The Mp G Karaoke Revolution

The Mp+g Karaoke Revolution

Summary: Everything you need to know about the Karaoke MP+G format.

mp+g, mp-g, mpg, karaoke, history, downloading, software, info

Article Body: MP+G is a karaoke file format that was created to allow CD+G karaoke to be played from a personal computer easily and quickly. MP+G is considered the de facto standard of karaoke on the PC and was created from the combination of the MP audio file (the CD audio is converted and compressed to MP) and a raw CDG file which contains the RW subchannels from the CD+G track. The name MP+G was first used by Gai Marcos and Steve Gray in late or early to describe the format. It was first called MM+G in early where it was a combination of various audio formats synchronized to a CDG file. MP and WMA became the most popular audio format used for karaoke and therefore MP+G and WMA+G became the most popular formats used. Microsoft first unofficially adopted the WMA+G for use on the XBox for the XBox karaoke product.

The MP+G format

MP+G stands for MP plus Graphics. MP+G is derived from the CD+G format and the CD+G disc format invented by Philips. MP+G is created by extracting the CD-Audio packets from the CD+G disc with a CD-ROM that is capable of also extracting the RW channels from the disc. The digital audio portion is compressed to MP (the MP format was invented by Fraunhofer Society MP.) and the RW Channels (CD+G graphics CD+G.) are stored to a CDG file. The player products read each file and synchronize the information to display the interpreted graphics along with the music.

Downloading MP+G Files

It is possible to locate and download virtually every karaoke song ever produced. These song files are shared between users of certain newsgroups and IRC channels, though there is a great learning curve to overcome for those who are not familiar with such methods. An alternative would be to purchase one of the pre-compiled MP+G collections, such as KaraMP ( http://www.KaraMP.com ).

History of MP+G

Gai Marcos and Steve Gray in late / early created MP+G (Marcos, Gai (--). President of TyrannoSoft. Gai Marcos. Retrieved on --. and Gray, Steve (--). Background. Steve Gray. Retrieved on --.) and their focus was to make the CD+G format easier to use. It was introduced to the market as MP+G during that period and caught on with karaoke enthusiasts. The first player that was provided to play and create the format was called "WinCDG". WinCDG and its descendant products were released by TyrannoSoft (owned and operated by Gai Marcos and Steve Gray). In , TyrannoSoft renamed to TriceraSoft and continues to support the format in all their products.

Other products have found a new way to transport the MP+G pair of files by "zipping" them. A zip file is a data compression format used to compress and contain files together. Containing the MP+G file pair in the ZIP became known as an "MP+G Zipped". The MP+G Zipped has also become popular, however it is not an efficient method to access the MP+G format as it requires to be unzipped (decompressed) before it is used.

Since the creation of the format the technology of MP+G was first licensed as the Breeze engine by TyrannoSoft. It was later released as a codec engine technology to various computer software companies which continued the introduction of MP+G to the world, here are a few;

TriceraSoft, TouchPoint, PCDJ, DJPower, Alcatech, Hercules, AVA Systems