We have something similar in Europe in radio (FM) I don't know if you have
it in USA.It's called RDS and in most FM stations you have text displayed on
your boombox or tuner.

--
Tzortzakakis Dimitriïs
major in electrical engineering, freelance electrician
FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr
Ï "Arny Krueger" Ýãñáøå óôï ìÞíõìá
...
"binary" wrote in message

PC based CD players are all very eager to go out on the Internet to
find out information about the tracks on the CD that I want to play.

Isn't the same information on the CD itself already?

Nope, not per the RedBook standard. However, there is an extension called
"CD Text" that puts some of that information on the CD where the player
can
read it.

And is there a standard way of putting the metadata (track tags) on
the CD, so that I can put it there myself when I burn my own CD?

Just get burning software (current Nero and EZ CD) that supports CD text
and
provide the information at burning time.

I recently semi-unknowingly installed a car radio with CD text features,
and
was a little surprised when one of my CDs scrolling relevant text on the
player's display while I was listening to it.