iTunes / Track Names / CD Burning

[benos]

I'm feeling a bit silly... as iTunes is stumping on what seems like should be an easy troubleshoot.

Burned a compilation CD for bigJoni (the songs were from purchased CDs, not downloads) - when I put it in her computer the Track Names nor none of each tracks info shows up in iTunes. (Just the generic Track 01, etc.)

Although it's been a while since doing that, I can't remember that happening before.

I put that CD back in my computer and iTunes displays all the songs info, as it did before burning the CD.

While the CD was in bigJoni's computer, I tried "Get Track Names from Internet" - and the error message returned was that "The CD was not found in the CDDB". Which makes it sound like iTunes was only looking for the CD's name, not the track names. That seems weird.

Looked all through the prefs but couldn't find anything.

Same as all the above in Michele's computer.

Before burning another CD, highlighted all the songs in my Playlist, and did "Get CD Track Names, and this time I got "Are you sure you want to get the track names" and clicked OK. Like it was looking for the songs and not the CD's name.

Put the CD back in my computer and burned a CD in Toast from the CD's .aiff files. No help.

Renamed all the music files on the CD (drug to desktop) to include the .aiff file extension and burned again. No help.

Tried burning another compilation from my computer and same deal.

Tried burning just a "I know the CD name and track names are in the CDDB," and all the info appeared as it should in Michele's machine. (As the CD was mounting in iTunes, I watched in the menu bar as it said it was getting the CD track names from the CDDB.)

So I changed the Playlist's name in iTunes to a bogus name and re-burned, but when I put it in Michele's computer, the name displayed correctly on her desktop even though I changed "Minstrel in the Gallery" to "Who's on First". As expected at that point, everything displayed correctly.

A CD burned from a Playlist named "test burn CD" in bigJoni's Mac would also not display in Michele's iTunes.

In Micheles' machine, "Automatically get track names from internet" is checked in iTunes's prefs/General.

All 3 machines have iTunes version 8.

So it boils down to, Joni and Michele's iTunes will only recognize the Track Names/info from a CD burned from my machine if it's burned from a Playlist made from a factory CD with the CD's actual name.

Is this some new Apple/CD BS, or am I a moron and overlooking something really simple?

I'm glad CD's are cheap these days because I went through a pile this afternoon.

be

[BritinUSA]

I think the Get CD track names uses the unique serial number for each Production CD. That's the code that Apple uses to get the track names. Any CD you burn won't have that unique identifier

[wgnoyes]

Are you wanting to bring music over from your computer to theirs? If so, there's a better way using regular iTunes features. That is, create a big playlist containing everything you want to copy (up to the capacity of a cd or dvd platter). Then burn the playlist to dvd or cd as a DATA CD/DVD. That copies the actual .m4a and .m4p files as data files to the optical disk along with a big long .xml file documenting what everything is.

Then, take that disk and put it in the receiving computer. It'll show up on the leftside playlist window and all the disk's contents will be on the right. Then just select everything you want from the disk (ctrl-A on a PC gets it all) and drag it from the right to the "Library" on the left and it will be added to the receiving system.

Using this, I copied my entire library of 10.5 days worth of classical music over to another system using 3 data DVD's, and everything shows up on the receiving system as it should be, complete with album cover artwork, names, artists, equalizer settings, other settings, etc.

[Jadeslade]

If the computers have different Apple ID's (accounts) you will get unpredictable results. You can have 5 computers on an account and can transfer songs with an iPod linked to same account.It is probably better to burn the CDs purchased into each computer rather than try to make a copy and then transfer. For iTunes purchases you can only burn the exact same CD(virtual CD) 5 times. Apple episodically and periodically changes the rules on this. That is why there are so many updates to iTunes. If you make all new purchases DRM free, you should have not further trouble, unless you try to make a business out of copying CDs. There is code embedded to prevent some obvious abuse, but for most personal use it is not an issue. So-you take all the Grateful Dead CDs to the kitchen, make cookies and burn them in to each computer. It is tedious. I have had to do this several times-it is time consuming and boring. No real quick and dirty. Third party apps are really not keeping up with iTunes-better to use native software. MyBook is an excellent backup drive system and will back up all your iTunes libraries in the future, automatically (pictures too), and is reasonably priced. Good luck. It is such a frustrating pain. It really is-I feel for you.

[benos]

I think the Get CD track names uses the unique serial number for each Production CD. That's the code that Apple uses to get the track names. Any CD you burn won't have that unique identifier

That appears to be the case.

Sadness.

I burned a 2 song compilation - both artists were from bought CDs - no track info in a different computer.

I burned a 1 song CD - the track info was as it should be in a different computer.

So it appears, for a burned CD in iTunes, if artists for more than one album are on the CD, iTunes won't recognize any track info if the CD is in a different computer that it was burned in.

That stinks. And still have this feeling that it hasn't always been like that.

I wonder if it's an Apple related "piracy thing"?

be

And thanks Bill. Me and Joni figured out the data thing because her card stereo will play MP3s.

If wan't to move lots of music around I drag/drop with a Firewire drive.

[dkleskiw]

I've had this same problem, but it's been so long since I've burned a CD that I'm not sure if this is how I fixed it....but I'll try.

I'm running windows iTunes, and when I create a playlist and burn it, a pop-up comes up. Is the 'Include CD Text' checked? I think that was the 'trick'.

I don't even have blank CD's to try.

Maybe try checking the 'MP3 CD'? That should bring the names along for the ride too.

Hope one of these helps.

Darren

[benos]

I've had this same problem, but it's been so long since I've burned a CD that I'm not sure if this is how I fixed it....but I'll try.

I'm running windows iTunes, and when I create a playlist and burn it, a pop-up comes up. Is the 'Include CD Text' checked? I think that was the 'trick'.

I don't even have blank CD's to try.

Maybe try checking the 'MP3 CD'? That should bring the names along for the ride too.

Hope one of these helps.

Darren

Thanks. I tried that but no help. And I had medium to high hopes for it...

be