Audiobooks not showing up the same in my new iPod

[KirkDickinson]

Just replaced a 5G (60Gig video) with a 6G (80Gig Classic). I listen to a lot of audiobooks. My books are usually broken up into 3-5 parts. (I use Markable)

On my old iPod I used to search the book By browsing:
Music -> Genre -> Audiobook -> Author -> Book Title -> Book Part

With the 6G, when I go to Genre, Audio Books are not listed there.

If I go to Music -> Audiobooks there isn't anyway to browse, It just dumps me into the big list of books. Not convenient. (386 books parts total)

Is there anyway to get the functionality that I was used to with my 5G?

Thanks,

Kirk

[cjmnews]

So you are changing all the file types to m4b. I think that the new iPods are trying to separate the audiobooks from the music more. As long as you don't need the "play faster" or "play slower" options, you could change the extensions to m4a and you'll have your same functionality back.

I recommend using playlists instead. But that's how I prefer to handle it.

[KirkDickinson]

Yeah, I use Markable and it changes them to m4b. I like to play faster, so wouldn't want to loose that ability. The newer iPod does a much better job of playing faster than the old one by the way.

Seems like a pain to set up a separate playlist for every book.

Are you making your own audiobooks from cd's? Do you leave each track separately?

Looks like the new way for the iPod would work better if the book files were each in one monster file. I never trusted my 5G to remember the position of the track and it would be difficult to find your place back in one big file, but the 6G seems better about it, only loosing place once, and I think I bumped the button.

Thanks,

Kirk

[cjmnews]

I guess you didn't follow the link...

I make my own with one CD per file instead of each track separately. Making the playlists is not that difficult since it is a one time set up per book. I did three books last week. It adds 3 minutes more work per book, and I get easy management on my iPods. Seems worth it to me.

I don't think that any iPod reliably handles the 1 monster file yet. Maybe the 6th generation could handle it for medium books, but I would expect long books like the later Harry Potter books would still have problems losing their bookmarks.

As the iPods move toward handling movies more reliably, long audiobook supports get better.

[studogvetmed]

Can you still find the books under song or artist or album out of curiosity.

[december]

i have the same problem: when i navigate to the Audiobooks list on the iPod i get a mulligatawny of tracks (track 1 etc.) from different books without the album information. Within iTunes, everything is neatly organized as you'd expect but on the iPod it is a mess.

The solution is to make a smart playlist, which will then be organized by album again without the album information being displayed anywhere on the screen or on any screen you can access by pressing the centre button.

I fail to comprehend what the problem is. Why can't the audiobooks section be like the music section where you first select the artist then the album? Why omit these sub-menus?

[studogvetmed]

This is a grand shortcoming of the audiobook section of the iPod, which is much better made to accommodate audible content which is usually only one or two files per book, so a long list with no submenus is not as daunting compared to personally ripped books which can contain multiple tracks, even joined together at times....

[december]

thanks ... glad to know this is not a tagging problem on my end. I guess this is an issue to be raised via Apple feedback. I guess i'll have to make individual Book playlists for now.