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[DocLotus]

Just ran across this very interesting bit of information in the daily Lockergnome Windows Daily.

JimH... Is this something we should be considering for MC9?

Looks like a real Microsoft WMP killer.

Question: I heard that a car CD player can let me see the title of each song. How do you do this?

Answer: I didn't know this was possible until I did research. I rely heavily on having CD titles displayed so I know where the heck I am on the CD. Phillips's "CD-Text" is a 1996 extension to the original Compact Disc specification.

When a CD containing CD-Text information is put into a CD-Text player, the artist's name and song title is displayed on the player's front panel instead of dull old "Track Number 2." The catch is that not all pre-recorded CDs have CD-Text information. It only works when the player AND the CD are CD-Text enabled. However, you can create your own CDs with CD-Text. To find out if your CD player is CD-Text enabled, check the car owner's manual. As for which CDs come with the capability, this is harder to find out. Most major labels are starting to include it in their CDs. If anyone knows how to identify a CD as having CD-Text capabilities, please tell us about it in the Lockergnome Forums.

Now, let's roll our own CD with CD-Text using Easy CD Creator 5 or Nero. Before starting, you also need a CD recorder that supports CD-Text. To find out if yours supports it, go to http://www.roxio.com/en/jhtml/extranet/driveid/html/A.html. Whoo! Mine made the list.

If you don't know your device's name and you're using Windows XP, go to Control Panel | System | Hardware | Device Manager | CD-ROM and read the name. Search for that name in the list on the Roxio Web site. Make it this far? Now, you're ready to add CD-Text.

To do it in Easy CD Creator:

1.      Add a new track to a Music CD Project.
2.      Right-click the track.
3.      Rename the track and add information, and set it to "Disc at Once."
4.      Record.

In Nero:

1.      Add a track.
2.      Right-click the track and choose Properties.
3.      Modify the information.

There are more ways to do it depending on how you supply the CD creator program with song titles (which can be from the source audio CD that already has CD-Text, from an online music database, or by manually entering the text). Feel free to expand on this or share your methods at the forums [help.lockergnome.com].

[KingSparta]

So what is news about it?

[DocLotus]

I was always told that the Title was not already on the CD;  in fact I started a thread late last year asking why such a simple thing was overlooked by the record indusrtry.

No one mentioned that some car CD players could read the CD text (if already present).

What I'm saying is if many CD's already have this feature then by all means lets add to MC the ability to read it therby saving a lot of data gathering at YADDB.

Also if you just want to put a new CD in the player, MC would immediatly read the text & display the track title.

Seems like a neat thing to me & a logical extension to MC.

[KingSparta]

the problem is many if not most do not use CD-Text

Some DVD's also Use CD-Text By The Way And I Have A 300 Disk DVD Jukebox And Out Of Maybe 250 Cd's Only About 20 Of Them Have CD-Text

but i do understand what your saying.

[DocLotus]

According to to story, the record companies are scrambling to add CD Text to their CD's.

It is hoped that in the near future all CD's will have it (which should of been there from the beginning).

So... now is the time for MC to jump to the front of the pack & include CD Text in MC9.

[rocketsauce]

I'm using 9.0.88 and it doesn't appear to read CD-Text, but it does have the option to burn discs with CD-Text.

As for commercial CDs, I still rarely come across one that has CD-Text, but I would prefer that any audio programs I use read it, as I burn CD-Text on all my audio cd-rs.

Rob

[Marko]

In the past, I've inserted audio cd's that MC has never seen before, often times, simply to test if YADB is working or not, and all the cd track/artist info was presented to me without connecting to YADB, leading me to assume that it must have been reading CD text.
I thought this pretty cool (except for those times when I specifically wanted a YADB lookup )

So, was I wrong? and if so, where did MC get the cdinfo from if not YADB?

[rocketsauce]

where did MC get the cdinfo from if not YADB?

Probably from the cdplayer.ini file.  Other apps, like EAC, will query CDDB or FreeDB and also save the info to cdplayer.ini.

Rob

[DocLotus]

I agree with  Rocketsauce.

>>> Probably from the cdplayer.ini file.  Other apps, like EAC, will query CDDB or FreeDB and also save the info to cdplayer.ini. <<<

This means that you already had the information stored somewhere on your computer in another format that MJ or MC read. 

After doing a clean install of Windows (starting from scratch) there will be no such files for MJ or MC to pull the information from.

With over 400 CD's, I've never had MJ or MC read the track name without first going to YADB or some other database which means that MJ & MC do not currently read CD Text directly from the CD itself (would be nice if it did).

[Marko]

Very interesting indeed. I did not know about the cdplayer.ini file.
We never stop learning eh

Thanks for the tip folks.

[rocketsauce]

Also, in Win95/98 (and maybe NT/2000) the cdplayer.ini is limited to a 64kb size (IIRC), so it can only hold a limited amount of info. I believe the size limit was done away with in XP.

Rob

Listening to: 'The Crossing (Ooh The Action...)' from 'Slave To The Rhythm' by 'Grace Jones' on Media Center

[RemyJ]

What are you guys talking about?  MC reads CD-TEXT just fine.  Except for a few times when it was buggy, it always has.  I just tested it and confirmed.

You need a drive that supports it and of course the CD has to have the info (the vast majority of pressed CDs do not).

You can test this yourself...

Burn a CD with CD-TEXT enabled.
Remove the CD from the drive or leave the tray open.
Close MC.
Rename your CDPLAYER.INI.  ( I always leave mine empty and write-protected to avoid confusion).
Open MC and create a scratch library so you get an empty CD & DVD database.
Turn off YADB.  (Actually if the CD-TEXT is found, MC won't even go to YADB)
Insert the CD.