Karaoke CD+G support?

Feature requests for VLC.
Sand Shark
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby Sand Shark » 22 Mar 2011 18:36

Doesn't export to CDG
If you mean video to CDG, doubtful anything ever will. CDG is not a video format. It's a block-graphic format with extremely limited resolution, bandwidth, and color restrictions. The usefuleness of video captured to CDG format would be so limited that I can't imagine anyone going to the trouble of making software to do it.

There is software out there (though not open source that I know of) that does a decent job of converting stills to CDG format within the constraints of the format.

Retro412
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby Retro412 » 20 Mar 2012 05:31

Thanks for the info. FYI I took a Karaoke zip file unzipped it, chose the mp3 from the folder and it played back the Mp3 synced with the cdg. Pretty cool.
just what i was looking for. Appreciate it.

JayShoe
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby JayShoe » 13 Aug 2012 16:11

I would like to report two bugs with the MP3+G playback in VLC.

1. ZIP SUPPORT - Because MP3+G is stored in pairs, the pairs are often stored inside of a zip file. People have been doing this for years in order to keep the .mp3 file and the .cdg file together... So inside of the zip file you will find two identically named files - just like you would with a normal mp3+G but it's zipped. VLC will open the zip file, but will play the mp3 first. Then it will play the cdg file. It does NOT play them together and this is a bug. It should check the zip file if it contains any files with the exact name and should play them together - not separately.

2. SEARCHING or ADVANCING the track - When you are playing an mp3+G and you skip around the track using the progress bar. When you do this the graphics from the previous location of the track are left on the screen. Therefore, the track continues to write lyrics or graphics to the screen without first clearing the screen. This results in garbled information on the screen. I would suggest that in order to repair this you should clear the screen after using the progress bar. Don't be concerned that the graphics might not look as intended. After a few short seconds of writing new graphics to the screen the system should catch up and should render the graphics correctly on the screen.

Here is a sample:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/W ... directlink

Jean-Baptiste Kempf
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby Jean-Baptiste Kempf » 13 Aug 2012 17:04

I would like to report two bugs with the MP3+G playback in VLC.

1. ZIP SUPPORT - Because MP3+G is stored in pairs, the pairs are often stored inside of a zip file. People have been doing this for years in order to keep the .mp3 file and the .cdg file together... So inside of the zip file you will find two identically named files - just like you would with a normal mp3+G but it's zipped. VLC will open the zip file, but will play the mp3 first. Then it will play the cdg file. It does NOT play them together and this is a bug. It should check the zip file if it contains any files with the exact name and should play them together - not separately.

2. SEARCHING or ADVANCING the track - When you are playing an mp3+G and you skip around the track using the progress bar. When you do this the graphics from the previous location of the track are left on the screen. Therefore, the track continues to write lyrics or graphics to the screen without first clearing the screen. This results in garbled information on the screen. I would suggest that in order to repair this you should clear the screen after using the progress bar. Don't be concerned that the graphics might not look as intended. After a few short seconds of writing new graphics to the screen the system should catch up and should render the graphics correctly on the screen.

Here is a sample:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/W ... directlink
Add those on trac.
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JayShoe
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby JayShoe » 13 Aug 2012 19:26

Ok...


CDG ZIP:
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/7325

CDG Searching and Advancing
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/7326

Thank you for your time and work.

DeusExMachina
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby DeusExMachina » 11 Nov 2012 13:03

For the record, both these issues were reported at the beginning of this very thread in 2008/2009, so no fix in 4 years, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby DeusExMachina » 21 Jun 2013 12:16

Good thing I didn't hold my breath.

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby Jean-Baptiste Kempf » 23 Jun 2013 13:23

Seriously, just unzip them.
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby bosa60 » 28 Jun 2013 19:57

Well, I have a working patch with a simple solution. My patch just extracts the string between the last two dots of the filename and sets an internal VLC variable about the language.

So, it works for the cases listed by Dr. Crash

Code: Select all

Some movie.Half-SBS.en.srt => en Some movie.Half-SBS.fr_CH.srt => fr_CH Some movie.Half-SBS.fr_CH-forced.srt => fr_CH
I will try submitting it through the proper channels tomorrow, but if anyone wants to try it out:
https://gist.github.com/4689021

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby Jean-Baptiste Kempf » 02 Jul 2013 16:28

Not seen it in the "proper channels"
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ByteShare
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby ByteShare » 25 Sep 2014 00:03

It would be nice if it could read the MP3 and CDG correctly from a zip, like in XBMC. I have them all unzipped now but it saves me about 35% of total space to have them compressed and that adds up.

davecotter
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby davecotter » 28 Apr 2015 19:45

Zipped Audio+G files still don't work. When you drag eg: a zipped MP3+G file onto VLC, it will properly display both items inside the zip, but when you play the mp3 file, VLC does NOT go find the cdg and play it along with the audio.

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby Jean-Baptiste Kempf » 02 May 2015 20:21

Yes, this is known.
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mixmastamyk
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby mixmastamyk » 19 May 2015 08:19

Is there some reason this playback is tied to MP3? I've got a CD+G disk of my collection that I'm ripping to FLAC and not intending to use mp3s. Will it work with others formats?

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby mixmastamyk » 19 May 2015 23:03

:) Yeah, it works with .flac if .cdg are in the same folder!

Grumble, the encoding software made me make a disk image with cdrdao and create mp3s from it but I can delete all that crap, and it's not VLCs fault of course.

BTW, my CD is 1988's Information Society, and has lots of fun drawings and info in it as well as lyrics. It's not specifically for Karaoke. http://www.cdplusg.com/cdplusg/Main.html

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby Jean-Baptiste Kempf » 19 May 2015 23:18

flac + cdg was never tested in VLC. DId you have anything special to do?
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Sand Shark
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby Sand Shark » 01 Jan 2016 09:00

Yes, this is known
OK, so is it ever going to be fixed? I suspect it's something quite simple, like not all of the files being unzipped at the same time, so the .cdg isn't available when the .mp3 is played. Perhaps with some other types of zipped files, that is the preferred method, so there could be a setting that determines which action is followed.

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby DeusExMachina » 05 May 2017 20:35

After many posts about this issue, and related issues (like the VLC bug where it won't properly play PCM audio via the GUI, and in fact, crashed outright when one tries, and will only work when played from the command line) and the various responses that boil down to "that's how it is, deal with it", it is pretty clear that this is not even considered an issue, and will not be "fixed".
As I said back in 2012, don't hold your breath.

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby Jean-Baptiste Kempf » 07 Sep 2017 13:46

As for 3.0, we finally support .zip correctly. CD+G would be then doable.
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tbeshr
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby tbeshr » 04 Dec 2017 20:41

@Jean-Baptiste Kempf
I'm new to CD+G - it is something that I am trying to set up for my kids - I have read through this thread back to 2004 and can't find 'Instructions for Dummies' on how to play our CD+G disks using VLC for Mac. I am running VLC Version 2.2.6 Umbrella (Intel 64bit), have disabled iTunes, inserted one of our CD+G disks in the MacBook Pro and all I can get is audio - no text video.

I'm certain that this has been asked many times since 2004, so can you please send a link to instructions for playing these disks (files) with both audio and the lyric text files?

Thanks in advance and thanks for an amazingly versatile video app.

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby DeusExMachina » 08 Mar 2018 20:13

@tbeshr
I am not particularly surprised that you have not received an answer. The powers that be are not particularly concerned with this entire issue. Many simple fixes never occur because they are not even recognized as problems (like the issue with PCM playback I referenced above; it's along standing bug in VLC I brought up about a decade ago that prevents the proper playback of PCM/CD+G file pairs from the command line, that JBK insists is "how it should work").
As for your question, as far as I can tell, VLC does not support CD+G playback from CD+G disks. The disk format is not the standard CD format, and only a subset of drive hardware can even see the CD+G track. That is why you can only hear the audio. The CD+G track may be invisible to your hardware. But more importantly VLC has no innate ability to read the file format from the drive hardware, even if the drive could see it.
Don't hold your breath for that functionality, either. Not only are CD+G disks very rapidly becoming obsolete, but again, the powers that be here have little to no interest in the issue in the first place.
That said, if you want to play the files you do have, you can either find a decent dedicated player for the Mac, like Dave Cotter's kJams, or you can try to RIP the files from the CD+G disk (assuming you have compatible hardware) and then use VLC to play those files from your hard disk.
As of now, realistically, those are the only two options

DeusExMachina
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby DeusExMachina » 08 Mar 2018 20:44

As for 3.0, we finally support .zip correctly. CD+G would be then doable.
Supporting .zip correctly does not make CD+G doable.
CD+G≠.cdg.
CD+G playback is a hardware issue. Specifically, the .cdg data is stored on the bit track that normally stores laser alignment bits on the hardware CD disk, and only a subset of players can even access that data. If the drive can't access the bit track, it can't be played by VLC, or any other software for that matter.
Finally supporting playback of MP3+G file pairs zipped together will, however, allow for the correct playback of such files in the format the vast majority of people use. So that's nice to have in 2018.
Now if only the command line was fixed so that it, too, would properly play audio+.cdg file pairs.

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby Jean-Baptiste Kempf » 09 Mar 2018 15:09

As for 3.0, we finally support .zip correctly. CD+G would be then doable.
Supporting .zip correctly does not make CD+G doable.
CD+G≠.cdg.
CD+G playback is a hardware issue. Specifically, the .cdg data is stored on the bit track that normally stores laser alignment bits on the hardware CD disk, and only a subset of players can even access that data. If the drive can't access the bit track, it can't be played by VLC, or any other software for that matter.
Finally supporting playback of MP3+G file pairs zipped together will, however, allow for the correct playback of such files in the format the vast majority of people use. So that's nice to have in 2018.
Now if only the command line was fixed so that it, too, would properly play audio+.cdg file pairs.
I was afraid about that...

So, we need more work.
Jean-Baptiste Kempf
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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby DeusExMachina » 23 Oct 2018 23:28

It was a hack back in the days when the 640 or so MB on a CD was seen to be an amazingly massive data cache. The hardware specs at the time also never allowed for video data, so to shoehorn the CDG data onto the disk, tricks had to be employed to fit the data somewhere that was not commonly in use, but would not interfere with normal disk operation. The CD+G specifications was an extension to the standard audio CD format published by Philips and Sony that stored the audio as standard CD audio, but the graphics, encoded as 6-bit, 6x12 "fonts" drawn on a 288×192 grid on a 300×216 screen, are stored in the subcode channels R through W.
The problem for VLC and any other app trying to read actual CD+G disks is, although all the subcode channels are described in the specifications, many, if not most, hardware manufacturers failed to implement the full spec, and a lot of CD hardware is incapable fo seeing these subcode channels at all, so there is nothing VLC can do to read them.
A quick Google search will find a list of drives capable of reading the CD+G info.
https://www.karaokeshack.com/karaoke-burners/
Once the data has been RIPped from these drives, however, VLC should be able to read and play it back just fine.
HOWEVER, VLC appears to do this by scanning a directory for filenames that match the audio file being played, and if they are a CD+G file, playing that as well. This worked fine in some instances, however, few people store files in this manner anymore. Instead, to save space, people compress the audio using some audio compression format, like MP3, and then zip the resulting audio file together with the CD+G into a single zip file. (While this does little or nothing to reduce the size of the MP3, it drastically reduces the CD+G file) whole also having the advantage of reducing file clutter.
But VLC does not seem to actually create even a pseudo-folder for the zip file, and as such, does not see the file pair. Instead, it only looks inside the zip, finds the audio file, and plays that. Only if the zip is manually unzipped first does VLC play the pair appropriately.
As such, it totally misses the point of being able to play zip files!
So yeah, 3.x does finally support playback of files inside a zip, but still will not allow paired playback.

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Re: Karaoke CD+G support?

Postby 248260 » 12 Feb 2019 03:19

I had this problem playing karaoke files from my hard drive to play on my iPad VLC on windows joined both files and played the track with no problem but when I opened them on my iPad they file was split into two mp3 and cdg vlc will play it after a lot of messing about I found this works click on the karaoke mp3 file of the track you want share it in vlc go back to your source of the file then share the cdg to vlc then it will play Long winded


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