Tech: CD id in Windows Media Player 7

Subject: RE: TECH: CD id in Windows Media Player 7
From: DMcG
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 06:04 AM

I don't think CDs contain the names of the tracks - or at least, they didn't in the past. This is why many CD rippers simply display Track 01 ... track 15 or whatever, rather than names.

On your PC, there is a file called 'cdplayer.ini' held in C:\WINDOWS , C:\WINNT or wherever. I have pulled out an extract of mine here

[15DA0B6]
artist=The Chieftains
title=The Magic of The Chieftains
numtracks=12
0=O'Mahoney's Frolics
1=Coolin Medley
2=The Wexford Carol (featuring Nancy Griffith)
3=Marches
4=Boffyflow and Spike (featuring Van Morrison)
5=Celtic Wedding
6=Heres a Health to the Company
7=The Strayaway Child
8=The Iron Man Medley
9=Millennium Celtic Suite
10=Dans Tro Fisel
11=Heuliadenn Toniou Breizh-Izel
order=0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

It is this file that Media Player looks at. But this leaves the question of where the names come from in the first place and this is usually CDDB as I suggested before.

You can edit the cdplayer.ini directly to fix problems - You can't really do any harm

Subject: RE: TECH: CD id in Windows Media Player 7
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 02:23 PM

My impression, from limited experience, is that Windows Media Player will display whatever is "burned" to the the disk as the "volume label."

When setting up to record a CD, it's fairly easy to "forget" to punch in the label; or, if you're rearranging things, to leave an "old" entry when you're adding or moving things around. It sounds like whoever set up the disk simply put the wrong name on it.

Many, if not all(?) CD burners will offer to connect to an appropriate website to "register" the act of copying from commercial CDs, but there should be no need to hook up just to play them on your PC - or to display the label (although a few commercial artists have used code on their CDs to "prevent" playing them on a "computer" CD drive?)

John

Subject: RE: TECH: CD id in Windows Media Player 7
From: GUEST,ghost
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 12:28 PM

DMcG, I believe you've hit the cyber nail on it's noggin. I had to do some wrestling with this stuff last night with a disc I had downloaded into my library. I finally found the edit button to correct the information.

Red eyed, ghost, who has spent way too many hours foolin' with his graphics programs and not nearly enough time snoozin' last night.

Subject: RE: TECH: CD id in Windows Media Player 7
From: GUEST,DMcG at work
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 07:05 AM

One solution is that the CDDB database entry is wrong. Normally, when you play a CD and have a live internet connection, it goes off to the Website at www.cddb.com (I think) and uses the CD id to read the database entry. For most people, that is the end of the story.

On rare occasions, the CD may not be in the database. The most likely case is if you have made a CD outside the big publishers and have just started to release it. When this happens, either the program will simply say it can't find it or, in some applications, you may be invited to enter the information. If you enter rubbish at this point, it will live there forevermore until someone complains enough to get it corrected.

I can imagine that the big publishers employ people to enter these things and someone could read information from the wrong list - this would be one way in which sensible but wrong information got entered.

Subject: RE: TECH: CD id in Windows Media Player 7
From:
Date: 04 Apr 02 - 09:15 AM

Have you tried looking up the track listings for the 2 Carthy CDs mentioned?

Not sure what you mean by that.

The two CDs are however completely independent. 'Rigs of Time' was released by 'Music Collection International' in 1993 whereas 'Signs of Life' was released by Topic in 1998. All songs are different.

I'm pretty certain that I've never played 'Signs of Life' on this computer (I don't much like it, apart from a couple of cuts), but I guess I must have.

How an unrelated (apart from the artist) CD seems to 'think' that it's 'Signs of Life' is a mystery.

As I said, not very important, but it piques my curiosity.

Terry

Subject: RE: TECH: CD id in Windows Media Player 7
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 04 Apr 02 - 07:50 AM

Funny you should mention this. I played "Fiddle Sticks - A Second Collection Of Irish Traditional Music" 2 nights ago and found it listed as "From a Distant Shore Irish Traditional Music from Donegal, England, America & Cape Breton Island".

I have just done some searching. As far as I can make out, the 2 "Fiddle Sticks" CDs I have are Disks 1 and 2 of a set of 4 CDs which make up "From A Distant Shore".

Have you tried looking up the track listings for the 2 2 Carthy CDs mentioned?

Jon

Subject: TECH: CD id in Windows Media Player 7
From:
Date: 04 Apr 02 - 07:33 AM

If you play most modern CDs in a PC using Windows Media Player 7, the program will show the 'Artist Name' and 'Track Title'

No big deal there.

However, when I put in 'Rigs of Time - The Best of Martin Carthy' media player tells me that I'm listening to Carthy's 'Signs of Life'?!?

This is not an important question, but I'm curious.

If anyone knows how these things work, or could point me to a site that explains, I would be grateful.

Thank you

Terry