Winamp won't pick up album name for .wav files

[Nauraushaun]

So I decided I wanted some of my precious CDs ripped to .wav, and I quickly found out that WMP would play wavs, but wouldn't store them in its library. Which lead me to Winamp.

I like Winamp a lot (except for the fact that it's possible to wreck the program nearly beyond repair by electing to hide the main window), but it's decided to ignore some of the extra information for my .wav files.
The files are shown in Windows Explorer as having an album name, track number, everything, but in Winamp all it shows is the track name and artist. I've tried removing and re-adding the files, and it won't work, so I'm lost. Fixing them all manually would be too tiresome, so what's the real cause of this problem?
I don't understand how it can get name and artist, but nothing else. Is that even possible? I don't even

[ujay]

The cause of the problem is that the WAV format is very old and there never has been a satifactory or fully agreed tagging scheme outside of the pro broadcasting industry.

Best practise today is to use FLAC format.
This is lossless like WAV, but is fully tagged, and uses less storage space.

UJ

[Nauraushaun]

Okiedokes. Can you recommend a good way to convert to FLAC, and to rip to FLAC? Do WMP, iTunes or Winamp rip to FLAC?

[ujay]

Winamp can handle both.

Use right click > Send to > Format Converter ... to convert, though I'm not sure what tags this will carry over.

Use the Media Library > Rip & Burn ... and set the output format to FLAC.

Note. If you find you absolutely must have WAV files at some future date then the FLAC files can be converted back without any loss.

UJ

[Nauraushaun]

That's fantastic. Thanks for your help.