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Topic: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's (Read 18470 times) previous topic - next topic
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EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

MY SYSTEM
Windows 7
CD-ROM Drive: Lite-On IHAS5324
Exact Audio Copy: v1.1
FlyHoward SDF File Viewer: v1.11.5

BACKGROUND
I have a few Audio Books that I want to archive using EAC ripping software. These CD's are not listed in any of the Music Library databases. The Title, Artist, etc. tags are not available. This means that these tags do not automatically pre-fill the text fields in EAC. The text fields I'm referring to are the ones at the top of EAC, just under the tool bar and over to the right; the text fields that ask for, "CD Title", "CD Artist", "Genre", "Year", etc.

These audio book sets contain between 6 to 13 disks each. When I insert the next CD into the drive, all the information in EAC gets reset to blank. For each CD, I must enter all the tag information by hand even though the only thing that changes is the CD number. What I have been doing, as a workaround, is to save the tag info to a text file and copy/paste each field for each new CD. This is tedious and time-consuming. After running the software on any of the CD's, the TAG information gets uploaded to the FreeDB database. If I insert that same CD into the drive again, all the information appears.

QUESTION
Instead of copy/pasting all the TAG information into the EAC fields for each new CD, I would like to find a way to have those fields fill automatically.

1. Is there a way to "persuade" EAC to grab the previous CD's info so I can change only one of the fields?

2. Is the data for the CD stored locally after I enter it and run the program? The only file that I found in %appdata%\EAC is the CDDB.sdf. Is the TAG info stored in those tables? Looking at that file in an SDF file viewer (FlyHoward v1.11.5), I do not see it.

3. Is there another way to "auto fill" those fields?

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #1 –
As I've been research this issue, I was thinking that I could create a local freedb database and edit the table entries manually. That would allow me to cut and paste the similar information for each CD (from one set) into multiple queries. So, I'll be taking a look at that.

A whole lot simpler would be to use the EAC "Database > Export CD Information to: (multiple options)". Unfortunately, this has its own set of difficulties.

Here is the list of "Multiple Options" for where to export to:
1. Clipboard
2. Text File
3. DB Text File
4. CDPLAYER.INI
5. CDT File

Here are the problems associated with each of these...

1. Clipboard only contains the Title and Artist information and Track titles. Not only that, but during the export, the track titles get amended with extra, unwanted information, such as numbers that weren't there in the original data. The other information such as "Performer", "Year", "Composer", etc. is not included.

2. Same as #1.

3. Similar to #1.

4. I'm looking at the CDPlayer.ini file located in the C:\Windows folder. Nothing is being written to this file. Is there another instance of this file I should be looking at?

5. What exactly is a .CDT file? I can't find any reference to it. With what software app would you open, view, edit it? In Notepad++, I can see some of the ASCII characters rendered, and it looks more complete than any of the other export options. The only thing I found on Google was a reference to "CUE+BIN+CDT or CUE+WAV files exported from any good audio editor or any audio mastering software (or EAC)."

QUESTION
How do you view and edit the .CDT file that EAC generates?

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #2 –
According to this review, the drive is capable of reading CD-TEXT information ... did you test that option in EAC's drive settings ?

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #3 –
@Maggi - My drive comes up in the EAC "Configuration Wizard" as "ATAPI iHAS324 Y". It says:

Accurate Stream : Yes
Audio Cache : No
C2 Error Information : Yes

Are you suggesting that the CD album tags, etc. are stored on the CD itself?

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #4 –
check out the menu entry EAC > drive options > drive (2nd tab)
at the very bottom you'll find a check box for "CD-Text Read capable drive"

If your discs actually contain that information is unknown to me, but at least there's a chance that they do ... :)

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #5 –
Ok, just did that: "Drive Options > Drive > CD-Text Read Capable Drive" and Enabled (checked) it. Also, "Drive Read Command" is set to "Autodetect."

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #6 –
try this: menu > Database > Get CD Information From > CD-TEXT

I'll keep my fringers crossed ... ;)

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #7 –
Thanks for your suggestions.

Not sure if there is any data on the CD, however. Doesn't seem to be. When I reload or restart EAC, no new info appears in the data fields. When I used that command, "Get information from > CD-Text", nothing new appeared.

I just posted another thread asking about whether the Local freedb database is supported in EAC v1.1 (can't find the options for it.)
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=111873

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #8 –
sorry to hear, what a bummer ... :(

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #9 –
In all these years I think that I have yet to find a pressed CD with CD-Text information.

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #10 –
There have been a number of topics on the same theme by the OP today.

There are other programs and databases capable of grabbing/providing metadata online. Otherwise he'll just have to do what the rest if us do: manage the unknown titles manually.

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #11 –
I have no statistics, but I've seen quite a few for myself and was under the impression that nowadays all would come with CD-Text information.

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #12 –
Quote from: Maggi on
I have no statistics, but I've seen quite a few for myself and was under the impression that nowadays all would come with CD-Text information.

While they could easily include CD-TEXT information on every CD, it's still pretty rare.
The only CD in my collection with CD-TEXT is Oasis - Definitely Maybe.

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #13 –
Quote from: nastea on
While they could easily include CD-TEXT information on every CD, it's still pretty rare.
The only CD in my collection with CD-TEXT is Oasis - Definitely Maybe.
Interesting ... if I can find some time, I'll have a look into my collection at home and post back.

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #14 –
According to the German Wikipedia entry, Sony includes CD-Text to their CDs since April 1997.

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Jerry9 on
When I insert the next CD into the drive, all the information in EAC gets reset to blank.

In case you rip to flac, you could simply use EAC to rip to wav, rename the files to 01.wav 02.wav 03.wav etc.
and then write a batch file to do the WAV to FLAC conversion. This is an example batch file for a 20 track cd.
The ... needs to be replaced with manual input, you can speed things up later using find and replace for other cd's.
So you don't have to type everything over and over again.

flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=1" 01.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=2" 02.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=3" 03.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=4" 04.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=5" 05.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=6" 06.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=7" 07.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=8" 08.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=9" 09.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=10" 10.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=11" 11.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=12" 12.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=13" 13.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=14" 14.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=15" 15.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=16" 16.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=17" 17.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=18" 18.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=19" 19.wav
flac -8 -T "ARTIST=..." -T "TITLE=..." -T "ALBUM=..." -T "DATE=..." -T "TRACKNUMBER=20" 20.wav

Save the file as wtf.bat (Wave To Flac) and run it.

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #16 –
@nastea - That is an interesting idea.

I had an idea with using the EAC command line options.
Main Menu: "EAC > Compression Options > External Compression (tab) > Additional command-line options (text field)"

I used them as literal strings; so, instead of "ARTIST=%artist%", I use, "ARTIST=Virgil's Aeneid".  Not sure if that works. Here's an example:

-6 -V -T "ARTIST=Virgil's Aeneid - CD8" -T "TITLE=Title" -T "PERFORMER=Performer" -T "DATE=1992" -T "GENRE=Audio Book" -T "FREEDB=Misc." -T "COMPOSER=Composer" -T "COMMENT=Unabridged" -T "DISCNUMBER=8" -T "TOTALDISCS=11"

None of those values got written to the cuesheet.

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #17 –
Why do you need a cuesheet? Do you rip the discs to images?

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #18 –
FYI: It turns out those Literal Strings in the "Additional Command-Line Arguments" get written to the FLAC file, not the cuesheet. Which is ok with me. They are easy to generate for each set because I use a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet =concatenate( ) function and have to only do the work for the first CD, then the rest are taken care of. You can read the FLAC file header blocks by using, "metaflac --list file.flac > flac_headers.txt".

The reason I want a cuesheet is, that's where all the CD metadata will be stored. Otherwise, I have no record of it. Also, my WDTV media player can read the cuesheet, so I only need a single flac image file and a cuesheet, for each CD in a set.

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #19 –
I found exactly the same problem! Having explored all the export cd info and import cd info combination the problem persists. I have written to EAC's contact and will post here if I ever get positive response.

Re: EAC - How to Auto Fill Tag Info for Unlisted CD's

Reply #20 –
I had the requirement to change (only) the fields titel and artist (for each track) in one step. As it sounds similar to the beginning problem, I post my solution here:
  • Create a list in the format [title] / [artist]. Each line represents a track in order of the tracks of the CD. If you're using a spreadsheet, make sure to use only 1 column
  • Copy the list to the clipboard
  • Use Menu>Database>Get CD information>From clipboard [or similar, I'm using the german version]
  • Use Menu>Database>Change CD information>Split trackinformation into artist/title [or similar, I'm using the german version]