Why does iTunes not transfer song titles when burning to CD?

When you are done burning the CD, with the CD still in the drive and the track names correctly displayed, use the command Submit CD Track Names, as pictured.

This sends the data to the Gracenote CDDB, where, once digested, it will be available to any iTunes user anywhere in the world who has a copy of that CD.

Barry90039 wrote:

Thank you. Odlly enough, the next CD I burned (different content) did carry over the titles to the CD. Do you think it has anything to do with whether or not the content was bought through iTunes?

Barry, You are welcome.

It has nothing to do with whether the content was purchased from the iTunes Store. For more info, see this document:

How iTunes remembers audio CDs

iTunes can burn track names to an audio CD along with the tracks this is via a standard called 'CD Text', however iTunes cannot read CD Text from an audio CD. Instead iTunes uses Gracenote CDDB to lookup and try and find the matching track names. Information is submitted to Gracenote by users.

A HiFi CD player or at least an older one is also likely to not be able to read CD Text from an audio CD but most in-car CD players do support CD Text.

It also used to be the case that some early CD burners in computers did not support CD Text but this is unlikely to be the case these days.

It should be noted that Windows Media Player also cannot read CD Text from audio CDs.

There used to be a setting in iTunes to turn on or off burning CD Text but this is no longer available, I would presume it is on if your CD burner supports it.

Note: If you do burn an audio CD with CD Text but then put it in a computer even the same one and the computer does not have a connection to the Internet then it is not going to be able to use Gracenote to look up the track names, remember iTunes does not read CD Text. If you have burned an exact copy i.e. the same tracks in the same order as an original CD which you previously imported in to iTunes then the track names should be cached on your computer and should show up even if you have no Internet connection. If however you burn a custom collection then this will not have been read as a CD before and is also not likely to be on Gracenote, if your lucky it might still be clever enough to recognise the individual tracks but it would need an Internet connection to talk to Gracenote.

There used to be a setting in iTunes to turn on or off burning CD Text but this is no longer available,

John, I am using iTunes 11.1 and it is still there. It is an option on the Burn Disc dialog, not a preference.

If however you burn a custom collection then this will not have been read as a CD before and is also not likely to be on Gracenote

It will be in Gracenote if the originator has used the "Submit CD Track Names" command. See my earlier post.