Adding text to Audio CDs

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Adding text to Audio CDs

My car stereo can display text when playing certain CDs. So far I've only seen this on a few I've bought in the store -- most show no text data.

I burned my first audio CD (not MP3) and it plays fine, but no text is displayed. Does anyone know if album and song titles can be added to an audio CD? Is there anything special you have to do? The songs I burned were all bought from iTunes and show album and song title info in my iTunes library. I haven't tried burning an MP3 CD.

Dell 4600 Windows XP 2.8GHz P4/512GB RAM

Posted on Mar 29, 2006 9:09 AM

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Answer 1

Joshi_C

Level 1

20 points

Mar 29, 2006 9:33 AM in response to sbcpdad

Well, try burning in MP3 if you can.

Dan ........ Windows XP Pro Connected To A Network

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Answer 2

Mar 29, 2006 10:28 AM in response to sbcpdad

Rip the CD into iTunes as MP3, then on the track in your newly created library, select the songs and right-click and select get info on them. Then enter in the text (song title, track number, artist, composer, etc.).

Then when you burn and play the disc in your car, the info SHOULD show up 🙂

This is the way it works on Macs, I am not sure about Windows, but Apple is fairly consistent with their products, so if you use iTunes, this is the way it should work.

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Answer 3

Mar 29, 2006 11:18 AM in response to sbcpdad

What you are describing is CDTEXT. This is mainly supported in commercial audio CDs produced by Sony. Some car stereo players can read CDTEXT. Only some CD burners can write CDTEXT. iTunes does not appear to write CDTEXT. See these discussions:

http://www.codecomments.com/archive240-2004-5-193900.html

Mac users can use Toast to write CDs with CDTEXT. Windows users need to know if their CD burner and burning application support CDTEXT. I've had good results with Plextor brand CD burners for creating discs with CDTEXT.

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Answer 4

Mar 29, 2006 1:29 PM in response to justaguess

Sorry, but I believe you are incorrect. iTunes on the Mac CAN write text on the CDs. As I currently play a number of MP3s through my Alpine system in my car and the titles show up just fine. And, I am NOT using Toast.

Good luck.

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Answer 5

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Mar 29, 2006 3:35 PM in response to Brien Tomassetti

iTunes on the Mac CAN write text on the CDs.
iTunes cannot write in the CDTEXT format. This format adds TEXT to a standard audio CD format, which is readable by certain CD players.
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aa571/cdtext.htm

This is completely different than the MP3 format.

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Answer 6

Mar 29, 2006 9:42 PM in response to Chris CA

Point taken... Understood... but, I never said ANYTHING about CDTEXT! And I NEVER said anything about burning CD Format discs.

Let it go already 🙂

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Answer 7

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Mar 29, 2006 10:44 PM in response to Brien Tomassetti

I never said ANYTHING about CDTEXT!
No, but justaguess did, and you told hm he was incorrect.

And I NEVER said anything about burning CD Format discs
Well, you did becau seoy told him to burn an MP3 disc and that is a CD format disc.

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Answer 8

sbcpdad Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 30, 2006 5:57 AM in response to sbcpdad

Thanks for the input everyone. For what it's worth, I burned an MP3 CD of 5 albums using iTunes. The song titles are displayed, but the album titles and artist info fields are blank.

In spite of that, I believe that there is CDTEXT information on the CD and iTunes just isn't providing any supporting info. When I browse for text, it says "No Album Title" and "No Artist", rather than "No CD Text Data" as on most of my commercial CDs. Also, my Plextor burner supports CDTEXT. Perhaps the song title is part of the MP3 format?

Dell 4600/2.8GHz P4/512GB RAM Windows XP Black 30GB 5G

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Answer 9

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Mar 30, 2006 6:45 AM in response to sbcpdad

Perhaps the song title is part of the MP3 format?
Yes it is but when it is burned as CD+TEXT it is not an MP3 format.
When it is burned this way, it is a standard CD audio file with no other info attached to it.
Currently, iTunes does not support CD+TEXT burning.

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Answer 10

Mar 30, 2006 4:01 PM in response to Chris CA

Chris, I think you are letting your knowledge get in the way of facts.

My point was, you can burn a CD in MP3 format and have the text display... as proven by the poster of this thread.

You are exactly correct as were the other regarding CD Text.

We were both right, we should be happy with that 🙂

I believe we were all helpful 🙂

Best to you.

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Answer 11

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Mar 30, 2006 4:30 PM in response to Brien Tomassetti

Lighten up Brian.
I was responding to sbcpdad in his last post.
He questioned that a CD formatted for CD-TEXT, contains info in an MP3 file.
It doesn't.

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Answer 12

Mar 31, 2006 9:21 AM in response to Chris CA

No worries... we're cool 🙂

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Answer 13

Mar 31, 2006 10:05 AM in response to Brien Tomassetti

In response to the original post, I have been able to create audio CD's that will display text on my car stereo.

I use Nero to burn copies of CD's I have purchased, dragging all tracks from the source disc to the destination. The track titles and additional information are created for me, retrieved from the internet.

The information displays fine on my car stereo and makes song selection much easier.

Again, these are audio CD's, not MP3. I am not sure whether itunes has a similar capability.

Homebuilt Windows XP

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Answer 14

sbcpdad Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 2, 2006 7:13 AM in response to first_ipod

Thanks. I was hoping, though, that I could use iTunes as a single solution. It doesn't look like I can. 😟

Dell 4600/2.8GHz P4/512GB RAM Windows XP Black 30GB 5G

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Answer 15

sbcpdad Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 2, 2006 7:14 AM in response to sbcpdad

My orginal question has been answered and I don't wish to stray off-topic; however, I'd like to try and clarify anything that might be getting lost in the text-only nature of forum exchanges. Here is what I see when I play different CDs in my car stereo. The first two examples are store-bought CDs, the last two were burned from iTunes using different format options.

1) Commercial CD #1 -- CD track numbers display. When I push the stereo's "Text" button to read text info, the display shows "No CD Text".

2) Commercial CD #2: -- Song titles display. Repeatedly pushing the "Text" button cycles through song, album, and artist information.

3) iTunes "Audio CD" -- CD track number displays. "Text" button displays "No CD Text".

4) iTunes "MP3 CD" -- CD track info displays and song title (which I think is the file name). "Text" button cycles through "No title", "No Album" and "No Artist", rather than "No CD Text".

Thanks again for everybody's input. It really helps me climb the learning curve. 🙂

Dell 4600/2.8GHz P4/512GB RAM Windows XP Black 30GB 5G

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