Hello!
I know use of CD-Text may have been discussed ad infinitum, but I do not see the answer to my specific question in FAQs or elsewhere in the Forum. It concerns the addition of CD-Text for CDs where it doesn't exist ....
I want to create Image files of CDs that do not have CD-Text but would like to manually add Disc and Track Title information myself and have that included in the Image. Since I use CD Images and not CDs, when I mount the Image and play it in Windows Media Player (with the WMPCDTEXT plug-in), the CD-Text should be visible.
Just in case you're wondering, this is for new CDs from local artists that are not in the online databases WMP uses and homemade CDs from cassette mix tapes from back-in-the-day.
Now, I've seen the Guide on doing this for a collection of wav, mp3, flac etc. files but nothing about doing it for a CD.
One method might be to rip the CD to wav files then create an Image per the aforementioned Guide. But I feel the added conversion to wav files will compromise audio quality and that is my utmost concern (regardless of what people say, I can easily hear the difference between a wav file and the same track on a CD).
What I'm considering is:
1) Creating an Image from the CD.
2) Editing the CUE file created so that it includes Disc and Track Titles.
I could stop here and any CD created from the edited Image will include the newly-added CD-Text Information. But I don't want to create a CD, I just want to use the Image. And Windows Media Player does not pick up the CD-Text from this altered Image (I think it needs the CDT file), so.....
3) Burn an text-enabled CD using the edited Image (on a "temporary" CD-RW).
4) Create a new image from the text-enabled CD. This Image includes the edited CUE and a CDT file. Windows Media Player now shows the CD-Text information for the Image.
I could use this new Image in place of the first, but the actual audio data is now 3rd generation (yes, I know this is not analog copying, but even in digital copying, bits drop off each generation, no?). So...
5) Move the CUE and CDT files of the new image to the old image folder.
6) Erase the new image folder.
I tried this for a couple of CDs and it seems to be working, but I can't help feeling there is an easier way to create the new CUE and CDT files and have a first generation Image of the original CD.
Am i missing something really obvious?
Thanks.
T