Windows Media Player CD-Text

Martin Brinkmann
Dec 3, 2008
Updated • Jan 2, 2013
Software
|
7

CD-Text is used to store additional information on an audio CD. The information consist of the album, name, song name, track info and artist usually. Many computer music players like Winamp or MediaMonkey can read CD-Text and display the information. Instead of playing track 1 the user would actually see the track name and related information which improves the music listening experience considerable.

Windows Media Player never officially supported CD-Text which is where WMPCDText comes into play. The plugin for Windows Media Player 10 or 11 is capable of reading and displaying CD-Text information in Windows Media Player, so that users of Microsoft's default media player can take advantage of CD text as well.

The Windows Media Player plugin comes with an option to automatically load the CD-Text information if present on the CD. The alternative would be to right-click on the tracks of the CD to load the CD-Text information into Windows Media Player.

This obviously only works with CDs that make use of CD-Text information. Many burning software programs can burn CD-Text including Nero, ImgBurn or iTunes. The Windows Media Player plugin will run on Windows 2003, Windows XP and Windows Vista with administrative rights required on XP and 2003.

WMPCDText especially comes in handy when using Windows Media Player for playing home-made audio CDs. Before WMPCDText, you would have to insert all the track information of such a CD manually into Windows Media Player. Now, just make sure that the CD-Text information is burned onto the CD, play the burned CD with Windows Media Player, and WMPCDText will automatically read the track information from the CD itself and insert it into the Media Library.

Update: Windows Media Player CDText has been updated recently. It is compatible with Windows 7, and preliminary support for the upcoming Microsoft operating system Windows 8 and Windows Media Player 12 have been added as well in that version. Support for Windows Media Player 10 has been dropped on the other hand, which means that it will only work with Media Player 11 or up from now on.

Advertisement

Tutorials & Tips


Previous Post: «
Next Post: «

Comments

  1. no thx said on October 25, 2009 at 4:09 pm
    Reply

    no thx!

    it´s look like a trojan in this file:(

    Antivirus Version Last Update Result
    Antiy-AVL 2.0.3.7 2009.10.23 Trojan/Win32.Banbra.gen
    Jiangmin 11.0.800 2009.10.24 Trojan/Banker.Banbra.aky

    full report on this site:
    http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/b20c4a4116b5006f97f0a97d5c0d0e138eb91f94fd70e2a9f016f7e6f1f40e00-1256477558

    1. Tim De Baets said on November 18, 2009 at 5:16 pm
      Reply

      Hi, I’m the author of WMPCDText and I can assure you that these were false positives. If you scan the file at VirusTotal yourself, you will see that newer definitions of these antivirus programs don’t detect the trojan anymore.

    2. Martin said on October 25, 2009 at 4:36 pm
      Reply

      It is very likely that this is a false positive.

  2. Dotan Cohen said on December 3, 2008 at 9:18 pm
    Reply

    K3B (The KDE disc burning utility) has supported CD-Text for something like five years now. I cannot believe that this feature was missing from Windows Media Player.

  3. Wesley said on December 3, 2008 at 9:12 pm
    Reply

    Not being able to see CD info in windows media player is one of the reason I never use it. This looks useful but still doesn’t make me want to start using wmp.

    1. Shane said on December 5, 2009 at 8:49 pm
      Reply

      I read your post and use media player to burn audio cd’s. I want my car radio to be able to show the artist and song. What product would you recommend for me to accomplish this since media player doesn’t?

Leave a Reply

Check the box to consent to your data being stored in line with the guidelines set out in our privacy policy

We love comments and welcome thoughtful and civilized discussion. Rudeness and personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please stay on-topic.
Please note that your comment may not appear immediately after you post it.