why can WMP receive CD metadata but foobar2000/dbpoweramp can't? Options

[bigidiot]

Here's a question that's been bugging me.

I use foobar2000 and the paid version of dbpoweramp to rip CDs. Both are outstanding.

But there are cases when a CD I put into my laptop receives no metadata from freedb or musicbrainz but windows media player can detect metadata easily. What's the deal?

I realize that WMP is relying on the proprietary DB Grace Note CDDB (and possibly others), but why would commercial rippers like dbpoweramp not buy a license to access CDDB? (Are the licenses really that expensive, or is it an ideological issue for them? )

I read online that winamp uses CDDB -- can anyone confirm this?

For 90% of what I rip, dbpoweramp is great, but I rip a lot of not-Western CDs.

Finally are there any plugins that might help with this process?

Fortunately, a lot of the metadata is just a google away, but it can become very tedious for that occasional CD that requires manual inputting of metadata....

[Roseval]

Once a developer told me the license to use GD3 is $5 per user.
If this is a common price, then supporting a couple of paid databases becomes expensive.

A possible workflow:
- Rip using dbPoweramp, I do think it the best ripper there is.
- Rip to each CD in its own folder, all tracks must be in 1 folder otherwise the next step fails
- If dbPoweramp meta data fails you, use any other app like MP3Tag, WMP, etc. to lookup the meta data

[spoon]

Windows Media Player does not use gracenote, it uses AMG, which is then added to internally by Microsoft.

dBpoweramp uses 2 commercial databases, GD3 and AMG.

There will always be small cases where a disc appears in one program (iTunes (Gracenote), dBpoweramp (AMG + GD3 + freedb + musicbrainz), WMP (AMG modified)) but not in another.