the sound has such dual tracks.
• You can control the volume of the music and PC-connected microphone (not included) from the touch screen panel.
• Over 80 screen skins to choose from to suit your mood.

This system is a highly professional home entertainment karaoke Video On Demand computer setup. The following will be included:

• A fully functional computer with all required hardware and software to run the karaoke VOD system installed.
• A 12-inch touch-screen LCD panel with connecting wires.
• Over 3,500 digitized karaoke songs comprising of English and Chinese hits and oldies.