OT Mac CD Music listings and iTunes Meddling

No matter how I do a directory search of a music CD, I get wrong listings--even in Terminal and Linux (keyboard text-only, no pictures).

The tracks on a music CD are really labeled "track01.cda," "track2.cda," etc. On a Mac, the tracks are labeled "Benny Goodman String of Pearls.aiff."

That's impossible. Music CDs have no title information on the disk, so OS-X/iTunes is "helping me" whether I want the help or not.

What's troubling is that it's happening in Terminal as well. That's the mode that's supposed to show you what's really there for troubleshooting. Sorry, there are no .aiff files on a commercial music CD.

Koz

Yes, but you have to love it because it's a Mac and it just works...

You're complaining that iTunes helps you?

Are you that much of a geek that you use Terminal? Sheesh Koz...Apple doesn't like geeks, Jobs wants things SIMPLE. Thus, iTunes. Which I use to catalog EVERYTHING...music, SFX...pretty slick.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Koz, you can turn that function OFF in iTunes

iTunes prefs > Advanced > Importing > Retrieve Track names from internet.


hope that helps,
nick

> iTunes prefs > Advanced > Importing > Retrieve Track names from internet.

I don't think this function affects discs that have already got track names saved in the database. I have the above function perpetually turned off, but discs that have been named before will still get named automatically. And discs that iTunes thinks is an older disc will get automatically named, as well.


www.derekmok.com

hmmm well in that case you'd want a simple re-naing app.

my favourite one, R-Name, is no longer available,
although i can mail you a copy if you'd like.
i liked it's simplicity.

there will be others out there... like this one which i've also used:
[www.power4mac.com]


cheers,
nick

> my favourite one, R-Name, is no longer available

Really? I'd just downloaded it several weeks ago (on your recommendation) and loved it.

I remember the CD track listings are in the preferences somewhere and can be dumped so that previously loaded CDs won't have a track listing anymore...and if you then have "Get Track Names from Internet" turned off, you can start with a clean slate. Can't remember where those files are, though.


www.derekmok.com

Quote
derek
downloaded it several weeks ago

oh? that's good to hear.
i've tried to find it a couple of times in the last month, and it's just not available via the usual channels.

nm

And everybody's missing the point.

Yes, I enjoy enormously the fact that the System is doing everything in its power to make the computer experience smooth and enjoyable (do I sound like a commercial?), however my hat says "When Things Go Wrong." Everybody already knows what happens when things go right.

If you have a previously mounted disk, you're stuck with "String Of Pearls.aiff." However, one of the Heavy Systems Persons suggested that if I UNIX mounted the CD as an ISO-6990 disk instead of a Music CD, I would get The Real Thing instead of iTunes helping me out.

Where's my UNIX books. I may need extra coffee for this.....

Koz

Weeell, if you wanted to, not sure why you would, but if you wanted to, you could go to System Preferences > CDs and DVDs and change 'When you insert a music CD' to the application or script of your choosing. Then use Unix gear to have your evil way with the files.

<<<have your evil way with the files.>>>

Not so much that as I , you know, just like to watch.

I'm responding to another question from someone who saw all the .aiff files and couldn't understand why he couldn't just copy them onto his desktop and into another application.

I said they're not .aiff files, they're .cda files in a special format, see? ..Oh....wait...

Koz

Quote
Koz claimed:
I said they're not .aiff files, they're .cda files in a special format, see? ..Oh....wait...

hmmm, I'm not so sure that's true, at least in a practical sense. People import music off a CD directly into FCP all the time (and then wonder why the file goes offline when they eject the CD) and it plays "just like" an AIFF, albeit with a less-than-optimum 44.1 kHz sample rate. Or, copy the CD cut to the hard disk, then import without any modification, same success story.

I saw earlier someone suggested tossing iTunes preferences to make it forget all that title information. It seems real unlikely that Unix is consulting those preferences, or some other database, when you're trying to do a simple directory listing, but how else can you explain that Unix returned those names? The files on the CD itself can't be renamed. Have you tried dumping prefs, or finding those files that Derek thinks exist that keep all this information?

And to complete the confusion, when I put a commercial audio CD in my computer, file names are "X Audio Track.aiff" and iTunes has never touched it.

Scott

<<<commercial audio CD in my computer>>>

Sure, now put that same CD in a PC and see what happens. After you close the player window, you can open a directory search and it will show you the real ISO-6990 filenames. I think you can do this on a Linux machine, too.

You can't do that hot .aiff file transfer thing with all sound applications and that causes trouble.

Koz

Quote
Koz:
Sure, now put that same CD in a PC and see what happens.

Good point. So I did, and there are even more worms in that can. Yes, I see those rather different file names, but I also see that Windows 2000 (both the GUI and DOS interfaces) says that each file is 44 bytes, 440 bytes total on this 10-song disk. The GUI report further states that the "size on disk" of each file is 2.00 KB, I suppose due to cluster size.

The Mac reports true file sizes.

So neither one is telling the whole truth, near as I can tell.

Scott

One more point to add to that - it would appear that the *.cda files are not music files, they are just ... pointers? ... to music files. Windows doesn't seem to want us to see the music files.

DRM running wild?

Scott

>>who saw all the .aiff files and couldn't understand why he couldn't just copy them onto his desktop and into another application.
<<

Yeah, sure you can. Just open the CD at the finder level by double clicking the CD icon, then drag the song of choice to the desktop. It will copy over and you can use it where ever you like. As far as I know they are straight 44.1 aiff files.