Question about titles and audio CDs

Do Audio CDs have the titles stored on the CD, either commercially or if you
create them yourself?

Most programs that grab titles associated with Audio CDs seem to search a
database on the Internet. Some examples are EAC, Windows Media Player, Audio
DVD Creator, et al. With all of them, you insert a audio CD and if you have
an open Internet connection, the application sends up a code and gets back
matching titles for each track.

EXAMPLE:

I loaded a new Audio CD into Windows Media Player and my Internet connection
was OFF. Media Player listed the titles as TRACK 01, TRACK 02, etc. Next, I
opened the Internet connection and Windows Media Player populated its screen
with all the real title names.

Next, I turned the Internet OFF. I reloaded the same audio CD and the title
names came up. I think this is happening because Windows Media Player is
archiving the title names based on the first time it was able to get
Internet access to the database. Therefore, it must first access the mini
database on your hard drive and use it if the CD code matches. If no code
match, it must look on the Internet for the database. If no Internet
connection, you get no title names listed for each track and it uses
generics (e.g.. TRACK XX; XX=01,N).


(1) Am I correct about the above line of reasoning?

(2) Are there any audio CDs that are an exception to the above, where they
have actual title names stored on the audio CD?

On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:47:35 GMT, "Gary"
wrote:

Do Audio CDs have the titles stored on the CD, either commercially or if you
create them yourself?

There is a thing called "CD-Text" which would allow you to do this on
a regular audio CD, and while a few commercial audio CDs do include
track information in this way, very few players support the feature.

Most programs that grab titles associated with Audio CDs seem to search a
database on the Internet. Some examples are EAC, Windows Media Player, Audio
DVD Creator, et al. With all of them, you insert a audio CD and if you have
an open Internet connection, the application sends up a code and gets back
matching titles for each track.

EXAMPLE:

I loaded a new Audio CD into Windows Media Player and my Internet connection
was OFF. Media Player listed the titles as TRACK 01, TRACK 02, etc. Next, I
opened the Internet connection and Windows Media Player populated its screen
with all the real title names.

Next, I turned the Internet OFF. I reloaded the same audio CD and the title
names came up. I think this is happening because Windows Media Player is
archiving the title names based on the first time it was able to get
Internet access to the database. Therefore, it must first access the mini
database on your hard drive and use it if the CD code matches. If no code
match, it must look on the Internet for the database. If no Internet
connection, you get no title names listed for each track and it uses
generics (e.g.. TRACK XX; XX=01,N).


(1) Am I correct about the above line of reasoning?

All except for the code match. CDDB uses a signature system to match
discs. Things like the number of tracks and the lengths of each track
are used to identify a disc. It's popular because it doesn't require
the disc to have anything "special" encoded on the disc to figure out
the track names, so it works with just about any CD.

Once you've found a match for your disc, the signature and data are
saved in a local CDDB file (it might be called CDDB.INI but it could
be named anything). Once you've got the signature and entries saved,
the system will scan the local CDDB first, only attempting to access
the internet version if it doesn't find a match among the "known"
discs. If you have a custom mix disc, obviously there won't be an
entry for it in the online databases, but you can usually manually
enter the data into your local one. If you feel your custom disc is
popular enough that others might also have it (ie. it's your own
band's music CD), most programs let you upload the data and contribute
it to the one of the online databases.

(2) Are there any audio CDs that are an exception to the above, where they
have actual title names stored on the audio CD?

Yes, but I can't think of any specific titles that use the "CD-Text"
feature off hand.

Some burning programs like NERO let you burn an audio CD with CD-Text
data that you can enter yourself (or you can fill it from a database),
but as I mentioned, very few players support the feature. PC players
almost (I think there might be one or two that do) never support it,
preferring the CDDB system. In a lot of ways, it's more flexible, and
you can store more information.

It's usually stand alone portables that have support for the feature,
and even among those, the feature is pretty uncommon -- not rare, but
it's not a feature I'd actually expect to see too often. Do a google
on "CD-TEXT" if you want to know more about it.
---------------------------------------------
Thanks.


MCheu

Ok, I was close.

Is it possible there is a shared CDDB local database under the OS or would
each application be responsible for its own lookup and insertion into its
own application specific database.




"MCheu" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:47:35 GMT, "Gary"
wrote:

Do Audio CDs have the titles stored on the CD, either commercially or if
you
create them yourself?

There is a thing called "CD-Text" which would allow you to do this on
a regular audio CD, and while a few commercial audio CDs do include
track information in this way, very few players support the feature.

Most programs that grab titles associated with Audio CDs seem to search a
database on the Internet. Some examples are EAC, Windows Media Player,
Audio
DVD Creator, et al. With all of them, you insert a audio CD and if you
have
an open Internet connection, the application sends up a code and gets
back
matching titles for each track.

EXAMPLE:

I loaded a new Audio CD into Windows Media Player and my Internet
connection
was OFF. Media Player listed the titles as TRACK 01, TRACK 02, etc. Next,
I
opened the Internet connection and Windows Media Player populated its
screen
with all the real title names.

Next, I turned the Internet OFF. I reloaded the same audio CD and the
title
names came up. I think this is happening because Windows Media Player is
archiving the title names based on the first time it was able to get
Internet access to the database. Therefore, it must first access the mini
database on your hard drive and use it if the CD code matches. If no code
match, it must look on the Internet for the database. If no Internet
connection, you get no title names listed for each track and it uses
generics (e.g.. TRACK XX; XX=01,N).


(1) Am I correct about the above line of reasoning?

All except for the code match. CDDB uses a signature system to match
discs. Things like the number of tracks and the lengths of each track
are used to identify a disc. It's popular because it doesn't require
the disc to have anything "special" encoded on the disc to figure out
the track names, so it works with just about any CD.

Once you've found a match for your disc, the signature and data are
saved in a local CDDB file (it might be called CDDB.INI but it could
be named anything). Once you've got the signature and entries saved,
the system will scan the local CDDB first, only attempting to access
the internet version if it doesn't find a match among the "known"
discs. If you have a custom mix disc, obviously there won't be an
entry for it in the online databases, but you can usually manually
enter the data into your local one. If you feel your custom disc is
popular enough that others might also have it (ie. it's your own
band's music CD), most programs let you upload the data and contribute
it to the one of the online databases.

(2) Are there any audio CDs that are an exception to the above, where
they
have actual title names stored on the audio CD?

Yes, but I can't think of any specific titles that use the "CD-Text"
feature off hand.

Some burning programs like NERO let you burn an audio CD with CD-Text
data that you can enter yourself (or you can fill it from a database),
but as I mentioned, very few players support the feature. PC players
almost (I think there might be one or two that do) never support it,
preferring the CDDB system. In a lot of ways, it's more flexible, and
you can store more information.

It's usually stand alone portables that have support for the feature,
and even among those, the feature is pretty uncommon -- not rare, but
it's not a feature I'd actually expect to see too often. Do a google
on "CD-TEXT" if you want to know more about it.
---------------------------------------------
Thanks.


MCheu

Gary wrote:
Ok, I was close.

Is it possible there is a shared CDDB local database under the OS or would
each application be responsible for its own lookup and insertion into its
own application specific database.


Yes to both.

Under some operating systems you do have a common CDDB file that can be
used. Windows95, for example, used to have a file called CDDB.ini that
was associated with the included CD player. Some programs would check
for that file, but most keep track of that information on their own
because you can't count on a common local database file existing.