Retrieving Compact Disc Track-Specific Information

[The feature associated with this page, MCI, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by MediaPlayer. MediaPlayer has been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use MediaPlayer instead of MCI, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

For CD audio devices, you can get the starting location and length of a track by specifying the MCI_TRACK flag and setting the dwTrack member of MCI_STATUS_PARMS to the desired track number. To get the starting location of a track, set the dwItem member to MCI_STATUS_POSITION. To get the length of a track, set dwItem to MCI_STATUS_LENGTH. For example, the following example retrieves the total number of tracks on the compact disc and the starting location of each track. Then, it uses the MessageBox function to report the starting locations of the tracks.

// Uses the MCI_STATUS command to get and display the 
// starting times for the tracks on a compact disc. 
// Returns 0L if successful; otherwise, it returns an 
// MCI error code.

DWORD DisplayCDTrackStartTimes(HWND hMainWnd)
{
    UINT wDeviceID;
    int i, iNumTracks;
    DWORD dwReturn;
    DWORD *pMem;
    TCHAR szTempString[64];
    TCHAR szTimeString[512] = TEXT("\0");  // Room for 20 tracks.
    MCI_OPEN_PARMS mciOpenParms;
    MCI_SET_PARMS mciSetParms;
    MCI_STATUS_PARMS mciStatusParms;

    // Open the device by specifying the device name.
    mciOpenParms.lpstrDeviceType = TEXT("cdaudio");
    if (dwReturn = mciSendCommand(NULL, MCI_OPEN,
        MCI_OPEN_TYPE, (DWORD_PTR)(LPVOID) &mciOpenParms))
    {
        // Failed to open device. 
        // Don't close device; just return error.
        return (dwReturn);
    }

    // The device opened successfully; get the device ID.
    wDeviceID = mciOpenParms.wDeviceID;

    // Set the time format to minute/second/frame (MSF) format. 
    mciSetParms.dwTimeFormat = MCI_FORMAT_MSF;
    if (dwReturn = mciSendCommand(wDeviceID, MCI_SET, 
        MCI_SET_TIME_FORMAT, 
        (DWORD_PTR)(LPVOID) &mciSetParms)) 
    {
        mciSendCommand(wDeviceID, MCI_CLOSE, 0, NULL);
        return (dwReturn);
    }

    // Get the number of tracks; 
    // limit it to the number that can be displayed (20).
    mciStatusParms.dwItem = MCI_STATUS_NUMBER_OF_TRACKS;
    if (dwReturn = mciSendCommand(wDeviceID, MCI_STATUS, 
        MCI_STATUS_ITEM, (DWORD_PTR)(LPVOID) &mciStatusParms)) 
    {
        mciSendCommand(wDeviceID, MCI_CLOSE, 0, NULL);
        return (dwReturn);
    }
    iNumTracks = (int)mciStatusParms.dwReturn;
    iNumTracks = min(iNumTracks, 20);

    // Allocate memory to hold starting positions.
    pMem = (DWORD *)LocalAlloc(LPTR, 
        iNumTracks * sizeof(DWORD));
    if (pMem == NULL) 
    {
        mciSendCommand(wDeviceID, MCI_CLOSE, 0, NULL);
        return (-1);
    } 
 
    // For each track, get and save the starting location and
    // build a string containing the starting locations.
    for(i=1; i<=iNumTracks; i++) 
    {
        mciStatusParms.dwItem = MCI_STATUS_POSITION;
        mciStatusParms.dwTrack = i;
        if (dwReturn = mciSendCommand(wDeviceID, 
            MCI_STATUS, MCI_STATUS_ITEM | MCI_TRACK, 
            (DWORD_PTR)(LPVOID) &mciStatusParms)) 
        {
            mciSendCommand(wDeviceID, MCI_CLOSE, 0, NULL);
            return (dwReturn);
        }

        pMem[i-1] = (DWORD)mciStatusParms.dwReturn;

        _stprintf_s(szTempString, 
            TEXT("Track %2d - %02d:%02d:%02d\n"), i,
            MCI_MSF_MINUTE(pMem[i-1]), 
            MCI_MSF_SECOND(pMem[i-1]), 
            MCI_MSF_FRAME(pMem[i-1]));

        _tcscat_s(szTimeString, szTempString);
    }

    // Use MessageBox to display starting times.
    MessageBox(
        hMainWnd, 
        szTimeString, 
        TEXT("Track Starting Position"), 
        MB_ICONINFORMATION);

    // Free memory and close the device.
    LocalFree((HANDLE) pMem);
    if (dwReturn = mciSendCommand(wDeviceID, 
        MCI_CLOSE, 0, NULL)) 
    {
        return (dwReturn);
    }

    return (0L);
}