Karaoke CD

There is no disc format called the Karaoke CD but this is a good place to explain what a karaoke CD actually is. A Karaoke CD can be either a Video CD (VCD) or a Super Video CD (S-VCD).

Most likely, a karaoke CD is a Video CD. In this case, the lyrics (and color guide across the lyrics) are all done in the video editing stage, not in the authoring stage. The audio section of the disc only holds a stereo track so a single, mono mix of the song usually has vocals on the right channel only. The Karaoke singer then selects between Right, Left or Blend of the two, to get their accompanying track. The video is in MPEG-1, about the same as VHS quality.

Super Video CD is a format designed by the Chinese and they sure do their karaoke well. If only anything in America played it. The Video is MPEG-2 (the same high quality codec used in DVD) and it has two audio layers, so a vocal mix and an instrumental mix can both be in stereo. There is a subtitle feature that even let's you wipe a color guide across the lyrics (even DVD can't do that)! That said, your karaoke player probably doesn't support these. If only...

It is also quite reasonable for karaoke to be on a DVD. In this case, it has the lyrics and color guide bar embedded in the video before encoding, just like the VCD, but it has the multiple audio layers of the S-VCD