Audiobooks

[TMBrown327]

One of the things that bugged me about loading books on my Touch was that if you switch away from the book (loaded as music and separated into playlists) and listened to actual music, or did a sync from the computer for any reason, it lost where you were. There are a few ways to avoid losing your place, none of them foolproof. So I bought an app called Bookmark, which adds a few more ways to do that, again though, not foolproof.

I've used the apps that take multipart files and turns them into one big file, takes forever for each set of files though. Bookmark handles those better. I'm still on the fence about how useful Bookmark is, it doesn't seem to do much more than the native mp3 player, but I haven't given it much of a chance yet.

You can also turn mp3 files into audiobook files just by changing their file characteristics within iTunes, which allows you to speed up playback if you want.

At the end of the day, I'm still looking for a more cohesive approach to audiobooks (in mp3 format) on the Touch, so I keep an eye out for something along those lines in forums and on iTunes etc.

 

[markopete]

One of the things that bugged me about loading books on my Touch was that if you switch away from the book (loaded as music and separated into playlists) and listened to actual music, or did a sync from the computer for any reason, it lost where you were. There are a few ways to avoid losing your place, none of them foolproof. So I bought an app called Bookmark, which adds a few more ways to do that, again though, not foolproof

I assume you using MP3 files for your audio books, which with out conversion will not book mark. Try the following tool to convert your MP's and then import into iTunes, It converts any number of MP3 files into one big iPod Audio Book M4B File. You will then see it listed in the audiobook section of iTunes and it should behave as a standard audiobook. After conversion, it should then allow you to book mark, and manipulate the narration speed in your iPod.

Your iPod remembers the last position you were listening to in your audio book. So you can alway start listening where you stopped the last time. Even after you have switched off or if you were listening to music or another audio book in the meantime.

Let me know if you have any problems

I am not allowed to post links within a post as yet, but email me and I will send you the file.

petemarko at gmail.com
Pete

 

[saliotthomas]

I'm listening to 2666 by Roberto Bolano and the different narrators in each part are excellent.
As for the programes to format your books, it sure sound nice, though a paper and a pen to note where you are or a bit of memery do the job as well.

 

[TMBrown327]

I actually went through that process of turning multiple mp3 files into one big mp4 file, and it worked OK, though it took a long time as I mentioned. Yes, you can bookmark and adjust playback speed, and those are good things I guess. I think overall though the length of time it takes is the biggest drawback and why I don't do it very often, not worth the pain.

Some of the mp3 books I have were split up into hundreds of tiny mp3 files (I don't know why, somebody probably didn't have a good grip on how to split files), so the fact that iTunes may remember where you left off in a file doesn't do much good if you can't remember which file it was. So I keep looking.

 

[markopete]

Files are split into segments to make downloading easier; many of those segmented files were uploaded a long time ago when connection speeds were much slower then today.

That said I see no reason why the file has been split into hundreds. The tool I am recommending is very efficient and the conversion process will vary depending on file sizes, it will merge and convert in one go.

Something sounds amiss in reference to your issues with the tool that you are using taking so long to do its job.