CD Text for Kunaki?

[AnArtist]

Hi. I have a question that I don't know if you can answer, but it would be awesome if you could help me because I'm going a bit crazy with this at the moment. I hope this is the right section to post it.

 

Basically, I'm an artist and I'm going to sell some CDs through Kunaki.com (a very cheap duplication on-demand service) and I'm confused about "CD Text". Some say CD Text is not that important because, after all, software like iTunes or Windows Media Player don't use CD Text at all, because they get the artist/track info from their own online databases. But to me CD Text still seems important because CD players in cars use it, and I wouldn't like my CD to show something like "Unknown Album, Track 1, Track 2" etc in my fans' cars.

 

I see how to burn a CD with CD Text in ImgBurn, I understand how to do it, so no problem. What's my problem, then? Well, according to Kunaki's FAQs they do support CD Text but only, literally, the leading standard in the area of CD text, not the Sony standard, which is not universally supported. I suppose what they actually mean here is they only support the standard lead-in area (or something like this). Does ImgBurn burn CD Text in the lead-in area? This is my first question

 

But anyway, doing some Internet research about this I found out most people (if not all) say Kunaki gets rid of the CD Text after all. To provide Kunaki with your master CD for them to duplicate, all you have to do is insert it in your CD/DVD reader on your computer and their software supposedly makes an "exact copy" of the CD. But how can it be an "exact copy" if so many people say their master CD did have CD Text and, then, when they got the duplicated CDs from Kunaki these did not have CD Text?

 

Then, doing some more research about CD Text and Kunaki I found this precious paragraph, which seems to be the only thing on the whole Internet that says there's a way to do it. Please read it if you want (the bold text mainly):

 

Burn a Test Disc
Now you’ll want to take your ISRCs and your WAV files and burn a disc that has this data included on it. By doing this, you’ll create a disc you can duplicate that will have all the data you’d want it to have. While you’re doing this, you might as well add in some CDTEXT, which is what tells non-Internet connected CD players (like the one in your car) the text to display when playing the album. In my Prius, it’ll show me the artist, album, and track titles. To do this, it depends a bit on what you’re going to do with your packaging, and who you’re having duplicate the discs. If you use Disc Makers (who does a damn good job) they have some software that adds this information for you. If you’re using a company like kunaki.com  (who also does a great job for small batches), you’re on your own for figuring out how to make this happen. I did some research, and found it can be accomplished by creating a CUE file inside a free CD birning program called ImgBurn. Use the create a CUE file option in that program to add the Artist Name, Disc Title, and Track Titles. Once that has been created, edit the file in a text editor, and add lines for the ISRC code for each track. Now burn a copy of the disc by double clicking the cue file, and it will give you a disc that has CDTEXT and ISRCs included.

 

Source: http://funnymatt.com/2014/04/

 

Maybe this way it would work?

 

Lastly, I emailed Kunaki (not great customer support) asking whether they support CD Text or not and they replied "no, it's not supported". But then I answered, "how is CD Text not supported if your own FAQs say it is supported??" Crazy... I'm waiting to see if they reply.

 

Sorry for the long post. Basically I want to know if anyone here has worked with Kunaki and how to get them to embed CD Text on my duplicated CDs. Thank you very much and excuse my non-native English.

[AnArtist]

UPDATE: Because of my question, Kunaki has informed me they've just changed their FAQ page. This is what they say about CD Text now:

 

2.28  Will my song titles, artist information, credits etc. show on the CDs you manufacture for me?       We do not support CD Text.

 

But I still have the hope it can work by burning a CUE file in ImgBurn.    I guess I'll have to try it and waste a CD if it doesn't work.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

CD-TEXT isn't readable/writable in the same way that typical data ('user data') on the disc is read/written, maybe that's why the duplicated discs don't contain it?

 

As you say, all you can do is burn a disc containing CD-TEXT info and give it to them. Either the duplicate copies have it or they don't. You can't do anything about the process they use for making the duplicates.