Microsoft Windows Media Player Stops Serving Up CD Album Info (theregister.com) 59
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft is celebrating the resurgence of interest in physical media in the only way it knows how... by halting the Windows Media Player metadata service. Readers of a certain vintage will remember inserting a CD into their PC and watching Windows Media Player populate with track listings and album artwork. No more.
Sometime before Christmas, the metadata servers stopped working and on Windows 10 or 11, the result is the same: album not found. We tried this out at Vulture Central on some sacrificial Windows devices that had media drives and can confirm that a variety of compact discs were met with stony indifference. Some 90s cheese that was successfully ripped (for personal use, of course) decades ago? No longer recognized. A reissue of something achingly hip? Also not recognized.
Sometime before Christmas, the metadata servers stopped working and on Windows 10 or 11, the result is the same: album not found. We tried this out at Vulture Central on some sacrificial Windows devices that had media drives and can confirm that a variety of compact discs were met with stony indifference. Some 90s cheese that was successfully ripped (for personal use, of course) decades ago? No longer recognized. A reissue of something achingly hip? Also not recognized.
I used to use this a lot (Score:2, Interesting)
When I was big into mp3s I used to use WIMP to identify albums with unuseful filenames and no tagging in them. It was spectacularly good at it.
Microsoft is obviously on a mission to deliberately enshittify for some inexplicable reason, as proven by their shuttering the things that they do that actually work.
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Microsoft is obviously on a mission to deliberately enshittify for some inexplicable reason, as proven by their shuttering the things that they do that actually work.
Because they shutdown something that even you admit you don't use anymore? Aren't you also the person who complains that Windows is full of useless bloat? Pick a lane man.
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This is a very small feature so there's no reason to remove it from WIMP, which is very big. *I* don't use it any more because I got over using Windows for personal use.
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So, if you don't use Windows, why are you moaning about it?
You think dissing is moaning? Good luck ever making a woman come.
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WIMP is very big for whom? The size of the feature isn't relevant. This requires someone to maintain a database, that costs money. How much do you want to pay to keep the service active vs moving to something open source? You know open source right? That thing you prefer to use instead of Windows?
Why would you champion Microsoft's closed source solutions instead of promoting people switch to GNUdb for media lookups instead.
Wanting a windows feature while not using windows, championing closed source services
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If I was still using Windows (thankfully I'm not, at least not for personal use) and if it still had this feature (which as we can see it doesn't) then I would still be using WIMP because of how good it was at delivering this feature — and because while it wasn't a great media player, it was fine. One thing I do miss from Windows is the codec system, and how you'd install a codec pack and all of the applications would be able to play all of the formats, if they supported the container anyway. Right no
Re:I used to use this a lot (Score:4, Interesting)
DirectShow Filters can still be used on modern windows, even Wine / Proton, but unless the software has support the DirectShow API, it won't utilize them. (In fact there's some OSS projects out there that have bug reports / feature requests for implementing DirectShow support for this exact reason.)
The Windows Media Foundation APIs use "MFTs" (Media Foundation Transforms) as a "replacement" for the functionality provided by DirectShow filters. Note, the quotes around "replacement" however. MFTs are a "replacement" insofar as MFTs are where the decode / encode logic for a particular format is expected to be in WMF. Not because MFTs or WMF itself provides a proper replacement for the use cases that DirectShow's API covers. As a result, most MFTs that exist are made by Microsoft themselves, and shipped with Windows. (Either built-in, or subject to download from the Windows Store.) The developer documentation for making new MFTs isn't exactly great either. Certainly not on the level of quality and abundance for making new DirectShow Filters.
Another issue, is the overall lack of new media formats in the modern era. Back when DirectShow was first made, there wasn't much of a standard API for media handling. (Yes, I know about MCI. For the sake of brevity, we're ignoring that here.) As a result most developers bought some codec from another company and shipped it along with their product. DirectShow Filters made that process easier (Only need to ship the filter, not an entire library), and provided a common interface for other interop with other applications. (A new feature.) In the modern era, most people settled on H.264, using MP4 as a container for storing video in their products. Which Microsoft provides an MFT for. and handles the licensing. As a result, there's little motivation for Windows developers to switch to something else that the OS won't support out of the box, and that often would require additional royalty / licensing payments on top of whatever is already being sent to the MPEG-LA. (See also the reason why Google, and OSS in general, are so happy about AV1.)
As a fun side note: See also why Wine / Proton have poor AV support in modern software. The software requires MFTs in order to decode the media, and because there are few OSS replacement MFTs, Wine / Proton is forced to try and do a messy conversion from WMF to GStreamer to ffmpeg. (I'm kidding. I'm sure every Wine / Proton user out there has purchased and installed a properly licensed H.264 decoder for GStreamer.
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I'm sure every Wine / Proton user out there has purchased and installed a properly licensed H.264 decoder for GStreamer.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I got that and most other relevant functionality and where necessary matching licenses with my GPU.
Too bad about Windows and codecs. Another reason I'm not sorry I'm not using it personally.
Data in The Cloud ... (Score:2)
Some 90s cheese that was successfully ripped
I'm not sure how WMP works. Tracks ripped, but it still has to go to the server for track listing and art? I've ripped a bunch of stuff for my iPod Nano. Art, listings and all. The thing merrily chugs along because it has no concept of remote storage.
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I'm not sure how WMP works. Tracks ripped, but it still has to go to the server for track listing and art?
None of that data is on the CD. All players have to get it from somewhere else. There's some additional info which can be put on the disc in a standard format called CD-TEXT [web.ncf.ca], but most CDs don't have it (or didn't last I looked anyway.) There's also enhanced CDs which are really just multisession and have a data track, but they don't have standard formats. WIMP and other players use the lengths of the tracks as a signature to identify an album.
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My experience says that track listing definitely is in the CD-TEXT.
K3B uses it, kio-audioCD uses it...
I don't think I've seen a server query to populate track metadata in about a decade. Artwork is whole other story though.
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CDs don't generally have that info encoded
Correct. You've got to make a point of fetching it. Although the average person probably thinks, "Album art! Wow! Magic!" And that's the end of it. My ripper gives you the option to fetch it. From any one of a number of sources.
Not sure why WMP wouldn't write the tags when ripping.
The tags are probably there. Someplace. Else how would the album info have been fetched a few months ago. What appears to be dead is the cloudy metadata. So the question is: Did WMP offer a download metadata option?
Did Microsoft make the (incorrect) assumption that cloud == immutabl
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I think WIMP grabbed the info by default. It would also take a pile of tracks in a directory and ID them. If you had nothing but the track numbers right, and they didn't even have to be in tags (just the filenames) then it would successfully ID albums. Before I found other tools which would do this, I found this very useful.
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Yes. The key is to grab this stuff when you rip the CD. Not wait and hope it will still be there at playback time.
iPods (mine at any rate) were not designed to be continuously connected. Microsoft appears to have designed WMP (and many other products) around 24x7 Internet connectivity.
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Microsoft appears to have designed WMP (and many other products) around 24x7 Internet connectivity.
I haven't used it in a while, but last I looked it had an option to automatically grab that info when you inserted a CD, or maybe when you ripped? I've moved on, and I'm too lazy to load a VM and look.
Re: Data in The Cloud ... (Score:5, Informative)
I've been using Exact Audio Copy [exactaudiocopy.de] to rip my CDs since about 2006. It's not quite as slick as WMP when it comes to UX, but it does the job and it has been updated a few times when metadata providers change. You can output to multiple formats, so you can create your lossless archive and your compressed versions in one pass. It is pretty persistent if you have some scratches.
why did they do that? (Score:2)
not that many use CDs much anymore, but this seems anti-consumer. how much did this feature cost to provide? are they broke? do they need Corporate Welfare?
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how much did this feature cost to provide? are they broke?
The Duality of Slashdot:
a) Windows is bloated, it does all these things no one needs or uses!
b) I can't believe Microsoft just got rid of that thing no one needs or uses, they must be broke, this is anti-consumer!
Did I get that right?
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You used a lot of past tense in your post. Maybe re-read what you wrote and you'll see the point I made. You can hate their abomination of a startmenu all you want, that's no reason to say keep bloat around.
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No I don't.
Re: why did they do that? (Score:2)
Where did they get the metadata from? Iâ(TM)m guessing they buy it from somewhere, and theyâ(TM)ll have to keep it up-to-date.
At one point, we were owned by Rovi, who had an office somewhere like Michigan that would acquire shiny discs, fingerprint them and have somebody manually enter the metadata. A company like that was never cheap, and I bet they got more expensive as their business contracted.
There are free, crowd sourced metadata providers, and while not the software doesnâ(TM)t work
WMP Still Lives? (Score:1)
I moved on from Windows Media Player so long ago that I had almost forgotten it still exists. For some years now, my primary audio application has been MediaMonkey because it freely and easily syncs between Windows and Android. Yes, I'm that guy who has over 5,000 tracks on my computer and phone...
gnudb CDDB is still available. (Score:5, Informative)
When CDDB went away, gnudb stepped up and is now offering it for your favorite ripping software.
https://gnudb.org/
I am using it with CDex with no problems today. I buy a lot of expanded limited release film soundtrack scores from the likes of Intrada and LaLaLand, which are only released on CD so that they can afford the licensing from the studios for a small release. So I still have a great use for it. I've long since ripped the rest of my CD collection, but I buy a new soundtrack CD once every few months.
I wouldn't touch any microsoft-authored player.
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Yeah, and I prefer k3b. But most windows systems don't have it installed.
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So what you're saying is that not even you do CD lookups from media players to play CDs, and instead convert the CD to some other format and embed the metadata with it?
This isn't a case of not touching a Microsoft-authored player, it's you no even doing the thing the completely irrelevant, even to you someone who has a CD collection, thing that the Microsoft software used to offer. Even if you *loved* Microsoft and had a bust of Gates on your nightstand you wouldn't be using the thing they just shut down.
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This isn't a case of not touching a Microsoft-authored player, it's you no even doing the thing the completely irrelevant, even to you someone who has a CD collection, thing that the Microsoft software used to offer.
...and the Most Difficult Sentence To Parse Of The Year Award goes to...
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I need a translation
Maybe it's just me not able to comprehend?
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I need a translation Maybe it's just me not able to comprehend?
It translates to: "why did you even post if you don't use the thing that the story is about?"
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He's not debating on the merits of the opinion, he's complaining that the opinion is allowed to reach him in the first place and trying to cover it up by grasping at straws.
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It wasn't difficult to pass, it was grammatically and structurally incorrect, but kudos understanding it anyway. ;-)
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I love that CDex looks basically exactly the same as when I first downloaded it 25 years ago.
Typical register article (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no resurgence in the CD as a physical media format. None what so ever. The trend is down. Last year was the fourth lowest sales year on record other than 1983, 1984 and 1985.
Sure the register paints this as some form of Microsoft incompetence rather than what it actually is: dropping support for a feature which has literally never been less relevant in all of Window's history. Also worth noting is they aren't the first to actually stop this. CDDB (the actual meaningful and most popular CD data lookup service) shut down 6 years ago. Only the open source world kept that going.
Thought experiment for you all:
1. Who do you know buys CDs?
2. Of those who buy CDs who do you know who has a Windows machine with a disk drive?
3. Of those people who have a disk drive who do you know who actually use that computer to listen to a CD?
There are truly few things in the world I could give less of a shit about than this.
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There are truly few things in the world I could give less of a shit about than this.
Perhaps then you should fuck off instead of writing multiple posts defending Microsoft about it.
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Perhaps then you should fuck off instead of writing multiple posts defending Microsoft about it.
I only wrote one post defending this decision. Literally every other comment I made was addressing idiots for saying idiot things. Did you get a comment from me? It's not personal man, I don't like Microsoft, I just like calling out stupid people online for saying stupid things.
Re: Typical register article (Score:2)
I keep a Windows 10 laptop from 2006 around for the sole purpose of ripping my CDs. Iâ(TM)ve got my workflow and I donâ(TM)t see a need to change it.
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That's quite a feat, since Windows 10 was released in 2015, and the computers sold in 2005 ran on bitchin-fast dual-core "Duo" Pentium CPUs.
Want to reconsider your boast/claim?
Re: Typical register article (Score:2)
Ugh, typo. I meant Windows 7. Sorry about that.
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I have an external CD drive as well to rip CDs. (No idea why you need Windows 10 for that) Ripping is not the same as playing. This change doesn't affect you or me either.
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I just bought a CD today.
I have a Linux box with a disc drive and a few vintage Macs with CD drives.
The CD goes in the blue ray drive if I want to listen to it directly.
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If you want to. Is this something you actually do is my question. It's 2025. Pretty much the only CDs that go into a drive do so for the purpose of ripping, which is not something you'd use windows media player to do.
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When I think "physical media" I think of vinyl discs, not digital discs (CDs) - the appeal of vinyl is visceral.
Lets just think about the person that's embracing "physical media", so they go out and buy a 5" computer disc, toss it in their computer, so they can what, rip it onto their iPod? That's what we are talking about? Really?
Embracing "physical media" means getting an old transistor stereo amp (or tube, if you've got the money), a big set of speakers, and a bintage turntable sitting on cinder blocks t
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I am 100% behind you there and have bought more vinyl in the past year than CDs in the past decade combined. The physical media resurgence has zero to do with CDs.
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Or PowerDVD moves to another service that is still available. Microsoft sees this as too small of a market to be concerned about. A more special purpose company dealing with such niches may cater to your very specific and vanishingly rare need. Japan is irrelevant, the fact of the matter is that CDs are less popular now than at any time since 3 years after their creation. And even if they are still sold, computers with CD players are vanishingly rare, and people using computers as physical media players eve
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2. Use of Windows isn't a requirement to have an opinion about it, nor is it a requirement to criticize Microsoft's actions and request a reversal. The same applies to other concepts.
3. See 2, but FYI, the same mechanism is also used when ripping CDs to another format. (Used to auto-populate the
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What kind of moron... (Score:2)
Soon you wont need it anyways. (Score:1)
Gen ai track names to match your gen ai redbook audio!
Alalbum namee: Gonna rock rock
1. The worldn't on fire -- again
2. ai like a i.
3. Microsoft is the best.
Summery: (Score:3)
"Why did they" in business is almost always going to have at the root "Because Money."
First, background: CDDB was originally founded as opensource, but eventually that changed. People thought that the data they voluntarily entered would always be free - Wiki [wikipedia.org]
I don't have the time to sort it but I would assume that a perusal of GraceNote's product offering would show some insights. [gracenote.com] I don't know, like I say, I am out of time.
They Aren't Alone (Score:3)
My 2019 Ford Edge ST has a CD player that now only says "Track 1", "Track 2", "Track 3", etc. I do think that it will still tell you the name of the album, but am not sure of that. Annoying, but not devastating. I think it used to work correctly when I first got it, but the system gets updates sometimes. Yeah, the CD player does get some use. I've still got a large disk carrier of audiobooks burned to disk because the MP3's don't play well in this particular player. They play just fine on the computer, but not on the car's stock entertainment suite. So when I want to listen to Tom Clancy's "Threat Vector", it now comes from a rotating optical disk with mp3's on it.