I play my Audio CD-Rs (recorded with full CD-Text information) with PlexTools player and the CD-Text information is read perfectly. Windows Media Player 9 does not recognises CD-Text. Some 1-2 years before, WMP7 and WMP8 had also problems with CD-Text but it was corrected with one way or another (settings or fix, i don't exactly remember). In Microsoft faq and Technet i cannot find anything regarding CD-Text ! (as if Microsoft doesn't know what CD-Text is!!!). I run Windows 2000 Professional with SP4. My recording software is nero 5.5.10.45 (cd-text enabled) or PlexTools (CD-text enabled). The cd-text is confirmed that is correctly recorded!!!
Do you know why the WMP9 doesn't read CD-Text?
Is there a fix i could install? or plug-in? or... ?
Thank you very much!

WMP doesn't read CDText.

If you want to play your cds with cd-text info displayed you could try the little freeware gem Digital CD Player .

Thanks all of you my friends for your kind immediate answers.

Minix, why? CD-text is not a "closed" patent. It's free to the world. Why MS is not supporting it?
I am (almost) sure that previous players (7 or 8?) were playing CD-TEXT normally. Am I wrong?

BoSkin, thx for the links.

philamber, i downloaded Digital CD player. I can play also with the PlexTools player my cd-text cds fine.

But i'm just angry to see MS not supporting it!
Thanx!!!

P.S. Please note also that Microsoft CD player AND Winamp DO NOT READ cd-text either!!!

I don't know why.
Are you sure you saw WMP reading CD-Text (not CDDB or cdplayer.ini) in previous versions?
Maybe Microsoft claimed to read CD-Text, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was bullshit.

WMP Mini-FAQ
"WMP can not read CDText nor can it normally burn CDText."

mmmm! now that you say, i had forgotten this... CDDB and other internet info... i'm not sure! This that i remember is that some 2 years before i used to read my own recorded compilations (with CD-TEXT) but i don't remember for sure with wich player (could be 6.4, 7 or 8, or even a RealPlayer or other). But i am sure i had searched MICROSOFT knowledge database and had info for this matter (guidilines to fix the problem? i don't remember). Today Microsoft doesn't give a shit for CD-text!
But probably it's my own wrong impression! I am rather not remembering correctly. Thanks.

P.S. ANY cd-text read PLUGIN for winamp ?

I downloaded and installed both recomended players that support CD-text read: DigitalCDplayer and Plextor's CD-text player.

The Digital CD player was playing correctly (even with my ASPI layer not installed!!!). The Plextor's only after installing the ASPI.

And now, the Plextor's CD-Text CD player is running, but not quite correctly (e.g. doesn't recognize one of my cd drives).

So i had to perform some tests and invastigating the problem, i found some very interesting things (incompatibilities and strange behaviours), that i think you would be interested to know:

Here is a table i made so you can see and compare at a glance:
http://www.geocities.com/pasalimanius/cdtexterrors.gif

Questions:
1. Why is Plextor's CD player not recognizing my SONY CD-ROM?
2. Why is my COPY of the CD-Text Audio CD not read in all instances? As an exact copy, it DOES carry the cd-text info of the original as well. Why is this CD-text info read only from the original and not also from the copy?
3. How can DigitalCDplayer read correctly the cd-text info (no matter from original or the copied cd)???
4. When we make a copy of a cd-text cd, isn't the copy also including the exact cd-text info as well? (as it should?).

Please note that both Plextor DVDR and Sony CD-ROM share the same IDE bus (Plextor=master, Sony=Slave). This is not a major problem in general. It is a problem only in some specific cases and tasks. This may cause problems in some FEW cases (and such as slowdown the processes of copying files etc. but not whatsoever such as reading a cd-text info!!!)