iPod treats audiobook tracks like regular music tracks

[Thank The Cheese]

Hello everyone,

I listen to a lot of audiobooks through my iPod, but all the books I have are bought in CD format, then imported into iTunes, rather than from the itunes music store. The problem with this method is that the iPod doesn't recognise it as an audiobook, even if I set the name of the genre to Audiobook. This means;

1. They don't appear in the 'audiobook' section, and I have to create a manual playlist in order to access them.

2. It treats it like a music track, so if I get half-way through a 1 hour audiobook track, the next time I load it up, it starts at the beginning again. very annoying.

I presume when you buy an audio book from iTMS is similar to a podcast whereby it remembers where you stopped, so is there a way to bookmark a track. Or even better, is there a way I can get iTunes to regognise my audiobook tracks as audiobooks?

Thanks for the help!

 

[JetwingX]

well, the feature you are trying to use only works with books from the iTMS or Audible.

 

[Thank The Cheese]

so there is no way to get the iPod to treat it like an audiobook or even a podcast? Or a way I can somehow mark where I left off?

It's not a huge deal, but it would be a handy feature.

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

I want to say this is related directly to the file's extension -- can you try changing the extension of the files from MP3 (or whatever) to the audiobook extension (whatever that is)?

 

[JetwingX]

if you have iLife 06, you could try converting it to a pod cast and add in markers at each chapter. That would just mean a bit more work for you though

 

[ra3ndy]

Just found some instructions here.

Doesn't say how to make it an audible or iTMS audiobook format (but the file extension for those is .aa, if that helps)

 

[Thank The Cheese]

Thank you all -- great find ra3ndy! Exactly what I needed.

 

[mweier]

here's a great script that will let you batch convert audio files to bookmarkable M4a audio.

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=quickconvert

He has others too, including one that will even merge multiple tracks into a single bookmarkable track.

 

[Tommo]

I would suggest a piece of software called Audiobook Builder, works really well and is very cheap.

Check here for details http://www.splasm.com/audiobookbuilder/

 

[mweier]

interesting - hadn't heard of that one; I've found Quick Convert from http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=quickconvert which is another (free) option to batch convert mp3 to m4b -- I know how to do that; He's got another script there which can merge multiple into a file. Any books I buy from now on, I'll be sure to rip straight to m4b.

Just confirming that there's no way to tell the iPod not to forget where it was. E.g. my car stereo knows where I was at in the last cd I was playing.

Would be cool if ipod supported manual bookmarks you can tag to any file but clearly not an option without m4b conversion.

Oh well....

 

[Sheryl22]

Nice information. Thank you.
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