There are many different types of karaoke setups and karaoke players. The all-in-one karaoke systems are popular for home use and parties. While some have a TV screen, they are usually quite small so you may want to connect these to your TV. You can even plug most all-in-one players into your larger home stereo system, if you wish to have better sound. DVD karaoke is now becoming available, which fits well into any home entertainment system. A karaoke DJ in a public forum will generally have a component system, which may include a computer to hold the files or they might still use CDs.

When you have a home karaoke system, the expensive part is the actual song collection. There are online karaoke sharing sites, however it is illegal to reproduce copy-written material, so the sites are intended to be for a replacement of CDs damaged by use. The pre-recorded karaoke tracks are not the original recordings, so you will find some variation in types of karaoke discs. A karaoke disc can be referred to as a CD, CDG, CD+G, VCD or now even DVD.

Today, many providers are moving away from actual discs and players to a laptop with karaoke dj software. The tracks are on a hard drive as computer files with a variety of different file names, such as: .kar, .MP+G, and .bin. This allows for a large music selection without having to carry around all of the individual discs.