Best Way to Burn Audible Books to CD's?

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robert

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Best Way to Burn Audible Books to CD's?-- PC and Mac

Edit 7-1-04. As promised, finally got around to posting Complete Beginner?s Guide: Burning audible books to CD with iTunes or Audible Manager Step-by-Step for both iTunes and Audible Manager.

Suggest you visit above link for a more coherent and simplified solution than my ramblings below.








Edit 5-5-04. Some Solutions Links

A PC user can burn with either iTunes or Audible Manager. A mac user can burn only with iTunes.

Below describes how to burn a portion of an audiobook in iTunes (PC or Mac). This is necessary to recover from a bad burn or interruption when you have to start over. That is:

In the quote below lies the solution for iTunes (PC Or Mac) burning partials to recover, waste of blanks, and some of the problems discussed. That is, with book to be burned highlighted, click File/get info/select options tab/enter start time and stop time. or, right click/get info... etc.

Finally found these on Audible site (their search feature leaves a bit to be desired):

CD Burning with iTunes and your Mac


General CD Burning Questions for Windows

Apple site tutorial --Burning your music to a CD
This applies to PC as well. I recommend that you click on the movie button because that shows the screens.




From CD Burning with iTunes and your Mac (Applies to PC as well) Link above:

For audio programs that are longer than 60 minutes, you may choose the portion of your audio program to burn to CD by entering the Start Time and Stop Time. Choose menu option
File -> Get Info, then select the ?Options? tab.

[See link for Graphics ommitted here that will not copy to post]

This feature is critical when burning CDs for audio programs that will not fit on a single CD-R. For example, a 6 hour audiobook will take 6 CDs to burn the entire program ? the first CD holding minutes 0 to 60, the second CD starting at 60 and stopping at 120 minutes, and so on.

You will need to set the Start Time and Stop Time for each CD you burn of this program to create a complete set of 6 CDs spanning the entire program. [Edit insert: This is no longer necessary with iTunes 4.5. ] For further assistance please visit http://www.apple.com/support/itunes.

Can I use my own CD burner software to burn Audible Content?
If you have Windows, you have to use Audible Manager in order to burn Audible Content [this is no longer true with iTunes 4.5]. You can install Audible Manager from http://www.audible.com/software. For more information on how to start burning with Audible Manager
click here
Next time I burn a cd, I will try to document and post a beginner's guide to burning cd's using iTunes and another post for AM.Next time I burn a cd, I will try to document and post a beginner's guide to burning cd's using iTunes and another post for AM.

End of Edit.
___________________________________________

What is the best way to burn an aubible book to cd?
A couple of us have been exchanging pm's on how best to burn CD's from audible audio books on both Mac and PC and need help.

I had been using Audible Manager to burn audio CD's for quite some time. With the advent of Audible Download Manager and iTunes 4.5, last evening I burned my first audiobook cd with iTunes. It was not a great experience. It appears if you leave iTunes to itself that it terminates the process with no marker for where or how to take up where iTunes quit. In addition, I had three failures to burn which interrupted the entire process. I have not found a way to satisfactorily recover from these failures other than to manually calculate time for the progress and gaps and then go to Audible Manager to specifically burn the rest of the audio book or the gap. I wasted six cd blanks in what was ultimately a 13 cd burn.

Will iTunes provide progress and interrupt capabilities? When I left my computer doing a burn, it terminated after the last cd I inserted. Is there a way to avoid this? Is there a way to recover from, say, the last cd not burning, and instructing iTunes to begin at the last successful burn? Is there a way to determine where that point is other than adding all the times on all the cd's burned so far. Seems like each cd is either 1:19:46 or 1:19:47 -- so, I suppose one could do number of cd's X 1:19:46 and have only a little overlap -- and don't forget to convert the 60's to 1's rather than a simple multiplication.

I did successfully burn the second half of Master and Commander in iTunes and it appears to do one thing that Audible Manger does not, and that is to optimize CD use -- that is, at the end of part 1, it continues into part 2 of a book on the same CD. AM stops at the end of Part 1 regardless, and a new cd is required for part 2. It is conceivable that combining would eliminate one cd.

Brief description of burning using Audible Manager (PC only)
So, for now, until and unless someone tells us how to better burn in iTunes (including how to identify and mark location and progress of burning), my recommendation to PC users is to use Audible Manager to burn CD's. I gather that Mac users are limited to iTunes for burning.

That said, burning in AM is relatively easy. Down load Audible Manager (for PC) from Audible.com. In AM, go to tools/Add Audio Files/and in Import Audio Files Window: Under Files of Type select Audible Audio Files (*.aa), browse to your iTunes audible content folder (see edit/preferences/Advanced tab/ to see location under iTunes Music Folder Location) and author (not in alpha sequence) of book you wish to burn/click import.

Before importing, it is best to select the same folder for Audible Content for both iTunes and AM. For folder location in AM, click Tools/Options/Audio Files/Click Change to same as iTunes folder.

To optimize burn speed, be sure, in AM, to go to Tools/CD Burner Properties/Recording Options to select the speed appropriate to your burner speed -- mine is 48X. I have had AM tell me that I need to reduce the speed, but I have successfully ignored that.

Open AM and click Devices/Choose Mobile Device/In window select CD Burner. Then drag and drop from Audible File into the cd burn and AM will lead you thru. AM marks each cd with beginning and end time and allows you to select times within a book for burning to a cd. However, for straightforward burning, just drag, drop, click on burn and follow the instructions.

AM offers printing labels which I find to be tedious. You can type in whatever you want in the window, including CD X of Y, which AM does not provide. I find it easier to go back to do labels all at one time, printing out a template, sticking CompUSA labels from their label REFILL kit to the template and printing.
_______________________________________________

I had posted most of the AM instructions in a post that died in the Valentine's Day crash and loss of iPod lounge posts from beginning of year to then.


Let me know if this set of instructions helps and if there are gaps, After you have tried it out. Any help in describing how iTunes burning works vs AM and to judge which is superior would be appreciated.

Each of us has done an entire ipodlounge forum search on Burning CD's, to no avail. It does irritate me that the search is limited to words over three letters, so that CD's disqualifies the search.

Complete Beginner?s Guide: Burning audible books to CD with iTunes or Audible Manager
 
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ginalee

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I am indeed disappointed by my own attempts to backup Pompeii on cd using itunes. I managed thru 2 cds before realizing it had only burned 4 tracks in all (1 1/2 hours of a 10 hour book) with NO indication of how many CDs it was going to take to finish the job! Very frustrating!
 

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Well, if you're on Windows and using Audible files, (.aa) I would do it with AudibleManager. AudibleManager is custom designed to do things that are very specific to dealing with Audible files. Hence, it handles this task better than iTunes.

But on Mac, of course, iTunes it is. I don't think there's any other way.

p.s.-if your purpose in putting on CD is merely to make a backup, I wouldn't bother making audio CD's at all. Just burn them to CD as data files and you can store lots of Audible files in native format on a single CD or DVD.
 

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I've tried using iTunes to make a book into audio CDs on two occasions: Once, very smoothly and successfully a few months ago, and next, only a few days ago. The second time I did it, iTunes failed along the lines described in Robert's post. iTunes gave up the ghost about 1/2 way through an 18-hour book. I've no idea how to burn the remaing CDs and likely will start over again using Audible Manager, knowing that I've wasted 8 blank CDs.

I'm wondering if the the older version of iTunes (I've upgraded to ver 4.5) worked while the new one doesn't?

I used to burn the books into audio CDs using Audible Manager. I found it excruciatingly slow and very cumbersome while my first experience w/ iTunes a pleasure.
 

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With Audible Manager, make sure you have the latest CD plug-in, which is Roxio 4.008

It provides free 16X burning, unlike the earlier Roxio plug-in which was limited to 2X unless you paid for the full EZ CD creator.

There was also a GearWorks plug-in initially that offered high speed burning but that appears to be gone in favor of Roxio.
 

robert

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Recovery from an interrupted iTunes Burn
I added up the cd's that burned successfully, taking care about the conversion to hours and minutes, ie, 60 = 1, and then added/imported the file into AM and then used AM to burn the remaining cd's from from the point of my last successful iTunes burn. Of course, loading a burned cd into itunes will display times, but I found about half were 1:19:46 and the other half were 1:19:47. Figure that just using the *:46 time X number of cd's will be close enough -- maybe repeat a few seconds.

My experience with AM burning has been good and reasonably fast. My AM is using Gear.works even after I upgraded to AM 4.0. Prannoya, I seem to remember that you deleted AM when Audible Download Manager became available and re-installed AM when you decided that you wanted to use it for a non-iPod player. Maybe that is when you lost Gear.works.

Optimize speed of burn in Audible Manager
To optimize speed, be sure, in AM, to go to Tools/CD Burner Properties/Recording Options to select the speed appropriate to your burner speed -- mine is 48X. I have had AM tell me that I need to reduce the speed, but I have successfully ignored that.
 
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arsolot

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parannoya said:
With Audible Manager, make sure you have the latest CD plug-in, which is Roxio 4.008

It provides free 16X burning, unlike the earlier Roxio plug-in which was limited to 2X unless you paid for the full EZ CD creator.

There was also a GearWorks plug-in initially that offered high speed burning but that appears to be gone in favor of Roxio.
Parannoya: My AM has "Roxio CD Burning plug-in for AudibleManger Version 1.1.5" and "Roxio CD Burning Engine Version 5.3.4.6"

Earlier today, I uninstalled AM (following Audible's directions how to uninstall) and then downloaded AM again. The result for the Roxio plug-in is quoted above.

Where/how do I obtain the latest CD plug-in, Roxio 4.008, that you've described?
 

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In watching the iTunes movie in the tutorial above, I discovered that the play order is indicated/determined by the sequence number in the left most column (when the arrow points up).

So, that means that if the playlist loads so that Part 2 of the book is first, click on the first column until arrow points up and drag Part 1 to the top of the list. Same logic applies to Smart Playlist with playcount resore in copying cd's to iTunes/iPod bookmarkable file. If you restore playcount to zero it will move the file to the bottom of the list and one only has to drag the file to the top of the list.
 

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arsolot said:
Parannoya: My AM has "Roxio CD Burning plug-in for AudibleManger Version 1.1.5" and "Roxio CD Burning Engine Version 5.3.4.6"


Where/how do I obtain the latest CD plug-in, Roxio 4.008, that you've described?
I dunno. I installed the CD plug-in seperately yesterday. If you download the full AM and include the CD device at that time, it may give you a different version than if you install the component seperately. But if yours is a 5X version, it must be newer.

Mine says 4.008 when I open the CD options box.
 
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robert

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Arsolot, maybe your answer is somewhere in this Audible FAQ from one of the links in post above:

I have Audible Manager with the Roxio CD burning engine, but it will not burn at full speed?
1. Un-Install Audible Manager. Follow these steps to un-install:
a. Deactivate your desktop and portable players.
i. Open Audible Manager on your PC.
ii. Select "Devices" > "Activate/Deactivate" and follow instructions.
b. Close Audible Manager.
c. Uninstall > Audible Manager:
i. On your desktop, select "Start" > "Programs" > "Audible Manager" > "Un-install Audible Manager ".
d. Search your hard drive for ? ActiveSetup ? and delete whatever comes up.
2. Un-Install Gear Drivers (If applicable). Follow these steps to un-install:
a. a. Go ?Start? > ?Settings? > ?Control Panel? > ?Add/Remove Programs?
b. b. Find ?Gear Drivers? and Un-install them.
3. Shut down the PC completely and restart.
4. Disable any firewall and anti-virus to install the software
5. Go to http://download.audible.com/AM36/ActiveSetupR.exe to install Audible Manager and run the install from current location or Open and select ?CD Burning? as the mobile device in the following dialog box.
 
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arsolot

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Yes, that's what I already did.

See my post time/date stamped 06-05-2004 01:12 PM where I said
Earlier today, I uninstalled AM (following Audible's directions how to uninstall) and then downloaded AM again.
 
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Stensvaag

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Another Reason to Burn with AM Not iTunes

parannoya said:
Well, if you're on Windows and using Audible files, (.aa) I would do it with AudibleManager. AudibleManager is custom designed to do things that are very specific to dealing with Audible files. Hence, it handles this task better than iTunes.
Thanks for all the good posts. I updated all the software last night and finally tried to burn an Audible book (I normally just use the iPod). The iTunes method turned out to be a nightmare---bombing part way through the third audio CD. The clues about how much had been copied and so forth were very weak. Most importantly: the audio CDs each had one (or at a maximum) two tracks. This might make it very difficult for a listener to keep his or her place in a book.

So I tried Audible Manager, after updating the burn component as advised on this forum. After a few glitches, it turned out to be a terrific method for burning the CDs. AM clearly told me at every step of the way just which Hour-Minute markers it was using for the beginning and end of each CD----that way, if things bombed, I could very easily start all over with, for example, disc 5 of 15. Most importantly, AM automatically busted each audio CD into 10 to 12 tracks. If there is a way to do this in iTunes, I didn't see it. Plus, AM seemed to be burning as fast as my new machine would let it---32X.

Bottom line: at least for now, AM seems to be the way to go for Audible book burning on a PC. The clear audit trail (allowing a restart) and the 10-12 tracks for CD are definite pluses. In addition, as the Audible folks point out, if you ding up or lose one CD (e.g., number 8 of 15), it would be VERY easy in AM to simply reburn that one disc. I doubt that anything like this could be done in iTunes.

Hope this helps!
 

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Recovery from iTunes audio cd burn crash, or to burn a damaged cd, etc

I would concur that AM is best. However that leaves mac users out in the cold.

[Recovery from iTunes burn crash, or to burn a damaged cd, etc]

If you crash and burn in iTunes, you can calculate, not forgetting 60's conversion to 1, a 1:19:46 per good cd and burn from that point forward with either iTunes or AM . In iTunes, with book to be burned highlighted, click File/get info/select options tab/enter start time and stop time. or, right click/get info... etc.

Stensvaag said:
...The iTunes method turned out to be a nightmare---bombing part way through the third audio CD. The clues about how much had been copied and so forth were very weak. ..
So, Stensvaag, you can use your first two cd's and resume burning in AM. Mac users are constrained to starting over with iTunes as described above.

And btw, Stensvaag, thanks having the basic idea, original post, and all your work which led to Complete Beginner?s Guide for Copying Audio CD?s into a Bookmarking iTunes/iPod file
 
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robert

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iTunes best only for P-4 and Mac

Well, guys and gals,

I tried to burn a book to cd's today with itunes on my P-3 pc. The computer crashed and partially burned -- my CD RW and DVD will no longer read CD's. I can get my CD RW to very occassionally read a music CD, but only twice in very many tries. Reads music CD into iTunes only very sporadically. Explorer does not see anything on CD's inserted into either DVD or CD-RW drives, CD doesn't show under iTunes source column, and Roxio says there is no burner.



I think that since I had an absolutely smooth iTunes burn on my P-4 pc last week, that the problem is the way that iTunes burns and uses capacity. My P-4 had no problems at all -- burning with iTunes without incident in a reasonable time. My P-3 was consumed with the iTunes burn, took forever to burn a CD, and had what XP called a serious problem to recover from. But, the P-3 does an AM burn without incident and fast -- 52X.

I cannot burn with AM on my P-4. The P-4 will burn with iTunes. I think the problem with the P-4 is that the AM burner, which is not the newest version, doesn't recognize the CD RW drive manufacturer. I suppose that I can reinstall AM and suffer the slower burn rate it imposes with the AM newer burner that recognizes more manufacturers, but I have run out of ideas about how to get my P-3 CD RW drive to read CD's. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the hardware to no avail.

Will be a real dilemma when I want to read a software CD, rip songs to my iPod, look at pictures on a CD, recover back up from a CD, rip an audio book to bookmarkable iPod file, etc.
 
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