CD audio question

[Cobra348]

I have noticed some oddities when playing CDs of varying origins in the FFH or in my Fiesta (as a comparison). The following tests have been done once I noticed that song title and artist are not read in all cases.

 

CASE #1: Commercial CD - Queen "Live Killers" album to be exact.

FFH - states "reading disc" but song titles and artist are not displayed in the Entertainment screen to the right of the speedo. Both this and the center stack display "Track ##" where the ## is the track number.

 

Fiesta reads this CD perfectly - title information is displayed.

 

CASE #2: CD burned using MediaMonkey.

FFH - reads disk and reacts same as described above.

 

Fiesta reads disc and reacts same as FFH.

 

CASE 3: CD burned using CDBurnerXP.

Both cars properly display title and artist.

 

So, here's my question. Realizing Fiesta is not same as FFH in equipment I can see differences in how they would read a CD. However, how come FFH can't even read the labels on a retail/commercial CD? With CDBurnerXP and MediaMonkey I can see the the track tagging format of these may be the cause.

 

Anyone got an idea on this? Should I stroll into the dealer and ask? Thanks!

 

[hybridbear]

Do you have GraceNote turned on in the FFH? That could be a factor...

[Waldo]

My understanding is there are two ways that CD track information can be displayed. The main one is not actually "read", it instead uses the gracenotes database to match the CD (using track time signatures) and displays the track and artist information from the database, not from the CD itself. But some new CDs do have some kind of track information that can be read, but I don't know how that works.

 

My guess is case #1 is an issue with the Gracenotes in the FFH either turned off or not updated, case #2 is probably that your CD doesn't match the original CD format exactly and thus isn't picked up by Gracenotes and case 3 is either that the CD does match the Gracenotes signature or that CDBurnerXP can create the tags that the cars can read.

[Cobra348]

Went out to the car and looked. Gracenote was in the OFF position so I changed that but left priority setting to Media. Turned ignition off then back on and inserted a commercial album again. FFH did not display the title/artist info.

 

Gracenote database info is version 5.6.2.9,5060. Dunno if that is current.

[corncobs]

Sorry I can't resist but the FFH has a CD player?!

 

;)

Edited May 26, 2015 by corncobs

[GrySql]

Sorry I can't resist but the FFH has a CD player?!

 

;)

Mine does, a single CD player. Page 110 in your Owner's Manual.

 

My other car with the Sony system has a 6-CD player.

[Cobra348]

Sorry I can't resist but the FFH has a CD player?!

 

;)

<continues derailment>

 

<BAP!> Heck even the little Fiesta has a CD player! <chuckle> I now feel reasonably comfy in the FFH so it's time I start playing with things other than the radio and Sirius. <shrug> Sue me, I'm a 1-step anal old fogey. :)

 

</end continued derailment>

Edited May 26, 2015 by Cobra348

[SteveB_TX]

People still use CDs??? ;) :stirpot:

[TonyHzNV]

People still use CDs??? ;) :stirpot:

Yeah, Steve, some of us still do! I, however usually only make MP3 CDs when I make them and I usually copy what I want onto them from my iTunes library. I run them through a program called "MP3Tag" to make sure all the info is consistent and correct before burning. If not, I edit it first. If you don't use the max frequency depth when importing into iTunes, the files can be small enough to get about 100 songs on a regular 700MB CD. You could copy a whole lot more to a USB drive though. I have my whole jazz library on 2 64GB USB drives and have others with other types of music. On a long road trip you want choices. For short trips or around town CDs of favorites are OK. I guess that's why you can still buy them. Oh, and just because you don't have an iPod doesn't mean you can't use iTunes to organize your music. Just set iTunes to import your CDs as MP3 instead of the Apple format (m4a I think). Then you can copy whole folders to USB or CD. When you copy them to a temp folder to burn, make sure that you have a folder for each artist with each of his/her albums in a separate folder below their name folder. MFT likes this and will display all the info and allow you to browse by artist, album, genre, etc. Edited May 27, 2015 by TonyHzNV

[Cobra348]

Hadn't heard of MP3Tag before ... think it would work with MediaMonkey? My gal snags tunes from all over using MM but for some reason her tags are not readable on the cars.

 

I might get it to insure the tags are correct on stuff I burn as well. My turntable is used to turn my old vinyl into MP3 and the current version uses different tagging than the original IDT version. Maybe this program can correct that. And yes, I still have vinyl as well ... and cassette ... and believe it or not some 8-tracks. They're all getting changed into electronic format.

 

My music and comedy stuff goes from 1952 to the late '70s. My gal has from Swing era to the '80s. Between us we have about 9000 tracks or more.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Cobra348

[Hybrider]

I prefer CDs because I'm pretty sure the music is not compressed on those original CDs, like it is in the MP3s.

 

But I can usually find a good song amongst all of the station choices on my Sirius satellite radio. And if I can't find anything I like on Sirius, I have a CD inserted and ready to play great quality tunes for me to listen to for a while.

[Cobra348]

yeah ... Sirius has been quite helpful. I also know some oldies stations in some of the areas I travel so I can get them on FM if I choose.

[md13ffhguy]

I prefer CDs because I'm pretty sure the music is not compressed on those original CDs, like it is in the MP3s.

 

But I can usually find a good song amongst all of the station choices on my Sirius satellite radio. And if I can't find anything I like on Sirius, I have a CD inserted and ready to play great quality tunes for me to listen to for a while.

The compression you get with Sirius is worse than most average bitrate MP3s, like those you might download from Amazon. An MP3 with a bitrate of just 128 kbps will sound noticeably better than Sirius. Even streaming services like Pandora and Slacker (my personal favorite) offer better sound quality than Sirius. Sit in your car for a few minutes and do some comparisons. Even FM radio will sound better than Sirius, if you're not too far away from the transmitting station. Seriously. ;) Edited May 27, 2015 by md13ffhguy

[billford]

After reading this, I tried my CD for the first time, after about 2 years, it worked!

 

It didn't display the song title, just the track number and time. Is it supposed to show more? The CDs at least 20 years old...

[Hybrider]

Some time within the last 20-30 years, some CDs started including info on them for showing the track titles, etc. And some CD players have the ability to show the extra info, including the CD player in my FFH SE with MFT. But not all CDs, old-ish or new, have the extra track info added onto them.

[hybridbear]

iTunes uses Gracenote to figure out CD info. Gracenote looks at the number of tracks, their length & their order to figure out the CD info. That's how iTunes knows the track names when it imports the CD. If you burn a CD from iTunes you can write the track names on there. We haven't put a CD on the Fusion in a couple years but I believe the MFT screen will show the track info burned from iTunes. CDs we've borrowed from the library & ones we own don't show data on the MFT screen in the Focus Electric, we haven't tried them in the Fusion.