Marin Ranger HDDVD950PRO HDMI Digital Karaoke Player with CDG to MP3G Converter, DVDs Ripping and USB Digital Recording with Two Free Wired Professional Vocal Microphones

First thing I noticed upon unpacking is how shiny and beautiful looking this unit is.There is so much electronics stuffed into this 20 pound case, this unit is easily worth $700. For just $200 and change!But there are a couple of drawbacks:First, this is a very complex unit.Kids will hate this karayoke player, even if an adult helps them set everything up. Def teens and adults only.For example, the remote control has 80 buttons on it. (No, that is not a typo. Eighty buttons) Each button controls around two to five settings each.A related problem: Huge learning curve. Def not a plug and play unit.Yes, this player can do anything audio/video related. But be prepared for some heavy setup/configs. Basically it is like having 3 or 4 machines in one.Included in the package is a state of the art HDMI cable and for those who have an older TV without HDMI, composite cables are provided.This unit has so many features and abilities, you prob dont even know that it has a 5 band equalizer.Loaded with in and out jacks of every kind, front and rear. You can hookup anything with this unit.btw, the two mics are cabled. Seem like quality mics. Heavy. You can always upgrade your mics.And the unit has speaker jacks for a 5.1 surround system, plus sub woof out.This is not a unit for having karayoke parties. This is a unit for the karayoke miestro who puts on karayoke shows.Or for someone who wants an awesome home entertainment system at a great bargain.Just be prepared to be consulting your Users Guide A LOT!

This item was something I was looking forward to getting. I was always looking forward to seeing The Voice and America's Got Talent. It's funny how someone sounds bettter singing in the shower. Hearing yourself while using a karaoke machine really makes a difference and it can help you improve your vocal skills and help with your performance as a singer.WonderfulJames Hoskins III

I received the Karaoke player ripper two days ago, I really ordered it for the ripping CD+G and VCD also for the mic inputs. The player works good and the disk music is fine, but ripping is not really good the tracks have no names and you can't name them also the VCD with my program I can't take out the voice. Last the microphone sound is very tinny no real body to the sound, Sorry but not worth the money for me. I sent it back

We have had our player for a little over a year now and it's been a fantastic machine. Unfortunately, we had a power surge while we were on vacation and, even though it was plugged into a Back-UPS, the player glitched out for a couple of days. The digital LED screen was completely glitching out, which made the player unusable. On a whim, I left it powered on all day yesterday and it seems to work the glitches out and now the player works again. I'm now buying a backup machine, just in case!On to the review . . .I did a lot of research on karaoke players. I really wanted one that I could just plug into my Denon receiver and use my wireless microphone package to sing along with. This one has HDMI and other features that I liked, so I purchased it.When it arrived, I hooked it up and it worked . . . except the HDMI was very glitchy. Any time I changed disks, it would stop sending a video signal. I had to physically go up to the machine, unplug the HDMI cord and plug it back in (sometimes I did this on the Denon) just to get the video back up and running. After about a month of that, I gave up and connected the Red, Green, Blue component cables and I haven't had a problem since.Ripping disks at 8x speed is great! Unfortunately, as someone else mentioned, it just saves the files as "Track 1", "Track 2" etc. (and two of each file! .mp3 and .cdg, I believe) which meant a painstaking trip to the computer at the end of each rip session to change all the tracks into their proper titles and artists. Not really a problem for me, but it could be a pain for others.The sound quality is excellent (I have it running through an optical cable into the Denon receiver.) It really sounds great! The pitch adjustments work flawlessly, the echo can be turned completely off, if you wish, and the microphone inputs work great.There is a "scoring system" that can be activated in the menus. My wife and I are still confused of how it actually works. One time we will sing a song flawlessly and it will give a score of 64 and the next song we'll sing just really poorly and it will give a score of 97. There's a part of me that believes the scoring is totally random. Another part of me thinks the scoring is based on the number of words you sing into the microphone, since most short songs get lower scores and longer songs/songs with a lot of lyrics tend to get high scores. It's not explained at all in the manual, so I'm just guessing on this.This machine plays pretty much anything you throw at it. However, I had some trouble with any files I downloaded off of Youtube or elsewhere. I'd try to play an mp4 and it failed to recognize. It also failed to recognize .avi files, which I thought confusing since the manual says that they work. In order to get them to work, I had to download off of youtube, save the file as an mp4, put the file into Vegas Movie Maker and make it into a DVD, and then take the .vob file it creates and put it onto my external hard drive. (Sometimes, I had to take the mp4 file and put it into Handbreak and convert it into a different mp4 file because sometimes the Vegas Movie Maker would crash if using the mp4 file I downloaded off of youtube. Why? I have no idea.) It's a longer process than it should be but it's what I found to work after MUCH trial and error with various formats of files off youtube.One note about the remote control that got me frazzled for about 10 minutes until I figured it out: sometimes, a key might get stuck when you push it. This leave the remote inoperable until you un-stick the key. The first time it happened to me, the red LED light on the remote was going bonkers with continual flashing and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I replaced the batteries and it continued. Finally, I looked closely and saw one of the keys that I had pressed got "stuck" inside the plastic casing so the remote was registering constant pressing of that key. Once I realized it, I got it un-stuck and now it's no big deal when it happens.All-in-all, I love this machine. I compared a bunch of others like the Vocobox and just liked this better. A friend of mine has a big Vocobox player with built-in speakers, but I like this one because I can plug it into my home theater for much bigger sound.I know I have a bunch of "complaints" but they are all very minor in the grand scheme.If you're looking for a very nice karaoke PLAYER (not a machine) that you can install into your home theater setup, this is a very nice one. I recommend it!

This is a very good and nice karaoke machine, I definitely recommend it

The MPX function does not work on a karaoke DVD so if your karaoke DVD has vocal tracks it will not play it without the vocals. Also will not rip a karaoke DVD into separate tracks. The ripped karaoke DVD will only play like a movie with no seperate tracks and only with the vocals. The ripped karaoke CDG's only list the track numbers so you have to name the tracks with a computer. Much easier just to use a computer program that rips the CDG and names the song / artist etc. The manual is not detailed enough in plain english . Will not play most burned CDG's . Only will play about 2000 karaoke songs from an external hard drive that is connected to the usb port. Any more than that on the hard drive it will not play them.

This machine has options for usage. I use for karaoke. The cd-g number selections are not easy to use…but with practice it’s workable.The mics are good quality

I've had several karaoke disc players over the years (RSQ, Acesonic, etc.) but this one is has the most bang for the buck. Easy to set up. Had it up and running in less than 10 minutes. Still testing the "ripping" feature but seems to be working. Haven't tested the free microphones but they appear to solid quality. Disc and USB access is fast. My only gripe is that I wish the buttons on the remote were a little bigger.