CD Identifiers and CDDBs: Why does wrong metadata sometimes get pulled from CDDBs?

[jrk-sc]

Hi All,

I understand the concept that to pull metadata from a CDDB, a short segment of each track is read to create a "unique" identifier for each CD. (If that is not conceptually correct, what is correct?)

Given that each CD has a dynamically created (allegedly unique) identifier, then:

1) Why does metadata from the wrong artist and album sometimes get pulled from the CDDBs? Is there a "fix" for when this occurs? (That is, how to find the correct metadata?)

2) When an artist and album are correctly identified, why do the wrong track names sometimes get pulled from the CDDBs, or the correct track names get pulled in the wrong order? Again, is there a "fix" for when this occurs?

Thanks in advance for enlightening me with your knowledge!

Jon K

[Dat Ei]

AFAIK this unique identifier (checksum) is based on the TOC (table of content) of the CD. This is always unique for a release and pressing, but only unique most of the times for all CDs on the market. And this is the reason why you can see wrong metadata for a CD.

Beside that a CD can store certain metadata (CD text), so that you can see the right artist and album title, but the wrong metadata from the other sources / databases.

Dat Ei