OneKaraoke

	The Absolute Essentials!
	Before you run OneKaraoke for the first time, we strongly recommend you spend a few minutes to read through the following condensed materials. It's definitely worthwhile to know the basics! And make sure you read and understand the License Agreement first.

Content Preparation & Conversion

To make good use of OneKaraoke, it’s a good idea to get some content into your computer. There are many sources of content and many tools to help you do just that. Different content sources have different methods of conversion, as described below. Before you move onto next section you should have some content ready in your PC!

Media	Preparation or Conversion	Special Notes
VCD (Video Compact Disc)	The simplest way is to copy the DAT files stored in a VCD into hard disk. Then rename the .dat file extension into .mpg (dat files are usually located in a folder called *MPEGAV* inside the VCD”. For example, copy the file “TRACK01.DAT” on VCD into hard disk and rename it as “The Rose.mpg”. It’s as simple as that!	You can use VCD Gear to convert .dat into .mpg with the added advantage of error correction.The only complexity comes in when there is one huge DAT file on VCD that contains all the songs in one file, in which case you need can use an video editing (such as MPEG scissors) to split the long file into separate files.
DVD (Digital Versatile Discs)	There are many freeware and shareware that converts DVD into MPG files, a simple search on Internet will provide you lots of choices.	Web site such as Doom9.org contains lots of information about DVD conversion techniques and tools.
LD (LaserDisc)/ VHS Tapes	Most PC video-capture boxes available today has equipped with analogue inputs and can convert the analogue signals from LD/VHS player into mpg files directly.	Where available in the machine, it's always preferred to use s-video over composite video for recording because of technical reason. Some people also use this "analogue" approach to get DVD video into PC.
Internet	Since OneKaraoke can play many file types, including mpg, wmv, avi, dat, asf, mov, mid, kar, mp3, wma, etc. it’s simple matter to save the content into hard disk without conversion. In fact, if the video can be played in Windows Media Player (or QuickTime Player), it will play in OneKaraoke.	Consider using .kar (basically a standard midi file with lyrics track) because thousands .kar files are already available from the Internet (e.g. midikaraoke.com), which has over 1780 kar files for download. You will need Apple Quicktime installed for playing .kar files in OneKaraoke.

Organizing Content in OneKaraoke (Basics)

OneKaraoke adopts a single-level song categorizing structure for easy content management. To illustrate the concept of single-level hierarchy, let’s take a look at an example of one's song categorization (Left-hand Diagram below):

In the above example, there are six song categories defined by user: - Male, Female, Duets, Oldies, Children, Disco ( In another instance, user may define these as Madonna, Westlife, Phil Collins, Elton John, etc. The nomenclature is entirely up to you!). So how is this categorization represented in the hard disk in relation to the karaoke files? The secret lies in the folder installed as C:\OneKaraoke\, where any folder named as Category-XXXX is automatically known to OneKaraoke as the song categories. These folders are stored in the directory C:\OneKaraoke\ as in the Right-hand Diagram above.

The content (mpg, avi, wmv, etc.) should be placed in respective folders named as Category-XXXX as in the above. On launching, OneKaraoke will

Translates these folders’ names to create the Category title, so a folder called Category-Children will be called as Children in OneKaraoke’s interface;
For each Category title, a Song List is created with the file content inside the folder, so all songs in the folder called Category-Children will be listed under category Children in OneKaraoke’s interface.

The following diagram explained the relationship of this folder arrangement with the user interface.

Two things to note:

Song names are alphabetically listed in Song List;
When using OneKaraoke, keep pressing the [C] key on keyboard will cycle through the rest of the categories

That's all you need to know for song management for now. Let's get some songs organized now!

Using OneKaraoke (with PC Keyboard)

After OneKaraoke is launched, put the mouse aside since all functions are hotkey-operated. To control OneKaraoke with PC Keyboard, refer to the key map below:

Note:

Only basic hotkeys are shown here. For full mapping please refer to user manual ;
Mapping for numeric keypad and handheld remote control are described in user manual as well.

Now that you know the basics of OneKaraoke, why not start having fun now and read the user manual later! Remember we are here to help if you come across any problem!