'CD-Text' is an extension of the
Red Book Compact Disc specifications standard for
audio CDs. It allows for storage of additional information (e.g. album name, song name, and artist) on a standards-compliant audio CD. The information is stored either in the
lead-in area of the CD, where there is roughly five kilobytes of space available, or in the Subchannels ''R'' to ''W'' on the disc, which can store about 31 megabytes. These areas are not used by strict Red Book CDs. The text is stored in a format usable by the
Interactive Text Transmission System (ITTS). ITTS is also used by
Digital Audio Broadcasting or the
MiniDisc. The specification was released in September 1996 and backed by
Sony. Support for CD-Text is common, but not universal. Utilities exist to automatically rip CD-Text data, and insert it into
CDDB or
freedb.
Software
★
iTunes 7 supports burning with CD Text. It is by default an unchecked option in the burning preferences.
★
Toast on OS X has support for CD-Text.
★
X-CD-Roast has had reading/editing/writing support since version 0.98alpha10.
★ The underlying command-line utilities cdrecord/cdda2wav have support in (at least) version 2.01, but it must be enabled. See the documentation.
★
K3b has support for reading and writing CD-Text
★
Realplayer 10 supports Reading and Writing of CD-Text
★
Winamp has had support for CD-Text since version 5.31.
★ Spider Player (has CD Text support since its initial release)
★
Exact Audio Copy and
CDex have support for reading CD-Text to fill in artist/title information (if present) for the user when
ripping CDs.
★
Brasero has support for CD-Text from version 0.5.90
★
PreMaster CD and soundBlade on OS X both have CD Text support.
★
Amadeus Pro on OS X has CD Text support.
See Also
★
CD+G
External links
★
Unofficial CD Text FAQ
★
CD-Recordable FAQ, question 3-28: How do I add CD-Text information?