So, I followed the advice provided and created the CD using the Audio Montage. Fortunately WL7 was able to import the previously created .cd file into the montage directly, so I didn’t need to play with track delay timing.
I also downloaded a plug-in for Windows Media Player that allows the reading of CD-Text. So, I had two CDs with no CD-Text info, one made with Basic Audio CD with the metadata filled out, and one with the Audio Montage and everything (including album title) filled in.
I first tried the Montage one … all the track names came up with times - sweet!
Out of curiosity, I tried the one made with Basic Audio and the metadata … same result. Cautious that perhaps the Media Player had just buffered the info, I cleared the display … and the titles came back.
So, then I tried the CDs where I had provided no metadata … and the titles all displayed. So, play a proper CD once, and the titles are stored in the plug-ins’ database/library for future use.
I then put on the parka and consulted the CD player in the car.
First ‘dumb’ CD, Track 1, no text
Second ‘dumb’ CD, Track 1, no text
Basic Audio CD with metadata filled in, Track 1, no text … forward to other tracks, still nothing. So the WMP plug-in definitely stores the data and provides the impression of a proper CD when one without the data is recognized.
Audio Montage CD with CD-Text - Three nice lines of information: Song title, Performer/Artist, Album title
I then noted that, at least for the unit in my 2010 Buick La Crosse, the display was limited to 32 characters per line.
Perhaps the CD-Text tool should count characters or split the field white/grey so one can easily ‘see’ what most players will display vs the max data stored in the field…
All is well, back to correcting the CD-Text data to ‘fit’ in the display field properly.
Thanks again for the help.