Flac to cd conversion--no tags

[Unregistered]

Hi, and thanks in advance. I have saved my cds to .flac files on the hard drive. Rather than fishing around for the cds, I would like to convert the .flac files to .wav and burn to cd. The conversion with dMC was easy. The .flac front end will also decode just fine. I can burn a CD fine using dBpowerAmP CD writer, and the cd plays fine. The problem is if I attempt to play the cd in the computer using iTunes or Windows Media Player, the cd plays, but only the track number is displayed--no song title, etc. I want to be able to uses iTunes, for example, to rip the CDs to MP3 for playing on my iPod, but iTunes can't find any tags. The tags, i.e. song names do appear in the CD writer screen (the last screen where the actual "burn" button appears), but they are not on the CD. I was careful to select the convert to audio cd option. Any ideas. I have a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-103 in the PC. Is it possible that this drive cannot write text info on the new CD or am I missing something basic. Thanks. Dean

[ChristinaS]

Re: Flac to cd conversion--no tags

Hi, and thanks in advance. I have saved my cds to .flac files on the hard drive. Rather than fishing around for the cds, I would like to convert the .flac files to .wav and burn to cd. The conversion with dMC was easy. The .flac front end will also decode just fine. I can burn a CD fine using dBpowerAmP CD writer, and the cd plays fine. The problem is if I attempt to play the cd in the computer using iTunes or Windows Media Player, the cd plays, but only the track number is displayed--no song title, etc. I want to be able to uses iTunes, for example, to rip the CDs to MP3 for playing on my iPod, but iTunes can't find any tags. The tags, i.e. song names do appear in the CD writer screen (the last screen where the actual "burn" button appears), but they are not on the CD. I was careful to select the convert to audio cd option. Any ideas. I have a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-103 in the PC. Is it possible that this drive cannot write text info on the new CD or am I missing something basic. Thanks. Dean

Well, audio cd's do not have any tags associated with their tracks. Such information is not stored on the cd. Commercial cd's usually have a matching entry in the freedb internet database, based on some method of recognition that players such as WMP use to seek the information. This is why, if you are connected to the internet while playing them in a player like WMP, you may see that information displayed. Occasionally the odd tracks from a burnt cd may also find a match there, but most of the time that would be incorrect, just a fluke.

On the other hand, your compressed files that are present on your pc have their tags as they have been set during the conversion process, either from the original match with the freedb database, or from information you have put in them yourself.

[Unregistered]

Re: Flac to cd conversion--no tags

Thanks. That makes sense, i.e. that the commercial cds contain information that a cd database can recognize. One thing I noticed was that when I put the newly-created cd (created from the .flac to wav conversion), EAC was able to fill in the track information. So...is EAC accessing the remote database or is it finding track information on the pc (seems unlikely). If the former, then I wonder who WMA can't do the same. Dean

[ChristinaS]

Re: Flac to cd conversion--no tags

Thanks. That makes sense, i.e. that the commercial cds contain information that a cd database can recognize. One thing I noticed was that when I put the newly-created cd (created from the .flac to wav conversion), EAC was able to fill in the track information. So...is EAC accessing the remote database or is it finding track information on the pc (seems unlikely). If the former, then I wonder who WMA can't do the same. Dean

Well, I'd venture a guess here.

Let's say you take a commercial cd, for which informaiton is therefore available in the freedb internet database. You rip it to wav. You reburn an audio cd using those wav files. It should get you back an audio cd equivalent to the commercial one, thus the artists and album information will be available again for it. In essence it will be like an exact copy, on a track by track basis.

Now flac is a lossless compression format. This means that when a wav file is reconstructed from it it should be identical in all respects to the original wav file.

When you encode to flac from an audio cd, the process is the same as extracting wav and encoding wav to flac. Decode flac back to wav, you have the same thing as the original. Burn wav to audio cd, you're back to an exact replica of your original audio track. Ergo the information will be again available in the freedb database.

All this of course assumes that there is absolutely no variation, however small, in the bit pattern of the wav files that are implicated, including the total size in bytes of the file.

It is said flac is lossless. I don't know if this is just theory. It seems to be true.

[Unregistered]

Re: Flac to cd conversion--no tags

My guess is that when you encode to .flac the encoding is done on a song by song basis. I believe I read somewhere that the tag information on a cd is stored as a seperate file. Therefore, the cd tagging information is not copied during the .flac encoding. If this is correct, it still does not explain to me why EAC inserts the correct song name information when I insert the newly burned CD (the cd to .flac to cd) in the PC. ??

[Spoon]

Re: Flac to cd conversion--no tags

freedb goes off the start location of the CD, not all CDs start on the same frame.

[Unregistered]

Re: Flac to cd conversion--no tags

Okay. Thanks. So... is there a solution. I am not by any means a sophisticated audio/computer guy.

[Unregistered]

Re: Flac to cd conversion--no tags

BTY, I was just thinking. EAC seems to find the song titles just fine--iTunes and Windows Media Player do not. Maybe iTunes and WMP don't use freedb.