Windows Media Player and CD Ripping

Incorrect and/or missing album information crops up from time to time. More obscure albums, imports and bootlegs can be difficult for Windows Media Player to recognize. It recognizes Britney Spears' CDs every time.

There is a trick to search for the album information if Windows Media Player incorrectly identifies it. I also have a few tips if the unthinkable happens: You need to type in the CD information manually.

Windows Media Player uses a different source for CD info than most ripping programs. Nearly all other ripping programs use either freedb or cddb. Windows Media Player uses All Music Guide (AMG).

Much like Wikipedia, freedb allows anyone to submit album info. You'll find more obscure and unauthorized CDs freedb for this reason. You'll also find more duplicates, inaccuracies and inconsistent naming styles.

With All Music Guide, the CD info typically comes directly from the record companies. The info is reviewed by AMG staff and entered into the database. This reduces inaccuracies, ensures the consistency and completeness and eliminates duplicates. However, this is a labor intensive process and the CD must be commercially available for AMG to include it. CDs on the fringes of mainstream music are easier for All Music Guide overlook.

If missing CD info becomes a serious problem for you, it might be worth seeing if you have better results with MediaMonkey (freedb and Amazon) or iTunes (cddb and iTunes Store).

Tips on Editing CD Info in Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player is a good, general purpose CD ripper. However, subtler issues like this often cannot be overcome in the program. Luckily, when you're ready, there are plenty of free, more specialized ripping programs waiting for you.

Wow, did I really say that? I should know better! Shame on you, self from three years ago.

You are indeed correct, Thomson claims ownership of the MP3 format and attempts to collect royalty fees from anyone who includes an MP3 encoder and decoder in their software or hardware.

According to Thomson's MP3Licensing.com, the standard licensing fee for software that plays MP3 files is $0.75 per unit. Encoding to MP3 in your software will cost anywhere between $2.50 and $5 per unit.

Thanks for pointing out my misstatement. I have, in turn, corrected the article.

I do still stand by my recommendation of encoding to MP3 over all other audio formats unless you have a good reason not to.

You never know when you'll trade in your Zune for an iPod. If you all of your music is encoded in WMA, your new iPod won't play it. Similarly, if you encode all your music to the iPod native AAC format, your new Zune won't play it.

I couldn't agree more. I personally rip CDs to FLAC then transcode to MP3. Knowzy even has a tutorial on using MediaMonkey to convert lossless to MP3.

Keep in mind, however, the context of the article you're commenting on is ripping CDs with Windows Media Player. People use it because it's easy.

I encourage readers who want to go the extra mile for sound quality to investigate the free EAC (Exact Audio Copy). Lossless isn't truly that if the disc reading isn't error-free.

I'm glad you like the turntable article. I really went all out in writing it.

That error correction setting in WMP is quite a find. I had no idea it existed. A Google search shows no one really knows what it does in any detail.

The Well Tempered Computer could have an exclusive on this feature if you get to the bottom of it.

EAC does several things to verify the integrity of the data it reads, including:

• Simply re-reading every sector to make sure it gets the same result.
• Comparing the data against the CD's C1 and C2 error correction checksums. This may be what Window Media Player's "error correction" setting does, though I'm only guessing.

According to EAC's FAQ, most CD-ROMs do not report C1 and C2 errors. The FAQ is many years old, though, and says that "newer" CD-ROM drives tend to report C2 errors.

Perhaps this checkbox only appears for drives that support C2 error detection.