Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 April 3

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April 3

Repair Of a Laptop Screen

I have an old laptop (working) with a screen that was disassembled. The silvering on the last layer of the LCD unit was washed off and now the screen is impossibly dark. Can this be replaced with aluminum foil or something similar? 76.117.247.55 (talk) 03:30, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it. You can probably hook it up to an external monitor, though. StuRat (talk) 04:17, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

RGB color ranges for human skin, nails, hair, and eyes

RGB color range for human skin

In the RGB color model, what is the range of numeric representations for normal human skin? For the purpose of this question, I am counting congenital albinism, natural sun tanning, and aging as normal. Artificial treatments are not counted. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:57, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

The best you can probably get is something like the SVG in Von Luschan's chromatic scale. It's going to be inexact no matter what you do, but if you're looking for just some baseline values, it's probably fine. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:08, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

All humans trend toward the red channel. This fact is common knowledge among Photoshop users as it aids them in isolating (masking) humans from a background.--Chmod 777 (talk) 17:19, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

[From List of Biblical names, I quote: "Adam, earthy; red". -- Wavelength (talk) 19:32, 4 April 2010 (UTC)]

RGB color range for human nails

In the RGB color model, what is the range of numeric representations for normal human nails? For the purpose of this question, I am counting congenital albinism, natural sun tanning, and aging as normal. Artificial treatments are not counted. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:58, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

RGB color range for human hair

In the RGB color model, what is the range of numeric representations for normal human hair? For the purpose of this question, I am counting congenital albinism, natural sun tanning, and aging as normal. Artificial treatments are not counted. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:58, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

RGB color range for human eyes

In the RGB color model, what is the range of numeric representations for normal human eyes? For the purpose of this question, I am counting congenital albinism, natural sun tanning, and aging as normal. Artificial treatments are not counted. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:59, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

In reply to all the above

Unfortunately, RGB is inherently uncalibrated, and human perception of computer RGB colors can be strongly affected by monitor characteristics, ambient lighting, etc. so your questions are not really all that meaningful as they stand. There's sRGB, a standardized version of RGB, but there's no guarantee that your system is sRGB-compliant unless you've carefully calibrated your monitor in one particular set of ambient lighting conditions, etc... AnonMoos (talk) 06:28, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

But surely human skin is not bright blue or bright green, so it must be possible to reduce the range of possible colours by a lot. Perhaps the OP could find twenty photos of people on the internet, measure the colour of their skin etc, and get a better idea that way. 78.149.194.146 (talk) 13:04, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It would give an idea of the colors that have been used in previous images, but it wouldn't give much precision or additional exactness beyond just eyeballing it... AnonMoos (talk) 13:33, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

If it was just one-dimensional data then you could calculate the mean and standard deviation, which would give you more information than just looking at them. But as its three dimensional data then I'm not sure what you do. Regarding shadows, perhaps it would be possible to adjust the greyness of each colour to a standard grey, so that shadow was not important. But perhaps skins differ in the amount of greyness in them anyway. 78.149.241.120 (talk) 10:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, the lighting conditions change all the RGB values from 0,0,0 all the way up to 255,255,255. StuRat (talk) 13:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

True, but I'm sure the original poster knows this. Let's imagine he wants the base colors for use as textures for a 3-D modeling scene, whereby lighting conditions would be calculated against the base. It isn't a totally horrible question. I just don't know if the numbers are easily accessible in the way the OP wants them, other than skin color. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:37, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

For standardization of lighting, let us assume that all the subjects have been photographed outdoors on under a cloudless day sky, at the equator at sea level (see Macapá), at exactly midday (12:00 noon) on the spring or autumn equinox. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:30, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

[I am revising my comment. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:39, 3 April 2010 (UTC)]

What, no humidity spec ? :-) StuRat (talk) 15:58, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

OK. now the next problem in specifying ranges is that the R, G, and B components aren't independent. That is, we can't just give a range of each. (If we did, you'd find that many combos within those ranges would look very wrong.) For a given value of R and G we could give a range of B, though. So, we end up with a 3D graph. How could we pass on that info here ? StuRat (talk) 15:58, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

For a 3D graph, maybe there is helpful information in the article on 3D computer graphics. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:22, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

My Google search for "3D data" reported about 198,000,000 results. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:33, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

There could be a list of all the integral values from {0,0,0} to {255,255,255}, or simply a reporting of the number of such values out of a maximum of 2²⁴ = 16,777,216. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:48, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

If you are contemplating using these RGB numbers for computer graphics - I've gotta warn you that they won't do you much good. Drawing things in "skin color" doesn't produce reasonable results because the things that make for realistic skin have little to do with color. With good lighting algorithms, you can make green skin look "real" but without good lighting, even getting the RGB values perfect for your own skin won't produce good results. When drawing skin, you need to pay a lot of attention to surface texture (tiny pores, etc), to the shininess (which varies over the skin with oily deposits) and especially to an effect called "subsurface-scattering". If you get those things right, then the range of believable colors are truly vast. SteveBaker (talk) 16:42, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

[Wikipedia has an article about subsurface scattering. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:44, 3 April 2010 (UTC)]

My reason for asking these questions is that humans perceive each other as having skin with a hue of black, brown, red, yellow, or white, and I am looking for an objective measure of the actual differences, which may be relatively slight; and I added hair and eyes, because they vary in color also; and I added nails for a total of four features. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:58, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you open a picture of a naked human in Photoshop, remove the background, and then look at the histogram to see how much of R, G, and B there is? You could then repeat the procedure for their nails and eyes. Here are some tutorials on how to do that: [1], [2]. Also, if you'd like to see how much cyan, magenta, yellow, and black there is, you can switch to the CMYK mode (Image --> Mode --> CMYK).--Chmod 777 (talk) 17:30, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

There is also DigitalColor Meter, but I am hoping that someone has already done the research.—Wavelength (talk) 18:37, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, see Von Luschan's chromatic scale for human skin color. Anthropologists standardized this a long time ago. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:04, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I tried to find the questions at Ask a Color Scientist!, by looking on the FAQ page and by searching on the FAQ Search page, but I did not find the questions, so I submitted the questions on the page for that purpose. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:41, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

My guess is that Mark Fairchild (the “color scientist” who answers those questions) is unlikely to tell you anything that you haven’t been told here. His research is not about human skin color, but rather about how color perception operates and can be modeled. Anyway, if you clarify your motivation for asking about skin/eye/etc. color, someone can probably better figure out how to answer your question. RGB is not a good system for quantifying or comparing color (of skin or anything else); instead, it is a system for telling televisions or computer displays what to show. Much of the recent academic literature about skin color is about face detection, etc. But if that’s not what you’re specifically interested, it might not be useful to you. Try searching google scholar for “skin color” or similar terms; Many papers have pdfs available. –jacobolus (t) 04:55, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all for your answers. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:47, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

What's the term for a code file?

What do you call a single .c file within a multiple file C program (and its header file)? Is it a "module"? (Never mind whether it's truly a module - is that the term generally used?) 213.122.26.30 (talk) 07:38, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd just call it a source code file. StuRat (talk) 12:53, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep. It's a source file in common parlance. It also closely corresponds to (but is not the same) what the C standard calls a "translation unit". C does not really use the term "module", and only supports the concept with some discipline on the side of the programmer. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:47, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, so that's what a "unit" is. What if you have two or three closely related .c files (which you probably keep in the same subdirectory)? Would C programmers tend to call that a module, or just "a bunch of source files"? Or perhaps a unit (which, judging by your link, would be as technically incorrect as "module")? 81.131.48.116 (talk) 23:13, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

C does not have the concept of programmatically defined object namespaces or hierarchies. (This is largely because it is not an object oriented language). When compiled and linked, every file is equal, no matter which subdirectory it came from. Any terminology to refer to logical groupings of C program source code is used loosely by the programmer - it doesn't have an exact meaning in the context of the language. A programmer may choose to compile and link several source files into a single library; in that sense, those files are the set of sourcecode for a particular library. Languages like C++ or java precisely define the concept of namespaces, packages, and object hierarchies; the compiler and linker understand the meaning of such terminology. Therefore, these languages have more precise terminology for referring to groups of source code files. The C language does not. Nimur (talk) 05:41, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, a "module" can mean something totally different than you probably expect; it is the Fortran equivalent of an object file - a compiled element from a single source file - but only if that source file defines a Fortran module. Here's a good overview: What is a Module?. Note that this is probably not what you were thinking when you described a group of related source files. Nimur (talk) 05:45, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Modules have nothing to do with OOP. The fanciest module system in widespread(?) use is ML's. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 09:32, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, but is there no common name, however imprecise? 81.131.23.57 (talk) 12:02, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

There is no official name for a group of related .c files, but I've heard "package" being used (which, unlike in e.g. Flash Actionscript, has no formal meaning for C). People working under a standard like Automotive SPICE would tend to use the term "unit", but again this is unofficial, since ASPICE does not stipulate the use of C. 83.81.42.44 (talk) 14:26, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Translation unit was the word that first came to mind, but like Stephan says, source file is more accurate. A translation unit is the result of running a source file and the files #included by it through the preprocessor. decltype (talk) 13:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Network issues

I'm having serious problems. I'm on Wichita State University's guest network, and I'm having trouble (despite a full wireless signal) getting the internet to function. I ran a few diagnostic tests, and they told me

“ The wireless router/AP for your network is either unavailable, not working, or is disconnected. You will not be able to connect to the Internet, although you might be able to connect to your local network. ”

I'm lucky to have gotten to here to ask how to fix it, as it took me 45 minutes to get the connection to function long enough. Web pages will load partly, then not finish loading or will not even start loading and return the "Connection timed out" error. All of this is happening with a full and strong signal. I may, if I'm lucky, get a small burst of .5% network utilization. What's going on with this connection, and how do I fix it? --Ks1stm (talk) ^{[alternate account of Ks0stm]} 14:04, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

You certainly do seem to be having a problem of some sort. I deleted about 6 duplicates of this post. --Phil Holmes (talk) 14:29, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

First, we need to establish if the problem is on your computer or with the network. The easiest way to check that out is probably to talk with other computer users nearby, to see if they are also having problems with the network. Note that just because it says you have a strong signal, that doesn't necessarily mean the network is running (or running well). If you have any other way to access the Internet from your computer, try it. This could be dial-up, or, if it's a laptop, by taking it to a location with a different network.

So, if it's the network that's at fault, just contact the system administrator and tell them about the problem, there's nothing more you can do at your end. If it does seem to be a problem with your computer, then come back, tell us the steps you took, and we may be able to make further recommendations. StuRat (talk) 15:45, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to hope and pray that this doesn't duplicate post...sorry about that...it didn't even load the page with my changes on it, it just quit loading before it moved away from the editing page, so I thought it hadn't gone through. Once I finally got through to the page, it logged me out (which I notice it has done again) and I couldn't rollback my changes. I checked with the only other computer user in the area, and they said the internet is working for them, but excruciatingly slowly. On my computer, it just quits loading the page and times out. In the task manager it registers a tiny little blip of network utilization, then nothing until I refresh the page or try again. I can't access the internet any other way, so I can't check via that method. Is there anything I can do to fix this, or is it a network problem? Also, if it is a network problem, how do I tell the system administrators without the same problems affecting my attempts to communicate the problem to them? 156.26.255.7 (talk) 16:51, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It does sound as if the problem is at the University connection to the internet. Do they have any internal servers that you are allowed to view, or an internal e-mail system? I suspect that your connection is low in priority when allocating a limited internet bandwidth. I get similar problems with my internet connection (delivered via a series of microwave links). Dbfirs 17:10, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I found a temporary solution (except for when saving edits) where I just copy the url I want to go to into the address bar, hold down enter while watching the Task manager networking graph thingy, and when it spikes, I let up the enter key and it will load my page. It's as if I have to ping the network over and over again with the same request until it finally responds. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 17:21, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

That sounds a useful trick! I'll try it when my connection is playing hide-and-seek with me. Does anyone know exactly how DNS servers behave when there is insufficient bandwidth or connections available? Dbfirs 18:25, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like there is a slow network, which causes your computer to time out on the connection. Perhaps someone else knows how you can make your computer wait longer before timing out. As for letting the network administrator know, I looked up their phone number, but it seems you will have to wait until Monday morning to get any help:

User Services Helpdesk

The User Services Helpdesk is one source of 
contact for information, to report technical 
problems, and to dispatch assistance.

Contact Information

The Hours of Operation are Monday-Friday, 
8:00am to 5:00pm.
3 WAYS to summon HELP
  1.      Call WSU-HELP (978-4357)
  2.      Fill out an Information Request Form
  3.      email helpdesk@wichita.edu
Always provide the following:
   * Name
   * Phone number where you can be reached (Land line preferred)
   * Brief description of the problem
We will respond as quickly as possible. 
Every call and on-line request is important. 
These requests are logged and prioritized 
based on the problem. While every effort 
is made for a quick response, demands of 
time and resources may result in delays 
of service.

So, you may be out of luck until Monday. StuRat (talk) 23:43, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Scan specific folder

So in Windows 7 you can scan a drive for errors. But I have a folder where I know there's an error (because every time I try to open it, I get an error) so can I just scan that one folder instead of scanning the entire drive which is take hours? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.207 (talk) 15:13, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

The issue is that the error(s) may not be limited to the folder, especially if the folder is spread over many small areas of the disk, due to disk fragmentation. So, you'd better bite the bullet and scan the whole disk, or you may be in for future problems. StuRat (talk) 15:38, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Alternatives to "solid compression"

I often use the "solid compression" option in rar and 7zip because I'm compressing many thousands of similar files, many of which are over half the same exact data in each of them with only a few tiny changes here and there. Because the files are so similar, the solid compression gives great space saving results. I was wondering, does something similar to solid compression exist but without the actual compression part? For example a way to store many similar files by scanning them and only writing a set of data once instead of saving the same data over and over for every file that has it? I hope that makes sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.207 (talk) 15:53, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

You could store a reference file and then diffs between it and each subsequent file. A smart utility to do this would search for favourable reference files (that's fairly expensive to do, but has no cost at decompression time), would reject diffs that were uneconomic, and would LZcompress the reference file(s) and all the diffs. But, as this seems to be a fairly specialist circumstance, I don't know of (and rather doubt that there exists) a general archiver that does this for you (there are binary delta compression programs, but they're really setup for patches). If you know a bit of coding, this wouldn't be rocket science to do yourself. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:05, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Old algorithms for storing (Asian) fonts worked in a similar way. The common elements are defined once and the actual characters are created by overlaying the common elements. --91.145.72.188 (talk) 16:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Storing repeated data once and referring to it multiple times *is* compression. In fact, one of the most frequently used compression scheme, Lempel–Ziv–Welch, is nothing but that (well, that and a clever trick so that it doesn't have to store the lookup dictionary separately). The algorithm scans through the files and makes a dictionary representing chunks of the file. When a chunk is repeated, it can then add a flag telling the decompression utility to look up the chunk in the dictionary. As I understand it, solid compression refers to nothing more than treating multiple files as a single unit to be compressed, so that the already created dictionary for one file can be reused for another. This is opposed to "traditional" compression utilities like gzip which work only on single files, and require other programs (like tar) to package the files together first. If I'm understanding your question correctly, you would like to have the space-saving properties of a solid compressed file, but be able to refer to each component individually and natively, like it wasn't in a compressed archive. For that I would suggest a disk compression utility - these are special device drivers which sit between your operating system and your disk, allowing the OS to access files like they were separate, uncompressed files, but having the on-disk space saving effects of compression. However there is an inevitable disk slow-down as it takes time for the files to be put back together. -- 174.31.194.126 (talk) 19:22, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Is the reason for your question that you want to be able to extract individual files quickly, without decompressing the whole archive? If so, you can use 7-Zip's option that limits the size of each solid block. From the command line, -ms=16m will make 16-megabyte solid blocks (for example). I don't know whether RAR has a similar option. This won't eliminate any mutual redundancy from files that end up in different solid blocks. You could also look at rzip. It doesn't support what you want at present, but it might be a useful starting point. There seems to have been surprisingly little academic research on the problem of random-access compression, or maybe I'm just not aware of the work that has been done. -- BenRG (talk) 23:51, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Office with frontpage

What is the difference between "Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage" and "Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage-stuff9"?Efort919 (talk) 19:36, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Where are you seeing this "stuff9" addendum. The only places I can find with Google are all to do with illegal pirate versions available from torrent sites. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:20, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It could just be a tag for credit. Many pirating entities like to specify who made it happen. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:42, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Password-only Joomla resources

Hi. There's a website using Joomla, with a http://resources.example.org subsite (also using Joomla), but in order to access any of the documents, you need a password. Their office won't be open until Tuesday; is there anything I can do in the meantime to intiuitively work out the download URL? Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►duumvirate─╢ 19:50, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I've just found out that it uses the 'Docman' extension if this helps? ╟─TreasuryTag►Lord Speaker─╢ 21:48, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Firefox will not print all of webpage

When I tell Firefox to print the webpage I'm looking at, it only sends the beginning of the webpage, the part that is visible in the browser window without scrolling, to the printer. It does not send the remainder of the webpage, that you would have to scroll down to see, to the printer. All three versions of Firefox that I've used have done this. How can I fix this problem please? Internet Explorer, when looking at the same webpage, prints the whole page and does not have this problem. Thanks 84.13.45.122 (talk) 20:12, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I've just tried the latest version of Firefox (3.6.3) and it happily printed a 3-page "page". Dbfirs 20:47, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It's been doing that for all versions I know. Are you (84.X) sure that you use the print function of the browser (File->print) and not a Windows "Print window" function (which maybe IE intercepts and reinterprets)? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:13, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I am sure. 89.243.37.199 (talk) 22:18, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It does print OK for some pages. It does not like printing all the search results obtained from this page http://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/ after entering a postcode. I get one page with two blank pages. I found this: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problems_printing_web_pages but nothing jumps out at me as being a solution - perhaps an expert would understand more. 89.243.37.199 (talk) 23:18, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. That particular website seems to interact with Firefox to allow only one data page in the printout. There is a very similar problem in Opera. Internet Explorer also prints blank pages but it does include all the data (with 20 pages, some blank, on my test). I suspect the problem lies in the way that the pages are generated, probably hidden overflow from the long table, but I can't give a solution (other than change your browser), so we await an expert? Apparently, this bug has been unsolved for the past eight years! Dbfirs 06:42, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Not so much a solution as a workaround, but you can always print one page at a time using the print screen button (and maybe pasting into MS Paint). Then scroll down and print the next page. This isn't a bad option if you only have a few pages. StuRat (talk) 13:09, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC, wrote this before the below, somewhat redundant now but perhaps will have some use) You can saving the page and then try editing it (I tried and removed most of the stuff between the title and the first text but while it killed the background and stuff it didn't help so I guess it's more complicated then that). Or copy the text to WordPad or Office or something although you'll lose some of the formatting. You can also shrink the page (scale under 100%) so you get a lot so you get more text.

You can also print the page as a very, very long page by making a custom paper size for example to XPS, PS or PDF. If this isn't an option for your 'printer', on Windows XP and perhaps Vista right clicking on the printer and choosing print server properties should allow you to create a new form (i.e. paper size) (see [3] for example). On Windows 7 the option should be along the controls at the top under the file, edit etc menu (of course things may vary if you use a classic control panel). Alternatively use the print server snap-in [4]. Anyway 214748.3647cm appears to be the maximum length but I don't recommend you use this (I tried it with XPS, it failed completely to print). 2970cm (100 times length of A4) worked but the XPS doesn't seem to work in the builtin viewer (looking at the file, the content is there I guess the viewer just can't handle such a long page length). 742.5cm worked fine. Anyway once you have XPS, PS or PDF there may be some way you can print it in seperate pages. I haven't worked out that part. Probably easier with PDF or PS (I didn't get very far at all with XPS actually). If your printer has a banner function you could use that. Of course in any case the tables may be split into half, may be even a line of text depending on how you do it. (While searching it occured to me importing it into something like InDesign would probably work but that's a bit overkill and I you probably don't have it.)

Of course if you're using Windows I'd just recommend IE for this page. And it seems Chrome and Safari haven't been tried yet if you're not. Baring that, since it doesn't seem the kind of thing you want to keep around for long or care if it looks a bit ugly, copying the content and then printing from WordPad or Office or whatever is probably sufficient.

As Dbfirs said, some of these issues have been around for 8 years to so, so I wouldn't hope for a fix anytime soon unless you're planning to code them :-P In this case, I'm not even sure if there's any point adding further info to the bug report, there are already test cases and the like.

P.S. A sample search for people to test [5]

Nil Einne (talk) 06:11, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I played around with it a little bit, and I suspect the site's style sheet for print media is working differently in Firefox and Internet Explorer. Here's a kludgy work around:

1. Once you have your desired page of search results, go to File, Save Page As. Choose a filename and location and be sure to choose type "Web Page, complete". This will create a file like findbusiness.aspx.htm and a folder like findbusiness.aspx_files that contains all the elements needed to display the file.
2. Go in to the findbusiness.aspx_files folder and delete the print.css file.
3. Open the findbusiness.aspx.htm file. Because you deleted the print.css file, the previous print styles won't be applied. Go to File, Print Preview to verify what the printout will look like and see which pages are blank. From there you can click Print, and enter the starting page number you want. --Bavi H (talk) 05:36, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

can't burn file to CD-R

Hi all - having problems burning some files (I believe they are CDG files) from my computer onto a CD-R. The files all play fine on windows media player on my computer. When I burn them on to CD-R the files all burn fine but when I try to play them in my karaoke machine the song counter starts counting as if it were playing a song but there's no sound - and yes the volume on the player is turned up! The files are compressed - does that make a difference? Cheers. RichYPE (talk) 20:52, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Could it be copyright protected ? StuRat (talk) 23:22, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Are you burning the audio files directly to the disk or creating a standard audio cd? The karaoke machine might not be able to play audio files as they are on your computer, so you need to select the audio disk mode in your burning software so that they are converted to a format the karaoke machine understands. Another possibility is that the karaoke machine is having trouble reading the CD-R, but this should only happen in very old drives and shouldn't be a problem if the karaoke machine is less than 10 years old. There are a number of other helpful answers here that may help you. .tkqj (talk) 10:38, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't think the files are copyrighted, I paid to download them from a karaoke site so should be able to burn them to a disc. Thanks for the link to the website - I have identified the problem - my compact disc has folders on it. I take it I need to change the way my computer burns, so it burns to audio CDs. How do I do this for windows XP? Thanks RichYPE (talk) 17:57, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

You will need to use special software to burn the CD+G data onto the disc. Specifically, you will need to create an audio CD with the correct CD+G information embedded in the subcode area of the disc.

The subcode is a special area of the disc that is used to store track starts and timing information, and has left over space that can be used for CD+G graphics or CD-Text data. Typical burning software doesn't let you put CD+G graphics in the subcode area. You'll need to find software that has specific CD+G burning capability.

The last time I played around with burning CD+G discs was when I had Windows 95. I don't remember the name of the software I used. But I remember I had to use the slowest burn speed, and the CD+G graphics still ended up with some minor glitches. Maybe CD+G burning has become easier since then. --Bavi H (talk) 05:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to Bavi for the response - does anyone know the name of the software I need? Thanks RichYPE (talk) 20:13, 6 April 2010 (UTC)