Settings Display Display settings controls the way karaoke lyrics are displayed.   Display section Quality defines number of frames per setting for the karaoke display. If you are working on a slower machine try decreasing this value to get better performance. If Use secondary monitor is selected and your computer is equipped with two monitors, full screen mode will use the second monitor. You may choose which monitor should be used in the full screen mode. You may also define custom position that will be used for full screen playback For lyrics window you may define Padding and create black frame around the actual content. This allows to position the lyrics screen perfectly on external display. Padding can also be defined for Singer screen clones Keep 4:3 aspect ratio ensures that karaoke display always has 4:3 ratio. If you are using wide screen monitor, or a monitor in portrait mode, this will add black bars to the sides so the karaoke display has the same proportions as regular TV screen.   Start in Full Screen mode causes Siglos Karaoke Player to start in full screen mode.   Video Renderer is a technical setting which you may try to change if you are unable to play video files.   Lyrics advanced allow to display CD+G lyrics ahead of the music. The value is in milliseconds, so setting it to 500 will cause the lyrics to appear half a second earlier. Negative value will cause the lyrics to be delayed.   Background section Siglos Karaoke Player has five background modes: · Solid color background (choose a color for MIDI karaoke, for CD+G the background color from the file will be used) · Gradient background (smooth transition from the color at the top to the color at the bottom) · Image slideshow (you may define images to be used in the slideshow, select the display time of the single image, and choose to display the images in the random order) Keep aspect ratio option will ensure that images will not be stretched out of proportions (ie. portrait images will have black strips added to their sides so they look proportionally) · Video (moving video will be played in loop) · Camera (if you have camera installed in your system its input will be used as a background) · Music visualizations are animated backgrounds that react to the beat. Siglos Karaoke Player supports Sonique and Windows Media Player plugins. Sonique plugins need to be placed in    %APPDATA%/Doblon/Siglos Karaoke Player /Visualizations folder. Windows Media Player plugins are detected automatically. You may adjust the intensity of the animation using the slider.   You may also choose an image or video to be displayed instead of default black background on the playback screen. This may be your logo or some other information. To do this select image to display using [...] button in Inactive background section.   CD+G section Siglos Karaoke Player features state-of-the-art technology that makes CD+G look much better. You can control its behaviour in Display section of Settings . In general there are three steps of CD+G enhancement:   Smart resolution increase   This technology allows to reduce jagged edges of CD+G images and makes it look much smoother and precise. It works great scaling CD+G to HD resolution   Gradient overlay   With gradient overlay each line of karaoke lyrics has three-dimensional look.   Shadow   Adding shadow effect to the lyrics makes them 'stand out' from the background.   Smooth sweeps   Siglos Karaoke Player detects word highlighting and replaces blocks of CD+G pixels with smooth single pixel sweeps that improve the experience and fluidity of the video.   Maximum Internal CD+G Resolution   Original CD+G is 288 x 192 pixels. Siglos Karaoke Player uses smart resolution increase, but it is very computation-intensive. This setting allows you to choose the internal resolution used by CD+G engine. The higher resolution the longer the processing time.   Sharpen   Adds additional sharpening effect   No margins   Disables CD+G margins, stretching text area on entire display   NOTE: You may need to disable some of the effects on slow computers if you are experiencing performance problems.   MIDI section You may change the font used for MIDI karaoke lyrics, change the number of lines on the screen, and define the lyrics location (top, bottom, or middle of the screen). International character support If Siglos Karaoke Player incorrectly displays MIDI files containing international characters (eg. Chinese), please make sure that you select appropriate script and font face that contains international characters. Recording Before you start please make sure that you have microphone connected to your computer. The microphone input is usually pink on your soundcard panel at the back of your computer. If you have more than one soundcard in your computer please choose the one you wish to use in Windows' Control Panel/Sound and audio devices/Audio as a default recording input. To adjust recording settings choose  Settings  ( ) button and then choose  Recording .   You will see the name of the active recording device (soundcard) and the active input. You may need to change the input to the microphone. Now test the recording level -- say something to the microphone and  Recording preview  should display the green bar. You may use  Input level  slider to adjust the level of the recording -- if it is too low you will not hear it and if it is too high it will distort. You may also control the recording level using  Recording level  slider ( ) of the main Siglos Karaoke Player window.   If you cannot hear what you are saying to the microphone you may need to enable microphone output on your soundcard. To do this click  Open mixer  button and standard Windows' mixer will appear. Now make sure that  Microphone  input is not muted (if you cannot see it choose  Options/Properties  and check the enable to microphone input).   File settings section allows you to select the format that Siglos Karaoke Player will use to save your voice. MP3 is selected as default. You may also define where the file with your voice will be stored -- but default Siglos Karaoke Player creates My Karaoke  subfolder under  My Documents . CD CD settings allows to set various options that control the way CD+G discs are played. CD-ROM device allows you to select which of the drives equipped in your machine should be used for CD+G discs. Automatically load CD on startup will save you clicking Load CD button if you play CD+G discs. Siglos Karaoke Player/Recorder can use online FreeDB database to look up track names for CD+G discs. You may disable this feature by unchecking Use FreeDB to search for track names on the Internet. You may also select different FreeDB server and define a HTTP proxy server if you are behind a corporate firewall. General These options control general behaviour of Siglos Karaoke Player.   By default after one song finishes the next starts automatically. Pause between the songs disables this feature.   Remember last playlist will keep track of the files on the playlist between sessions.   If Check for updates is enabled, then Siglos Karaoke Player will prompt to check if new version is available.   If Automatically play the playlist after loading is switched on, then playlist will automatically start to play after it is loaded.   You may associate Siglos Karaoke Player with various karaoke file extensions so it is opened automatically when you double-click such file. You may choose which extensions should be associated with Siglos using extension list.   NOTE: Using Siglos as default ZIP file application is not recommended, as it will interfere with software like WinZip. Skins Siglos Karaoke Player allows you to change the appearance of the main window -- you can choose from several skins of various sizes. KJ Use professional KJ mode allows to switch between show hosting mode and basic player mode.   Edit singer announcement screen allows to adjust the look of the singer announcement screen. Singer Announcement Screen dialog box will appear.   Singer announcement duration in automatic mode defines the amount of time that the announcement screen is displayed before the song starts to play in automatic mode.   Siglos Karaoke Professional can show the scrolling message at the top or at the bottom of the karaoke screen. You may define the font, colors, location (top or bottop) and the speed of the scrolling message in Scrolling message section. You may also choose to display additional message after the usual singer reminder. Number of singers to show allows to define how many next singers will be displayed in the scrolling message (up to ten). Use old style will show the message on top of the currently played song, not on the separate black strip.   When Countdowns are enabled Siglos displays a timer that shows how much time next singer has before their performance starts, by default it changes color from green through yellow to red when time is up.   Preview screen update speed allows you to change the refresh rate of Preview window (the lower the value, the more frequently the window is repainted). Please note that preview window refresh uses additional CPU time.   Show remaining song time instead of current position will cause the time counter on the main player window to show the time left to the end of the song rather than current song position.   Skip silence at beginning/end of the song enables silence detection and allows Siglos Karaoke Professional to skip silent parts of the song (usually used for displaying CD+G company logo and song title). It works for MP3+G and ZIP files only, unless you check Skip silence for all types of files .   Detect and speed up instrumentals longer than [   ] makes Siglos Karaoke Professional scan CD+G files for places where nothing changes on screen and skip those parts. This will eliminate long guitar solos for instance. Two modes are available - one will fade out at the beginning of the skipped part and fade in at the end, while the other will speed up the song at the detected part.   Rotation / Playlist font section allows you to change the font and the size of the text in Playlist / Rotation lists. You may also define colors used for active and disabled items.   'Add Singer' list font modifier allows you to increase (or to decrease if desired) the size of the font used in lists of Add Singer/Song dialog box.   If you are adding a new singer of the name that already exists in the singer database, Siglos Karaoke Professional will ask you to choose one of the options. You may define the default action to be taken using If adding singer of the same name section (see Adding Singers for more information)   Time display in Rotation list allows you to choose which time-related columns should be displayed in rotation list. Next column contains estimated time the singer will be on stage. Last displays the last time the singer was on stage. In column contains the time singer or song was added   If fill-in playlist contains songs, Siglos Karaoke Professional will play the first song when it opens if Initiate fill-in playback on program start is enabled.   Detect commas in artist names may be used to fix artist names in sortable format (with artist name or The part after comma). So Adams, Brian will be displayed as Brian Adams , and Beatles, The will be The Beatles . This affects only singer announcement screen and scrolling message, database listing will not be changed.   Include track number in 'Add Singer' song search allows to search for the tracks by their number on the original disc. The same goes for Include Song ID ... and Include file path ... .   Number of characters to start interactive search specifies how many characters need to be typed in the general search box before the results are updates (setting this to 1 may cause slow operation if you are running slower machine and your database is large).   Exit the program without prompting disables confirmation message on program exit.   Advance to next song on fill-in playlist every time fill-in is activated caused the playlist to skip to the next song every time playlist is active. This may be useful if you have many short breaks and do not want the audience to listen to the same song over and over.   Reset key to zero for songs not sung by the singer (by default latest key change for singer is used) allows to change the way key changer is set for new songs. By default Siglos Karaoke Professional remembers the key change for each singer and applies this for the new songs added for the singer. This may be undesired and with this option checked key will be reset to zero for all new songs. If you set the key for the song, it will be remembered and reset the next time singer sings the song.   With Create backup database copies every 7 days option enabled Siglos Karaoke Professional will create a copy of a database file once a week and store it in compressed file in case something happened to the working database.   Database file location makes it possible to change the database file used by Siglos Karaoke Professional. This may be useful if you move the database between computers or for some reason need to use more than one database.   Crossfade time when using Restart button defines the speed of silencing the music when Restart is clicked.   Force FFDShow filter usage tells Siglos to use FFDShow filter before trying other video codecs.   Use Standard renderer as fallback makes sure that if the selected renderer is not available, standard will be used instead of reporting an error.   When Use old drag-and-drop behaviour is enabled, dropped songs will be added to the playlist (regardless of the mode) instead of opening as a file in Add Singer window.   Display scrolling message when not playing karaoke ensures that the message is visible even when no song is playing (and singer announcement is displayed).   If Show announcement screen even if no singer is in queue is enabled, then singer announcement stays visible on screen and is not replaced by predefined empty screen.   Lock rotation windows when Add Singer is open does not allow any operations in main program window until you close Add Singer.   On new session start fill-in from the next song ensures that Siglos will not resume fill-in playback, but will jump to the new song on the fill-in list.   Overlay fill-in videos and visualizations with singer annoncements displays singer announcements on top of visualization or video played from fill-in list.   Wait n seconds before allowing 'Go To Next' is a safeguard so you do not click Go To Next button accidentally after starting the playback.   When you enable Always skip empty singers if 'Wait for songs' is selected , Siglos will skip empty singers until all singers have sung their songs. Then it will wait for new songs.   SINGER ANNOUNCEMENT SCREEN This dialog allows to define how singer announcement screen will look like.   Background mode defines the background of the screen. There are three background modes: · Image : you may use an image as a background. Click [...] button to load the image (JPG, PNG, and BMP formats are supported). Images will be stretched to full screen. · Solid color: background will be filled with the selected solid color · Gradient: background will be filled with smoothly changing color, you may define the top and bottom colors.   Items list contains separate parts of the signer announcement screen. Heading is the information text displayed at the top Singer  is the name of the coming singer Performing  is the Performing word after the singer name, it is not displayed if singer name is empty Song  and Artist are the song title and the artist name of the coming song To change one of the items select it on the Items list -- a rectangle defining its area will be displayed in the preview area. You may modify the position of the item by dragging it with the mouse.   Font , Text color , Alignment , and Text effects define text attributes for the selected item. Changes are immediately visible in the preview area.   Text to display is the label text for pre-defined items ( Heading and Performing ). Heading is a good place to promote your show.