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Video Hoster^® 5.05 & Lite Software Upgrades

We sincerely Thank You for being our customer!
Be sure to make these REQUIRED changes for:   Windows 7   -   Windows Vista   -   Windows XP
How To Install the Latest Version Version (ex: 505.12) with a .XX that is the release month (.01 in January, .12 in December). Each month the Import Database has new Brand-DiscID-Track# songs added. Note: Installing bug fix versions released following a Major Version is FREE IF you can install the Major Version. at the left downloads that Hoster Installation file, or at the right for Hoster Lite. Save the file on your computer hard drive. Find the file and double click it to run it. Release Date shows when each Version was physically available. The Install Date for the version you are trying to install is compared to your Upgrade Expire Date from your Account: If the Install Date is EARLIER it will install normally. If the Install Date is LATER, your browser will display an instruction page to allow you to order an upgrade. As soon as your credit card is approved (usually a few seconds), it will install normally. Your Upgrade Expire Date is extended by 12 months to allow installing future releases within that period. Windows Versions shows what Windows version that version will run under. User Move - Follow these instructions to remove the installed version so you can install it on another computer (or before upgrading your computer) without needing MTU to free up your RegCode.
If your Hoster or Hoster Lite Registration Code will install the latest version (see above), order this to ship the latest versions of ALL MTU Full and Demo Software on CDROM (you can also instantly download via the Internet).		$12.00
Save the download then install	Suggest a New Feature	5 Ways to get Help

 

Version	Hoster (Full)	Release Date	Install Date	Windows Versions	User Move	Hoster Lite
505.12		Dec 12 2011	Sept 19 2011	XP, Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
504.10	Discontinued	Oct 1 2011	Sept 19 2011	XP, Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES	Discontinued
503.09	Discontinued	Sept 19 2011	Sept 19 2011	XP, Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES	Discontinued
502.09		Sept 1 2011	Sept 1 2011	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
502.08	Discontinued	Aug 12 2011	Aug 1 2011	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES	Discontinued
502.07		July 05 2011	July 1 2011	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
502.06		June 30 2011	Apr 25 2011	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
501.05	Discontinued	May 10 2011	Apr 25 2011	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES	Discontinued
500.04	Discontinued	Apr 25 2011	Apr 25 2011	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES	Discontinued
432.03		Feb 25 2011	Feb 25 2011	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
432.01		Jan 6 2011	Jan 1 2011	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
432.12		Dec 1 2010	Dec 1 2010	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
432.11		Nov 8 2010	Nov 1 2010	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
432.10		Oct 20 2010	Oct 1 2010	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
431.09		Sep 27 2010	Sep 27 2010	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
430.09		Sep 3 2010	Sep 5 2010	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES
422.08		Aug 3 2010	Aug 5 2010	XP (32-bit) Vista, Win7 (32/64bit)	YES

V5.05 - Released December 12, 2011

The primary reason for 5.05 is to restore merging duplicate BookIDs, which was omitted in 5.00. Additional changes are listed below.

1. RESTORE - Merge Duplicate BookIDs Function - This is now in "Import Songs" menu - Import & Index Songs Database dialog, and the Build Songs Database dialog. If any duplicate BookIDs are found when using the Add Folder or Refresh Folder buttons, those songs are added to the BuildSongDBLog.txt file. Clicking either Merge Dupes buttons shows a dialog to select the starting BookID or let the next unused be assigned, and then the Merge Now button renumbers the BookIDs.
2. FIXED - Preview Display Wrong Size or Disappears when Floating - When the Preview Display is undocked in the Tools menu - Show Display command, Preview tab, it randomly would take on the size and location of the Show Display, which usually appears in the second monitor. This made it appear that the Preview Display disappeared. We found a bug causing this and the Preview Display should now keep its own size and location settings.
3. CHANGED - Import CD Tracks Screen - Whenever a CDG Disc is changed in the drive, Hoster now clears the Brand and DiscID fields. This insures users don't accidentally reuse the wrong Brand or DiscID for multiple discs.
4. REMOVED - Edit Songs Dialog Edit BookID - We no longer allow editing a BookID. The Singers Database uses BookIDs to add Songs under Singers. Thus, changing a BookID used in the Songs Database causes problems that are very hard to diagnose. Once you assign a bookID to a song, it is permanent.
5. NEW - Genre Additions: Reggaeton, Cumbia, Ranchera, Tejano, Norteno, Shotiz, Bachata, Romance.
6. NEW - Detect URL in a Message While Installing - Multiple messages can appear during installation to guide you. We can now include web page URLs that the Installation program now detects and launches your browser for more details to show how to fix this error.
7. NEW - Detect URL in Check Version Upgrades Message - If we include a web page address (URL) in an "Check for upgrade message", Hoster will launch your default Browser to show that page. This allows us to give you more information about upgrades, newsletters, etc.

V5.04 - Released October 1, 2011

1. NEW "Hard Drive Missing" Message - When Hoster runs, the last opened Playlist automatically opens. If any songs in the Playlist are on a drive(s) that is not found, a message now appears showing the missing drive letter(s) so you are aware of this. Hoster then opens and shows UNAVAIL status for songs in the Playlist from the missing drive(s). You can close Hoster and plug in the drive(s) or continue without the drive(s) available.
2. CHANGED Playlist "UNAVAIL" Songs Not Deleted - If an external hard drive wasn't plugged in with songs in the Songs Database and Playlist, AND your Tools menu > Options command > "Keep songs after played" was not checked (i.e. songs delete after they play), when Hoster opened it deleted all missing songs in the Playlist. In 5.04 UNVAIL status files are NOT deleted, ignoring the "Keep songs after played" selection.
3. FIXED Build Database Will Not Run - If there are no folders in the Build Database dialog's "Indexed Folders" list so no KMH or KMA files are indexed, an error message appears when you try to add KMH or KMA files stating "Incorrect Parameter". This was fixed so you can now add folders to the "Indexed Folders" list as expected.

V5.03

503.09 - Released September 19, 2011

1. NEW Songs Database Now Indexes Three Fields - Searches on the BookID, Title and Artist fields now run much faster. Running 5.03 requires allowing it to rebuild this Database, which does so at 20 to 30 songs/second as KMH and KMA files already exist.
2. NEW Singers Database Has 5 New Fields - Since the Singers button dialog shows Title, Artist, Brand, DiscID and Dur(ation), these fields are now saved in this Database. This significantly speeds up searches with a larger Singers Database.
3. NEW Singers Database Now Indexes Two Fields - The , Title and Artist fields are now indexed so searches for these will run much faster. Running 5.03 requires allowing it to rebuild this Database, which is so fast the progress bar usually doesn't appear.
4. NEW Singers Button Dialog "Refresh DB" Button - Now that Title and Artist fields are saved in the Singers Database, if you change these in the Edit Songs dialog, these Singers Database fields do not update. This new button will copy your Singers Database as a backup, then rebuild it with the current Title and Artist names.
5. NEW Search Button Dialog Layout - With indexing of the BookID, Title and Artist fields in the Songs Database, searching only for these is much faster. Using the other fields takes as long as before.
6. NEW Installs on Windows XP 64-bit Computers - Hoster now installs on XP 64-bit systems with Service Pack 1 or higher.
7. NEW Faster Performance on Windows 64-Bit - Hoster now follows Microsoft's recommendations to run on 64-bit XP, Vista and Windows 7.
8. NEW Singer Dialog Songs View "Duration" Field - A Dur column now appears at the far right that shows the Songs playing times.
9. NEW Instabuttons Allow More File Types - Audio and Video MP4 and Audio M4a file types are now selectable for Instabuttons.
10. RESTORED Singers Field Drop List in Playlist w/Auto Scrolling While Typing - We removed this field in a prior version to prevent editing that would crash Hoster. This field turned out to not cause the crash so we restored it.
11. CHANGED Search Dialog Search Field - Following a search, the text cursor now returns to this field, making it faster to change your search text when a prior search did not find the song you want.
12. CHANGED Search Button Dialog - The field selection buttons were moved and "Fast" and "Slow" added to make it clear selecting some fields will take longer to search the Songs Database. The Skip checkbox was moved to make room for a new slider control in an upcoming version.
13. FIXED Build Database Locked Up With MP3 Files on Win7 64-bit - Microsoft changed Windows 7 64-bit so it no longer worked as with prior versions. We replaced the failing code so MP3 files index as expected.
14. FIXED Remove Silence Command and Edit Songs Remove Silence - These changes were made: 1) Audio and Video files that were never processed are now excluded in the number of files to process, 2) The number of files to process and that have been processed now stay correct throughout processing so the estimated time to complete is more accurate, 3) it should no longer crash while processing.
15. FIXED Build Database Could Renumber BookIDs - This happened to one user. This operation is now prevented from renumbering BookIDs.
16. FIXED Instabuttons WAV Files - The new "compressed" .wav format files are now prevented from being added to an Instabutton as they do not play correctly. We are shocked that the QUALITY STANDARD .WAV format has been ruined by allowing compression, which is what MP3 and WMA provide.
17. FIXED Copying Songs Deleted "Remove Silence" Data - Run the Tools menu - Remove Silence command and any songs with bad Remove Silence data are repaired.
18. FIXED Filenames With 5-Digit or Higher Track Numbers - In the "Index Hard Drive Files" screen, if a file has a Track number with 5-digits or more, it would create a bad BookID. Hoster now logs these filenames in the "C:MTU/Hoster/ImportErrorLog.txt" file and does not index them in the Songs Database. Open this log file with Notepad, find the bad files path/filename, and manually change each file with Track numbers with more than 4-digits. Note: SCDG discs with 4-digit track numbers will be indexed in a future Hoster version.
19. FIXED Pause Button Could Fail With Audio and Karaoke Songs - In prior versions it was possible to click the Play button and then quickly click the Pause button before the lyrics drawing code was running. Clicking the Resume button then showed the lyrics ahead of the audio. The Pause button is now disabled until all play components are running.
20. FIXED Language Now Defaults to English - In 5.02 Dutch became the default selection.
21. FIXED Fade In/Out Durations Could Reset to "0" - This happened following a crash during Remove Silence processing. Fade durations now will restore to their prior values when reopening Hoster after a crash.
22. REMOVED Pop-Up When Search Dialog Returns No Match's - If no records are found, the text cursor is placed in the Search field and the entry is highlighted to edit or change, and a message appears in the Results window.

V5.02

502.09 - Released September 1, 2011

502.08 - Released August 12, 2011

502.07 - Released July 05, 2011

502.06 - Released June 30, 2011 this bug fix installs if you have 5.00; has the 5.00 Import Database.

1. NEW Language Additions - Italian, Dutch.
2. NEW Genre Additions - Opera, Musicals, Traditional, DooWop, TV, Disney, Country,Old.
3. CHANGED Undocked Preview Display "Always On Top" - We added a new checkbox in the Tools menu > Show Display dialog > Preview Display tab to allow those who want the Preview Display to always be on top to click it. When unclicked, the Display does not appear over other application screens.
4. CHANGED Search Dialog Default Focus - After doing a search, the focus is now set back to the search string, which is highlighted so you can quickly do a new search or modify the existing string.
5. FIXED - Random Crash in Auto Mode When Song Finishes Playing - This happens every 3-4 hours playing time in 5.01. It was caused by the "audio player" shutting down before the last buffer was played. This also caused the end of the audio to not play. It is fixed, and the audio seems to sound better.
6. FIXED Remove Silence Didn't Work When Song Added From Singers Dialogs - Adding songs to the Playlist from the Singer button dialog, or the Search button dialog using the Singer "Open Folder" icon to see the selected Singer's songs list, the song data added to the Playlist did not include the Remove Silence Start/Stop pointers. This is fixed.
7. FIXED ZIP Files Would Not Preview Play in Search Dialog - ZIP files will now play with Preview Play (when a second audio card is installed and linked to Preview Play).
8. FIXED Adding Multiple Files From Singers Dialog With Key Change - If there was a key change on the first selected song, when multiple songs are added to the Playlist they all received the same key change as the first song. Now each song is added with its own key change setting if changed.
9. FIXED DUR Field Counted -10 to -15 - This happened in Auto> mode with Remove Silence Mode enabled. Now the DUR field (showing the Auto Play Delay) counts down from the Auto Delay value to zero between songs.
10. FIXED Audio Files Would Not Play - We fixed a bug that caused indexed KMH Audio files to not play when Visualization was enabled in the Tools menu > Show Display > Intermission view.
11. FIXED Songs Added By Singers Button Close Hoster - Songs loaded to the playlist using the Singers button dialog would play, but closed Hoster when each finished. Also, they appeared with "Unavailable" Status the next time Hoster ran.
12. FIXED Consecutive Videos Failed to Play in Auto Mode - If you put 2 videos in the playlist to play one after the other it crashed when the second one started playing.

V5.01 - Released May 9, 2011

1. NEW Genre - Merengue, Soca, Chutney.
2. NEW Language - Hindi.
3. FIXED Random Crashes Due to Editing Playlist Fields - We discovered that the basic Windows "Fopen" command randomly failed when the Singer Display or Marquee Display control files were opened to rebuild them after Playlist changes. Our fix should prevent crashing in the future.

V5.00 - Released April 25, 2011

This release contains 17 New, 11 Changed, 10 Fixed, and 2 Removed features. Due to Microsoft changing the way Windows work, which has never happened before, your existing 4.32 or prior version may experience problems when you upgrade Windows. We have fixed all the problems that have been reported.

Hoster 5.00 is ready for use. Since November 3, 2010 we released 19 Beta Test versions for our international testing team, with a total of 232 changes made over the past 5 months. Bugs were reported and all were fixed. Features were added, polishing suggestions made, and the final "elegance" applauded. Our testers are now running their shows with it. However, because any major software release from any company can have bugs, we are including Version 4.32 (Full or Lite). If a bug should appear in 5.00 during a show, you can run 4.32 in seconds, then report the problem in the Video Hoster 5.00 Bugs and it will be fixed in V5.01.

Hoster Screen Changes

The screen has minimal changes from V4.32 to add new features you asked for.

1. NEW "Sync" Slider - While playing, adjusting this slider changes the lyrics sync with the music.
2. NEW Background Color - Choose any background color for all screens and dialogs used during a show.
3. NEW 99 Instabuttons - When the Instabutton line above the Playlist window is full, new rows are created and buttons move to them. Adjusting the screen width adjusts the button rows.
4. NEW Playlist Columns - BookID, Brand and DiscID columns were added.
5. CHANGED "Key Change" Buttons - The -5 to +5 buttons change the key with one mouse click.
6. CHANGED Preview Display - When docked into the Hoster screen other applications appear over it. When undocked and floating it is on top of other applications.
7. CHANGED "Disc" Button - Renamed to "Singers Disc" to better describe its function.
8. FIXED Crash Editing Playlist Singers Field - This field is now edit only with no drop-down "names list". Editing the field corrects the Playlist, but not the Singers Database. It no longer crashes Hoster.
9. FIXED Playlist Dur(ation) Field Counted Negative - This happened only in Remove Silence mode. It now counts down and ends at zero.
10. FIXED Enter & Tab Keys - These and other keys now work while a Video plays.
11. FIXED "Singers Disc" Dialog - When adding a track from a Singers Disc, if you selected a Key change, the Track and Title fields would clear. They now remain as you set them.
12. FIXED Crash On Startup with Windows XP - In the Show Display Intermission View, only in Windows XP with the latest Windows upgrades, if this was unchecked Hoster would crash. It is fixed.
13. FIXED Crash Randomly During Shows with Windows XP - We believe the "Always On" problem above was causing these random crashes during a show.

Songs Database Related Changes

1. CHANGED Import Songs Menu - Instead of showing its menu of 3 commands now shows the Tools menu Songs Database dialog with a button to run every function that changes the Songs Database.
2. CHANGED Index CD Tracks Screen - Folders in the Excluded Folders list in the Build Database dialog cannot be selected.
3. NEW Index Files as either KMH or KMA - In the Index HD Files Screen, you can now select to index files using the KMH or KMA format. Clicking either button activates the Type buttons below that they can index. Both can index MP3+G, WMA+G, ZIP, MP3 and WMA. KMH cannot index BIN, WAVG or WAV files, while KMA cannot index Video files.
4. CHANGED Table & Artist Drop Down Lists - These lists are used in the "Index HD Files", "Import CD Tracks", and "Edit Songs" dialogs. In prior versions they were created when the dialogs opened by merging your Songs database with the Import Database tables. This could take minutes with 20,000+ songs in the Songs Database. We now only use the Import Database tables. The dialogs now appear instantly while the tables open in background.
5. REMOVED Index Hard Drive Files Screen "Auto-Complete Lists" Checkbox - This enabled/disabled the Artist and Title fields drop down lists, which are now always enabled.
6. FIXED Crash in Import HD Files - In this screen, when the Import Files button was clicked it would show the "Hoster has encountered a problem..." error and shut down. We found and fixed the cause.

New Build Database Dialog

Some users were confused how to "index" their songs into the Songs Database, instead adding them with the K-oke, Audio, Video buttons. Others found it difficult to create a Backup Computer with a Songs Database identical to their Show Computer. This new dialog automates the indexing for you, while preserving existing assigned BookIDs in KMH and KMA files.

1. NEW Build Database Dialog - This allows you to select a folder and either index only its songs into the Songs Database, or index songs in it and all sub-folders below it (recursive scanning). It allows selecting what Karaoke, Audio and Video file types to index. For example, selecting E:/ drive indexes all folders that contain one or more selected song types (ignores other file types) and their sub-folders. When done, your Songs Database contains all selected song types on E: drive. You can index other whole drives, or only folders with your songs.
   
   It adds all indexed folders into the Indexed Folders list just like the prior "Build Songs Database list, and skips all folders in the Excluded Folders list.
   
   Indexing in this dialog creates a KMH file for each found selected type. These files hold the Title, Artist, Brand... song parameters as well as a unique BookID. For those with custom BookID number schemes, this dialog allows you to manually control the nubering range assignments.
2. NEW Excluded Folders List - Since the unattended Build Database operation can index folders that may include audio or video files you don't want (such as tada.wma, or other system sounds), after indexing you can select and "exclude" folders to skip over in the future. The Excluded Folders list and its controls appears by clicking the "Excluded Folders" button.
3. NEW Opens MP3 and WMA Headers - When these selected file types are indexed, their headers are opened to obtain Title, Artist and other fields. If the header Title field is blank, the filename is added into the Title field. You can index selected Karaoke (MP3+G, ZIP, WMA+G), Audio (MP3, WMA) and Video (13 types) files at the same time. To preserve BookIDs in existing KMA and KMH files they are indexed in a first pass, then all other file types are indexed and assigned new BookIDs in a second pass.

Edit Songs Dialog

1. NEW BookID Root and Track# Fields - You can change a songs BookID and Track number in Single view. Clicking "Apply Changes" verifies your entries and makes the change or warns to enter different values.
2. NEW Remove Silence On Selected Songs - Start and End points can be set only on selected songs, as well as adjusting existing points.
3. CHANGED Dialog Height - This now runs on Netbooks and Laptops with 600x800 display resolution.
4. CHANGED Title and Artist Instructions - "?" buttons beside the "Title" & "Artist" fields give formatting examples to follow.
5. CHANGED Type Field - The prior green on black Type field is now a column in the Results window.
6. FIXED Brand Field - Clicking the Apply Changes button once now changes the Brand, not twice as before.

Search Dialog

1. CHANGED Size and Appearance - The smaller size is easier to keep open beside the Playlist. You can resize it vertically and horizontally to see all the columns.
2. NEW Preview Play - You can now select and play a song when a second audio port is installed.
3. NEW Dur: Field - This field is now a column showing the song durations.
4. NEW Double-Click a Song - This new function adds the song to the Playlist.
5. CHANGED Match Field - Just enter some characters, then press the Tab or Enter keys or click outside the field to trigger the search.
6. CHANGED Key Change - The -5 to +5 buttons are back. After adding a song to the Playlist, the Key Change returns to "0".
7. FIXED Brand Field - The Brand field is now included when songs add to the Playlist.

New Singers Dialog Launched from Search Dialog

1. NEW Singer Songs Dialog - This appears when you click the new icon to the right of the Singers field in the Search dialog. It shows songs added for that Singer in the Singers Database. It can resize and move.
2. NEW Add Songs to Playlist - Double-clicking a song adds it to the Playlist, in addition to the Add button.

General Changes

1. NEW Windows DPI Resizes Dialogs - For those with challenged eye sight, changing the Windows Dots Per Inch (DPI) resolution changes the text size in all dialogs.
2. NEW Genre Additions - 2000's, Ambience, Background, Cha Cha, Classic Rock, Fox trot, Funeral, Gospel, Hymn, Inspirational, March, Mood, Party, Quickstep, Rock, Tango, and Modern Waltz.
3. NEW Unhide Messages Command - This resets dialogs and messages "Don't show this message again" checkbox so you see them again.
4. CHANGED "Add Track" Buttons - In all dialogs this is now "Add" allowing smaller dialogs.
5. CHANGED Audio & Video File Remove Silence - Trying to remove silence on these file Types now shows a message. Earlier it would not process these files nor tell you why.
6. REMOVED "Include Songs Database" Checkbox - This was removed from the; Import CD Tracks screen, Import Hard Drive Files screen, Edit Songs dialog, and the Tools menu Options dialog. The Import Database Artist and Title tables populate the drop down lists in these screens and dialogs.

V4.32 - First Released October 20, 2010

1. 432.03 UPGRADE 03/01/2011
2. 432.01 UPGRADE 01/06/2011
3. 432.12 UPGRADE 12/01/2010
   
   • FIXED Hoster On Windows 64-bit Systems Would NOT Upgrade - Versions 432.11 and prior had a problem with registering on Windows 64-bit versions that prevented upgrading. This was fixed in 4.32.12. If you run 4.32.11 or prior, and run Windows 64-bit OS, please submit a Support Ticket and include these two facts and we will correct the problem so you can upgrade. We apologize for this problem, but Microsoft gave us no warning they changed Windows operations!
4. 432.11 UPGRADE 11/08/2010
5. 432.10 UPGRADE 10/01/2010
   
   
   • CHANGED Search Dialog Play Controls - When a second audio card is not present (none selected for Search Play) the Search dialog play button and volume control are now hidden.
   • CHANGED Search Dialog Play Key Change - Playing a song in the Search dialog plays the file ignoring the Key Change setting. Before, if a song was playing from the Playlist, and you select a song in the Search dialog and click its Play button with a key change applied, it would change the Playlist key also. We expect to replace the Key Change code in Hoster 5.xx, and expect to have unique key changes playing in both players.
   • UPGRADED Search Dialog Audio Card/Port Recognition - Windows 7 (and Vista) can create "virtual" audio ports that it uses internally. However, because these are no longer identified as before, Hoster's code presented these virtual ports. Now it only presents and uses physical audio cards or ports (not virtual ports) for the Playlist and the Search dialog preview play feature.

V4.31 - Released September 27, 2010, upgraded October 5, 2010

1. UPGRADED October 5 - SATA Optical Drives Not found on New Computers - Some new computer users started reporting Hoster or Hoster Lite did not find their optical drives, even though Windows Explorer showed them. We quickly identified the problem and released a new 4.31 code that identifies and uses all optical drives. It's Help menu About Hoster... dialog shows 4.31. for the version.
2. NEW Audio, Karaoke, Video Buttons - These were added into the Edit Songs Dialog search switches at top. They allow limiting searches to these Song Types. They are enabled (orange) whenever the dialog appears.
3. NEW SKIP tracks in Search & Singers Dialogs - When checked, when you add one or more Songs to the Playlist, their Status is set to SKIP. The settings are independent, and appear the next time Hoster runs (persistent).
4. NEW Background Audio Player Double-click to Play - In prior versions double-click a song in the BA song list was not supported. If you did this the On button stayed gray and the Off button remained red. We upgraded the code to handle double-click.
5. CHANGED Search & Singers Dialogs - The controls were re-arranged in these dialogs to make room for SKIP tracks.
6. CHANGED Edit Songs Dialog - Now the dialog width is resizable by click and dragging the right edge to the right (or back to the left). This allows expanding the search results window to show all the field columns. Your changes are power-down persistent, remaining when you run Hoster again.
7. CHANGED Singers Dialog Export Report - We changed the exported file (C:\MTU\Hoster\SongList.rtf), expanding the header columns to include the following: BookID, Title, Artist, Key, Date, Brand, DiscID. We removed the Tempo column until Tempo is supported. The "'s Songs" was removed from the end of each Singer so the Singer's name appears as it is in the database, and the names are now bold. We added a View File button in the message box that appears after the export is finished.
8. CHANGED Singers Dialog - Song View - The songs are now displayed in alphabetic order to make them easy to find.
9. CHANGED Instabuttons Settings Dialog - We changed the text at the top and added a WARNING about Instabutton Video file's audio not playing if you select an audio card for the Playlist that is not the Windows default audio card.
10. CHANGED 99 Instabuttons - You can now have up to 99 Instabuttons, but only one line shows them on your Playlist screen. However, the screen can be resized (moe the bottom and right edges) to show more Instabuttons at the same time.
11. FIXED Remove Silence End Removal - Even if you set the End point on a song to not play silence beyond that point, when the song was played the silence played and the DUR field showed a negative number counting down. We found and fixed the problem.
12. FIXED Search Dialog Key Change - The Upgrade button now upgrades the Key change field for the selected song in the List window.
13. FIXED Singer's Dialog Songs Not Appearing - When you click the Singers button to display its dialog, the first Singer displayed does not show its Songs until you select another Singer, then click the first Singer again. Now the first Singer's Songs will appear the first time.

V4.30 - Released September 1, 2010, Updated September 3, 2010

1. UPGRADE Sept 3 Drives Now Recognized - There were various drives Hoster would not import from, including Matsushita brands. Hoster now recognizes these and other drives that use the same more demanding interface.
2. NEW - Automatic Check for Updates - When Keyrite first runs and the computer is on-line, it automatically checks to see if 7 days have passed since the last access to the MTU web site. If under 7 days, it won't check now. If more than 7 days, it checks for a new release. This does not delay the program running. The message box that appears has a "Hide this message for version NNN" checkbox where NNN is the new version number. If clicked, the message for the version being reported will not appear again. When a new version is released later than this one, the message appears with text explaining this new version's features.
3. UPGRADE Help Menu Check For Upgrades Command - When clicked, this launches your Browser and accesses a script that receives data about the version you are running so it can tell you the status.
4. CHANGED Disable Cancel button in Detect Drive Dialog - The Cancel button only appears when a Reader drive is selected and saved.
5. UPGRADE Move Dialogs & Screens to Default Location - If the Preview screen, Singers screen, Search dialog or Singers dialog are moved off of any Display "area" so they are no longer accessible, clicking the Tools menu Options command Reset Displays button will reset both screens and both dialogs back to the center of the computer display showing Hoster's Playlist screen.

V4.22 - Released June 24, 2010

1. NEW Added an Open Folder Field to Import HD Files Screen - Once you select the file Type button, and select the folder where your song files are, that field now appears at the top of the screen.
2. FIXED Lyrics Out-of-Sync - On some computers, the first song played with the lyrics in sync, but on the second and higher songs the lyrics were out-of-sync. We found and fixed the problem. Beta testers report the sync is now the best of the 4.xx series. We also rebuilt Hoster using the latest Microsoft Direct-X and Windows Media Player developers tools to further overcome sync problems caused by older versions of these tools.
3. FIXED Crash with Remove Silence - This was preventing unattended removing silence from the start/end of karaoke and audio files. We found and fixed the bug.
4. UPGRADED Random Crashing - Hoster on XP runs fine. However, on Vista and Windows 7, it was randomly crashing after hours of operation. Rebuilding Hoster using the latest Microsoft Direct-X and Windows Media Player tools solved these problems. You now need to upgrade your computer to the latest Direct-X and Windows Media Player versions to run Hoster 4.22.
5. UPGRADED DVD Drives Now Persistent On 64-Bit Vista or Windows 7 - When Hoster runs it no longer asks for the Default Drive selection that was already made when you first run Hoster.
6. FIXED Background Audio Player ">>" Play Next - When this button is clicked to stop the current audio song and play the next, the button now grays out until the playing song ends, including fade-out. In prior versions you could click this button repeatedly during the fade out time, which ignored the button click.

V4.21 - Released May 27, 2010

1. FIXED Random Crashing - We found and fixed a problem. We tested playing a Playlist with over 9 hours without crashing.
2. NEW Upgrade Needed Notification - When installing 4.21, if the RegCode being used was ordered or upgraded more than 12 months ago, your web browser will display a page to allow upgrading that RegCode. Orders and Upgrades allow their RegCode to install future versions for the next 12 months.

V4.20 - Released March 2, 2010

1. MASSIVE UPGRADE Almost New Import Hard Drive Files Screen - This has been massively upgraded to be much easier to use. The TYPE buttons determine whether you index your files with the new KMH format or duplicate them with the standard KMA format.
2. NEW Index Video Files - Many users have been waiting to index their video files in the Songs Database. Click the Video Type button, select the video format to import, select the folder (with sub-folders) and follow the on-screen instructions. Your large video files are not duplicated!
3. NEW KMH Indexing File Format - Instead of duplicating audio/lyrics/video files as the KMA format does, a new KMH format has been created that now indexes Karaoke ZIP, MP3+G, WMA+G, and Audio MP3, WMA, and Video files. KMH is a 256-byte header file, with the same name as the song file it indexes, and saves in the folder holding the song file. KMH files can be edited, played, searched for, deleted, indexed in the Songs Database, and can print or be excluded in your Song Books... just like KMA files.
4. NEW Easy / Advanced Import Methods - The New Easy Method allows you to quickly indexing a large number of ZIP, MP3+G, WMA+G, MP3 or WMA files at around 6 per second so you can find and play them quickly. See the KMH -vs- KMA differences.
5. NEW Added Guide Text in Each Screen - Now step-by-step instructions appear at the left in each screen for what to do next.
6. NEW Added "Type" Column to Search Dialog Window - Now you can see file Types in the Search dialog.
7. UPGRADE Preserve Custom BookID Root Numbers - Enter a custom BookID Root number when Importing CD/CDG Discs or Hard Drive files in Batch mode and your entered custom number is used to create the next higher numbers above your number for each disc or file imported.
8. UPGRADE Playback Offset - We changed the selections from 0.25 increments to 0.10 increments for finer adjustment.
9. UPGRADE Removed Check For HDZIP Files - When Hoster first ran or Build Song Database ran, it verified HDZIP files did not exist (they should have been converted to HDMP3G format in V4.11 and prior). V4.20 supports playing ZIP and HDZIP flies so these check were removed.
10. FIXED Custom BookID Overwrote Existing BookID - When files are assigned "Unknown" for DiscID, the KMA filename is saved as "unknown-tk#.kma", which will overwrite existing "unknown-tk#.kma" files, if you click the Sel check box beside one or more tracks. Hoster now assigns a unique DiscID so this no longer happens.
11. FIXED Locked Up: Error "509" Appeared When Batch Importing Sub-folders - We fixed this problem. The "509" could be a different number. We found that code portions were not being closed, causing a buildup that would consume all available RAM for this type of operation, and then lock up Hoster.
12. FIXED Visualization Dialog in Intermission View - This dialog would require multiple clicks to close. This was fixed.
13. FIXED Searching DiscID - Currently (for example) entering "1" matches DiscIDs with "1" anywhere in it. This has been changed.
14. FIXED Add Files to an Existing Song Database - Several rare bugs were fixed in this function.

V4.11 - Released October 5, 2009, #2 October 15, 2009

1. CHANGED (Version #2) Delete and Move Tracks In Playlist - You can now delete or move tracks in the Playlist while playing. Before, if you deleted or moved a track above the playing song, when the playing song finished, the second next track below would play instead of the next track. This is fixed.
2. FIXED Hoster Would Crash Within 30-40 Seconds - There was a bug. If the Show Display Intermission View checkbox for Always On was disabled, within 30-40 seconds the Time fields in the SND would try to be incremented for the next minute (during Intermission only). Since the Intermission was disabled, the Time fields were missing and the code would crash. This is fixed.
3. CHANGED Background Audio Player Volume - The range was changed from 50% to 100% to now be 20% to 100%.
4. CHANGED These Edit Song dialog changes have been made:
   
   
   1. NEW Edit Songs Select Multiple View - Brand, Title and Artist fields (same as in the Select Single View) now allow selecting multiple songs and applying the same Brand, Title or Artist name(s). All other parameters that were not changed remain the same.
   2. CHANGED Edit Songs Search Buttons - The BookID, Title, Artist... buttons that turn green are now on the top row and the "On/Off Switch" buttons on the bottom row that limit to the checkboxes they represent.
   3. FIXED "No S-E" Button - When clicked to Find only songs where the Start-End Remove Silence pointers were not set, this showed songs where the Start-End pointers had been edited. Now it shows those without Start-End pointers so you can edit them or go to the Tools menu Remove Silence... dialog and process them. This can occur after importing songs if you haven't process them to remove silence.
   4. CHANGED Results Window - Two new columns have been added to this window to show Hide SB (Hide in Songbook flag) and S-E Set (Start-End silence set for Remove Silence). These allow viewing the state of these flags.
   5. UPGRADED Edit Songs Select Multiple Screen - If you clicked into any field or changed a checkbox and even changed it back, internal flags were set to update all the selected songs with the changed fields/checkboxes current setting. It was not made known this would happen. Now, when you click the Apply Changes button, a dialog appears showing the names of the fields and/or checkboxes that will be used for updating, plus the number of selected songs that will be updated. If you don't agree with this, click the Cancel button, ALL CHANGES are discarded and the fields and checkboxes reset to blank. If you agree with the items that will update the quantity of selected files, click the Continue button. A second message will appear with the warning that you are about to permanently modify your KMA files and Songs Database with buttons to Continue or Cancel. Clicking Continue starts modifying all selected KMA files with the identical changes. Unmodified fields/checkboxes remain unchanged.
   6. CHANGED Select Multiple View Fields - In Select Multiple view if you selected ONE song, its parameters now appear in the blank fields below as it does in Select Single view.

V4.10 - Released September 23, 2009

1. NEW Remove Silence From Karaoke Songs - The Tools menu Remove Silence... command automatically scans and marks leading and trailing silence in your KMA (karaoke only) files and in your Songs Database. Once processed, you can select to play with or without the silence. The Edit Songs dialog allows adjusting or clearing the Start or End pointers on any song.
2. NEW Automated Background Audio Player - The Bkgnd Audio button displays the new BA Player where you can open a folder containing MP3 and WMA files audio files to play. Hoster automatically controls this Player, providing background audio whenever silence would happen. You no longer need to use other audio players like WinAmp, DJ programs, etc.
3. NEW Talkover Button - When Background Audio is playing, clicking this button drops the amplitude down so you can talk while the background continues playing.
4. NEW Intermission View Visualization Shows Background Audio - While Background Audio is playing, the Intermission View appears. If you have Visualization selected, the gyrating images respond to the Background Audio.
5. NEW Audio Fade In and Out - You can now set adjustable separate fade durations for Hoster and the Background Audio Player so the music comes up and fades away.
6. NEW Windows 7 Compliant - Version 4.10 can install and run on Windows 7. Those who tested on Windows 7 report faster performance. So far it appears to be function the same as with Vista, but more stable.
7. NEW Video Button Supports .MP4 Files - You can now open and add .MP4 file types using the Video button.
8. UPGRADED Import Database - There are now 278,000 Brand-DiscID-Track#-Artist-Title definitions, all cleaned through Google manual searches.
9. UPGRADED Rewritten And Reformatted Manual - The manual has been totally reorganized to make it easier to find what you are looking for. More images now have "image maps" that make each control in the image a hyperlink to the details about it; just click what you want to know about and read it.
10. UPGRADED Printer Friendly Version Links - The Printer Friendly Version link at the top of the Installation Manual, User Manual, and Import Songs Manual to print that manual section correctly without chopping off the right edge.
11. CHANGED Show Button is Now SND Button - This now is titled SND button. When clicked, it blanks the Singers Names Display when clicked (red) and un-blanks it when clicked again (green). This allows you to edit the SND order or names and they are not visible until you are finished.
12. CHANGED InstaButtons Stop Button - This now is gray when no InstaButtons are Playing, and red when one is playing. Clicking it stops the playing button.
13. UPGRADE Auto-Build Your Songs Database when Hoster 4.0 first runs, if it finds an existing Songs Database. Automatically rebuilding it insures you have the new database format required to use the new features.
14. UPGRADED Tools Menu Audio Controls... Command - We added new Fade in: and Fade out: fields so you can select how fast Hoster songs fade up when they start, and back down when they are finished.
15. UPGRADED Speed Up Performance - We modified our drive detection code that significantly speeds up Hoster starting up. Some users would see tens of seconds for Hoster to start, while others would have Hoster running in under 10 seconds. Now everyone should see faster performance.
16. UPGRADED Visualization Images - Selecting Visualization images to appear in the Intermission or Audio DJ views adds a major load on the computer processor and RAM. A warning message appears whenever you click the Visualization radio button to remind you of this.
17. MOVED Man-Auto Buttons - These were moved to directly above where they were.
18. UPGRADED Search Dialog Would Not Play Some Songs - Older KMA files created with Hoster 1.x series would not play in the Search dialog. This is fixed.
19. FIXED Audio InstaButtons Stopped Playing - Audio InstaButtons now keep playing when a new Playlist song starts.
20. FIXED Import CD Tracks Could Lock Hoster - We found and fixed the bug so Hoster no longer can lock up.
21. FIXED Crash When InstaButton Dialog Launched - The problem was found in Version 4.09D and fixed in 4.10. The crash only happened when the open Playlist was empty.
22. REMOVED X-Fade Button - The new Fade controls give more flexibility.
23. FIXED Title Page On SAV Tracks - Title page graphics now draw correctly for SAV and similar "artistic" drawing mode discs.
24. Tools Menu
    
    1. CHANGED Order - After 7 years of evolving, we changed the order of commands so the most often are easier to reach.
    2. NEW Show Display... controls the Show Display where you can select what appears in the; Lyrics, Intermission, Audio DJ, Video VJ views, and the Hoster Screen Preview window.
    3. NEW Songs Database... shows a dialog to choose the operation you want to perform on this database; Add songs to your existing database, rebuild the database or (coming in 4.2x) quickly repair it if files aren't found or folders moved.
    4. NEW InstaButtons... you create that instantly play Audio or Video files on clicked. You assign your own button title and color, and click-n-drag any time to change their order. When enabled they appear on a line above the Playlist Window.
    5. CHANGED Use Longer Filenames when adding KMA files, such as created in MTU Songverter.
    6. NEW Reset Displays Size/Location instantly forces all displays to appear in their factory default location if needed.
    7. NEW Automatic Start enables the Show Display to appear all the time, showing the Intermission view when no song is playing. It is best to disable this when using a single display instead of a dual display.
    8. REMOVED Playback Offset as it is no longer required. In past years, if your graphics display card driver was out dated the lyrics highlighting could be offset. Current graphic cards no longer have this problem. This was added back into the Tools Menu Options command in Hoster 4.10.
    9. REMOVED Preview Display as this is now the Song Display Preview section Unlock and Resize Display checkbox.
25. Import Hard Drive Files Screen
    
    1. NEW Add Auto-Complete Lists For Artist and Title Fields. When you type into these fields, they now instantly show lists build from the Local Database and your imported Songs Database, allowing you to quickly type a few characters to see and click the right name, already formatted to order correctly in your Songbook. If the name is missing, you can type the rest of it, which will never require typing again.
    2. NEW Audio Button allows importing Audio files as KMA files indexed in the Songs Database, and able to appear in your Songbook. Video Files (available in 4.1x) will also be added as KMA files in a new way so as not to duplicate the files. If a Video has lyrics, click the "Video with lyrics" checkbox before importing so these files play in the Lyrics view versus the Video VJ view.
    3. NEW Opens Sub-Folders if the selected folder has sub-folders. When enabled, they are also scanned and their files imported.
    4. NEW Auto-Remove Leading Spaces in Artist and Title names so they appear in the correct order in your Songbook.
    5. NEW Set Mux and Duet for one or multiple files being imported at the same time.
    6. NEW Allow Periods In Filenames - Filenames containing Artist and Title fields with periods "." now remain.
    7. ADDED Genre List Patriotic and Blues selections.
    8. ADDED Language List Hebrew and Greek selections.
    9. NEW HDWMAG Type - When importing WMA+CDG paired files or the same within a .ZIP file on the hard drive now import as HDWMAG instead of HDBIN Type files.
    10. RENAMED "***+G" Renamed to MP3G - Some users didn't know what "***+G" meant. After splitting the WMAG Type to a new button, we renamed "***+G" to MP3G to make it clearer which button to click for the two file types.
    11. REMOVED CDG Button In Import HD Files Screen - This supported the older MTU .CDG audio+lyrics format that was discontinued years ago due to conflicts with the MP3+CDG format that became popular. If you have any .CDG MTU style files remaining, rename them to .BIN and they will import.
    12. MOVED BIN Type - The BIN button was moved to where the CDG button was.
26. Import CD Tracks Screen
    
    1. NEW Auto-Complete Lists For Artist and Title Fields. When you type a few characters into the Artist or Title fields, they now have lists that auto-scroll to matching names to select one quickly. These are formatted to order correctly in your professional Songbook. You can enter new names if what you need is not in the list, and that name is added to the list to never enter again!
    2. NEW Auto-Remove Leading Spaces in Artist and Title names so they alphabetize correctly in the Songbook. This just happens without you doing anything.
    3. CHANGED WMA ratio: Buttons are now a single drop list box.
27. Edit Songs Dialog
    
    1. NEW Add Auto-Complete Lists For Artist and Title Fields. When you type into these fields, they now instantly show lists built from the Local Database and your imported Songs Database, allowing you to quickly type a few characters to see and click the right name, already formatted to order correctly in your Songbook. If the name is missing, you can type the rest of it, which will never require typing again.
    2. NEW Find Leading Spaces to locate existing files with a leading space in the Title or Artist name. Removing blanks orders the songs correctly in the Songbook.
    3. NEW Hide in Songbook Checkbox allows you to mark duplicate songs to not appear in your Songbook, but still appear in searches to add to the Playlist.
    4. NEW "Video with lyrics" Checkbox allows you to mark video songs that contain sweeping lyrics to play in the Lyrics view instead of the Video VJ view.
    5. Coming In 4.1x Language Button allows adding up to 128 custom Languages in addition to the build-in list.
    6. Coming In 4.1x Genre Button allows adding up to 128 custom Genres in addition to the build-in list.
28. Song Book Changes
    
    1. NEW Select 1, 2 or 3 Columns in your Songbook.
    2. NEW Select Last Field Contents, which was forced to BookID, now you can select "None, BookID or DiscID-Tk".
    3. NEW Automatically Strip Leading & Trailing Spaces from Title and Artist entries to insure correct alphabetic order.
    4. NEW Hide in Song Book Field that can now be set in the Edit Songs dialog can be used here to hide duplicate songs from printing.
29. Search Dialog
    
    1. NEW Add+Close Button closes the Search dialog when adding a song.
    2. CHANGED Smaller Default Size makes it easier to keep this open all the time, and is re-sizeable to make it larger if you want.
30. Installation & Registration
    
    1. NEW Requires New 4.0 Registration Code to install Hoster 4.x. You can buy a New Product to install on new computers, or buy the Upgrade Product to upgrade Hoster on existing computers to version 4.x.
    2. NEW Updates Prior Versions when found, automatically presenting an instruction page to guide you in moving your existing files. Windows Vista does not allow programs to move files, so you must manually do this (this is optional but recommended for Windows XP).
    3. NEW Detect VISTA On Installation since Vista requires files to be in different folders than Windows XP. The new created C:\MTU\Hoster folder now holds your Playlists, Songs, Local (Bucket), and Singers Databases, and Log files. The C:\MTU\KMA Files is created to store your imported KMA files. As Microsoft requires,the Hoster.exe program is forced to the C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\Hoster folder, along with the \Manual folder and files.
    4. NEW Lower Cost Loyalty Upgrade Registration Codes allows existing customers to pay a lower cost to upgrade. Upgrade Registration Codes can only install over existing Hoster installations. Full Hoster Registration Codes can install on new computers, not requiring a prior version already be installed. Both require Internet connection to install, but not to run.
    5. NEW A CPU Name must be entered when installing Hoster. This is sent up to MTU.com and saved in your Registration Record. If you need to communicate with MTU staff about this computer, you can now reference this name. All MTU new software releases use this same name. The Tools menu View Registration Code dialog shows the assigned name.