CD info look-up

On 28-Dec-2006, at 13:21, Udo Huth wrote:
> Now I only get error messages, when I insert a new CD into the
> drive of my
> Mac. Neither program can look up any information.

What sort of error messages?

> What's wrong with CDDB?

It's run by a company (Gracenote) that is evil and rotten and stole
the work of countless people (including myself). Oh, yeah, and they
are scum of the worst sort. Or did you mean what is wrong with their
servers? Dunno, I don't use them.

> Is there any other place I can direct the programs to look at?

freedb.org. In OS X you can redirect all queries to cddb to freedb
with a simple change to the /etc/hosts file. This is possible in Mac
OS 8 also, but I think the file is formatted differently and I forget
where in the System Folder it has to go.

This is the OS X version <http://www.freedb.org/en/
applications__configuration.8.html> for US users:

212.91.252.38 cddb.cddb.com
212.91.252.38 cddb.cddb.org
212.91.252.38 cddb.cddb.net
212.91.252.38 us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38 sc.ca.us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38 sc2.ca.us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38 sj.ca.us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38 sj2.ca.us.cddb.com

IIRC, the Mac OS 8 version is exactly the opposite, ie:

cddb.cddb.com 212.91.252.38

However, I am dredging back over 8 years now, so that may be wrong.
SOMEONE's host file was backwards.

freedb is set up to take the same queries as cddb, so the change is
transparent to iTunes and others (or at least it was last time I
inserted a CD in my computer, which was probably around 10.2 era).

However, some applications use what is called CDDB2, and I don't know
if freedb can handle that type of query or not. I suspect not, as it
was specifically designed to try to lock out freedb.

--On December 28, 2006 12:21:26 PM -0800 Udo Huth <u.hutht-online.de>
wrote:

> What's wrong with CDDB? Is there any other place I can direct the programs
> to look at? Clicking the "Update Server info" buttons in both programs
> yields no result...

My guess is CDDB changed the format of data it is sending. Try Freedb at
freedb.freedb.org instead.

<http://www.freedb.org/>
<http://www.freedb.org/en/applications__how_to_access.5.html>

On Dec 28, 2006, at 12:21 PM, Udo Huth wrote:

> I'm running a Macintosh G3 MT with Mac OS 8.6 -- for my music needs
> I have
> the latest versions of TitleTrack CD Player and SoundJam MP.
>
> Both these programs used to look up the infos about the CDs I
> inserted for
> the first time into the CD drive of my Mac at the CDDB database.
> This used
> to work like a charm -- until about three months ago.

Someone who knows what s/he is talking about will probably answer
soon, at which time this answer will become inoperative. Meanwhile...

The Wikipedia article <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDDB> discusses
CDDB. The material at the end of the article under the heading
"Alternatives" probably explains why your programs stopped getting
data about 3 months ago (although I would expect the change to be
either a little earlier or a little later).

   --John

am 31.12.2006 11:02 Uhr schrieb tidbits-talktidbits.com unter
tidbits-talktidbits.com:

>> What's wrong with CDDB? Is there any other place I can direct the programs
>> to look at? Clicking the "Update Server info" buttons in both programs
>> yields no result...
>
> My guess is CDDB changed the format of data it is sending. Try Freedb at
> freedb.freedb.org instead.

Thanks for the answers. Found a web article about freedb and hosts files
under MacOS 8.6. After realizing that this article mentioned freedb servers
which obviously no longer exist (freedb.freedb.de e.g.) the hosts file works
and my programs queries are rerouted to freedb.

Thanks again.

Udo

At 12:53 AM -0800 12/31/06, Google Kreme wrote:
>freedb is set up to take the same queries as cddb, so the change is
>transparent to iTunes and others (or at least it was last time I
>inserted a CD in my computer, which was probably around 10.2 era).
>
>However, some applications use what is called CDDB2, and I don't know
>if freedb can handle that type of query or not. I suspect not, as it
>was specifically designed to try to lock out freedb.

        I seem to recall that iTunes at least has switched completely to
the CDDB2 format, so it stopped working with freedb.org a few years back,
leaving Gracenote as the only option that is directly supported. A google
search of "itunes freedb" turns up a few links that seem to indicate that
one can use some other applications to get the data from freedb.org and
pass it into iTunes, but I don't think that any simple DNS tricks will do
the job.


--
* Johann Beda - contact link: <http://xri.net/=j-beda> *
* Johann's MostlyMac Computer Consulting - <http://mmcc.beda.ca/> *

Following the kerfuffle at freedb, there is now a second CDDB1-compatible service: gnudb. To be fair, there are some limitations to CDDB1, but, with a little bit of effort, it may be possible to use freedb with iTunes. The job of calculating the magic number and frame offsets can be done with the discid utility.

alex