Adding Chapters to audiobook files - step by step guide

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david1951

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apcsb said:
By the way, I have a suggestion. In order to create an audiobook file from CD you'd have to merge multiple chapters, convert to AAC and then use your prog. If you add the Merge and Convert functionality along with auto-adding chapter stops in the spots where files merge - you'll get a great all-in-one tool! This might be the goal for v2.
This is the point about folding some of this functionality into my software MarkAble, which I am definitely going to do. But I still think there is a place for a stand-alone chapter tool, which is ChapterMaster.

If you are interested in beta testing, please send me a private message on the forum with your real name and email address.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: After accepting your offer, I probably now have enough Beta testers, so no more offers, thanks, from others!
 

david1951

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No more beta testers required for ChapterMaster

Thanks, but I now have enough beta testers for "Chapter Master" for the time being. It's going well, and I still hope to release the product in March.
 
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SoundOfEmotion

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Problems Using XML To POD Converter?

SilverBear said:
I too have had problems getting a response from the Web based converter - nothing happens. ? Security settings. Can you give me a hint?
My only recommendations would be to 1) try again at a later time (which worked for some users having issues) or 2) provide me a link to an XML file which is failing.

The way the script is designed to work is that when you click "Convert", it will load the XML file into memory, build the POD file on the fly and should provide you immediately with a "Save As" dialogue.

There is a very slight chance that the XML file you are trying is too large, but if this were the case you should be getting the appropriate "Filesize is too large" error which I have built in.
 

mccray.9

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SoundOfEmotion said:
There is a very slight chance that the XML file you are trying is too large, but if this were the case you should be getting the appropriate "Filesize is too large" error which I have built in.
I have had trouble with files that had more than a certain number of chapters (it seems like it occurs at around 35). I never saw an error message; the app would just blank out the file input text box after I hit the convert button. All other files worked great. Thanks for the tool!
 

SoundOfEmotion

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As a security measure I had specified a file limit for the xml file being converted. This may or may not be why some people have been having issues with audiobooks that contain a large amount of chapters. If you hit a snag, let me know.

This post is also to update everyone that hoops10 helped me uncover an issue with the pod file generator where chapters that were greater than 2hrs were not calculating properly (there were also some carriage return issues). These have both been resolved and the generator is back up and running.

As always, let me know if you encounter issues when using the Pod File Generator.
 

admi-ral

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thanks for the HowTo :)

no matter what I'm trying, there are several (nearly all) playlists that I'm exporting as XML-File that get shuffled in the pod-creater at http://www.soundofemotion.com/pod/ - I tried different ways of sorting in itunes and also adding the files in different way but nothing helped. Has anyone a similar problem with the .pod-files?

Thanks a lot! Tim
 

admi-ral

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update: i think the problem was the itunes-tag-field "titlename for sorting", several titles had a "the" at the beginning in the title-field but not in the titlename-for-forting-field. Well, anyway it works after removing the "the" from the titlefield either :)
 

hamproof

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I'm using this tool:

MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter
http://www.freeipodsoftware.com./index.php

which uses SSA for the chaptering.

However, I'm encountering issues whereby when I try to chapterize the entire book (around 122 MP3s) it never completes - the SSA portion that is.

If I drag and drop all the files, say 122 MP3s, it does it thing and I can see it is creating the m4a file then there's the filename.m4b file as well as a filename_enhanced.m4b and a filename.pod file. But it'll keep going and going (I've left it running overnight) and the last modified date never changes. So, it appears the SSA.exe has been running but never finishes.

If I take either the filename.m4b or filename_enhanced.m4b and play them back, the filename.m4b doesn't have chapters and the filename_enhanced.m4b has chapters but there's something wrong with the playback. At times it would skip, stutter and what not.

If I break it up to 3 or 4 parts, then everything works.

I e-mail the author of the software but haven't gotten a response. Does anyone know if there's a limit to the number of files SSA can chapterize?? Or any explanation why this is not working?

Thanks.
 

skraper

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Your programs looks to be exactly what I need, however anytime I try to open and m4a or m4b file I get an unhandled exception error message. This appears to happen with every m4a or m4b on my computer. I looked through your tutorial and wasn't able to find a fix for this problem.

Any ideas?
 

david1951

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skraper said:
Your programs looks to be exactly what I need, however anytime I try to open and m4a or m4b file I get an unhandled exception error message. This appears to happen with every m4a or m4b on my computer. I looked through your tutorial and wasn't able to find a fix for this problem.

Any ideas?
Sorry about that, it is early days with the software, despite some weeks of beta testing, and I've already had a couple of issues reported which I'll be fixing this weekend.

Can we take this offline? I'll send you a private message.
 

SoundOfEmotion

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XML to POD Converter

I've received several messages from users that are not able to use my website to create .pod files, particularly if they have a very large number of chapters.

I'm hoping that the majority of you will still be monitoring this forum thread. If you are still having issues, please let me know. I have made various fixes to the script and if you're still having issues I would need to take a closer look at your .xml file.

Thanks!
 

korden

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How it to change font?

Font which are written the chapter (Chapter 1, Chapter 2) of more text in other menus. How it to change?

 

SoundOfEmotion

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Fonts are hard-coded into iTunes as far as I know. There is no way to change the font through iTunes.
 

korden

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Change font in the menu chapters

And scrolling (a wheel of the mouse) in the menu of the "chapters" does not work only for me?
 
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drjayphd

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This method's worked great for me, with one notable exception. There's one book that refuses to work with Slideshow Assembler. Every time I drag the .pod file onto SSA, it closes right out of the program.

I've checked to make sure the .pod file's clean (with all the right file names and locations, as well as no extraneous fields), and it is. Thought it might have something to do with a chapter using either a colon, exclamation point, or accented character, but changing those in the titles didn't help. Maybe the image was too small or too big... nope, that wasn't the problem either. The book's only 25 chapters, and the longest one there's 11 minutes, so those issues (even though they were resolved) aren't it either. When I imported all the files into iTunes, they were in the wrong order, but I rearranged them in the original XML file before converting (thanks to SoundofEmotion's converter). That's happened on other books, but I converted those into audiobooks with no problems whatsoever either.

What else could cause SSA to gag and shut down on a file? It's getting really annoying because this is the only time I've had problems that I couldn't fix.
 

tomtjose

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use the application in the link

podfilecreator . appspot . com

to create pod files for use in ssa
 

stevehaley

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I have now released iPod Audio Book Creator to public beta - thanks to all those who helped

see http://www.sjhaley.com/ipodabc/index.htm



# Converts mp3 or wav files ripped from cds to iPod audio book format (mp4)
# Allows adding of tagging and cover pictures
# Retains mp3 tags if they exist
# Combines multiple files into one or more audio book files
# Final file can be split by size, time or number
# Chapters can be added per input file and/or chapter stops can be inserted every x mins
# Easy and quick to use - Once it the source has been ripped to mp3 or wav format the average 10hr audio book can be converted in one easy step with 1-5 mins to setup and 50-90 mins of processing depending on PC spec.
# Supports drag and drop of source files including directories (one layer only)
# Files can be sorted manually or automatically
# Its Free
# New version in prototype to allow editing and ad-hoc chapters and maybe batching up jobs
 

crash613

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Thanks to Stevehaley for his ipodaudiobook creator program! I just used it to create my first audiobook! (well not mine, but one I converted from CD) ;)
 
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