Monday, July 6, 2009
Alternative solution for Mac users
Guide here http://guimkie.com/tutorials/perfect-audiobooks-in-itunes - uses http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/jointogether.php
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Easy Fixes
So suppose you have a good mp3 copy of a an audiobook.
If the quality is not good enough to want to convert it to an m4b audiobook and/or you do not have or want chapters one mp3 is almost as handy.
Since itunes 8 you can finally designate a file (say a big mp3) as an audiobook rather than a music track. So any file can now be made to be listed in the audiobook menus.
Previously the best possible option was to tell itunes (and hence your ipod) that the playback position for a file should be remembered (so that if you play partway through a book - then play some music - when you return to the book it continues, rather than starting it afresh).
Audiobooks have this remember playback position property set by default, as well as not being played in random selections.
So if your audiobook is one mp3 files you can alter this property or designate it as an audiobook via the info dialog.
Display a file's info properties by a right click on it then select Get Info in the pop up menu.
(Or you can use the File menu and chose Get Info)
Under the Options tab you can update the file type, or just set remember playback.
You can update the value for many files at once in this way, but if you copy the files to another PC these add on settings will not be recognised.
Once you make an m4b file that will be recognised as an audiobook by every ipod/itunes.
If the quality is not good enough to want to convert it to an m4b audiobook and/or you do not have or want chapters one mp3 is almost as handy.
Since itunes 8 you can finally designate a file (say a big mp3) as an audiobook rather than a music track. So any file can now be made to be listed in the audiobook menus.
Previously the best possible option was to tell itunes (and hence your ipod) that the playback position for a file should be remembered (so that if you play partway through a book - then play some music - when you return to the book it continues, rather than starting it afresh).
Audiobooks have this remember playback position property set by default, as well as not being played in random selections.
So if your audiobook is one mp3 files you can alter this property or designate it as an audiobook via the info dialog.
Display a file's info properties by a right click on it then select Get Info in the pop up menu.
(Or you can use the File menu and chose Get Info)
Under the Options tab you can update the file type, or just set remember playback.
You can update the value for many files at once in this way, but if you copy the files to another PC these add on settings will not be recognised.
Once you make an m4b file that will be recognised as an audiobook by every ipod/itunes.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Why iTunes Does Not Import CD Audiobooks Well
If you take say a Harry Potter audiobook on 7 CD's, each with 30 or more tracks your can import these into iTunes - but it handles these as the same a set of music tracks.
You can adjust the import settings to use a lower bitrate for a smaller file size (as the spoken word can be compressed more than music) but itunes does not handle CD audiobooks very well.
If you are lucky it will play each disk and track in the right order, (you may need to create custom playlists to do this easily), and it's unlikely that you will ever want a selection of these "tracks" played in a random order with your music.
Audiobooks purchased or downloaded from the store are found in their own section of itunes. These are recognised not by the Genre property but by being in m4b files rather than m4a (regular music and imported CDs) or m4p (DRM protected music files). All of these type are essentially the same using the AAC compression type of the mpeg 4 standard.
You can convert your CDs using itunes or other programs to a set of m4a files, then combine these into a m4b audiobook file.
You can adjust the import settings to use a lower bitrate for a smaller file size (as the spoken word can be compressed more than music) but itunes does not handle CD audiobooks very well.
If you are lucky it will play each disk and track in the right order, (you may need to create custom playlists to do this easily), and it's unlikely that you will ever want a selection of these "tracks" played in a random order with your music.
Audiobooks purchased or downloaded from the store are found in their own section of itunes. These are recognised not by the Genre property but by being in m4b files rather than m4a (regular music and imported CDs) or m4p (DRM protected music files). All of these type are essentially the same using the AAC compression type of the mpeg 4 standard.
You can convert your CDs using itunes or other programs to a set of m4a files, then combine these into a m4b audiobook file.
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