Audio Books

[SS_Video_Newb]

Please let me know if there is a better place please as this is now about video.

I have a audio book that is 20 hours long. I have converted it to mp3 format as well.

Now I want to put it on a CD, but before I do I want to edit it and put each chapter as it's own track.

Is there a program (Hopefully Freeware) that will allow me to break up a single file into separate tracks for recording to cd?

[gadgetguy]

Maybe Audacity. If I remember right, it can open and save to mp3 allowing you to break it into chapters.

[mats.hogberg]

In what shape did the audio book come originally? One single 20 hour audio file?
There's a CLI utility (can't recall the name) that automagically splits mp3 (detects silence) but that may not work for speech, where silent pauses may not necessarily indicate a new chapter...

/Mats

[SS_Video_Newb]

It was originally an .AA file from Audible.com.

My task is putting it on CD. Which is pretty simple, but it spans over several CD's.

I want to make it easier to get to certain chapter while in the car, so my plan was to convert it to mp3 and look for an editer to break it apart in to tracks.

[gadgetguy]

... One single 20 hour audio file? ...

That's exactly what you get if you download an audiobook from your local library, (in this case .wmf). Which I suppose is OK if you're listening to it on the computer, but we did this for my wife to listen to on her new MP3 player and there's no facility for jumping back to where she left off. She listened to 7 hours of an 18 hour Steven King novel then went to bed. Next morning she tried to get to where she left off and discovered that the only way was to "scan" through jumping 30-40 seconds at a time.
She's going back to the Audio Books on CD.

[SS_Video_Newb]

My MP3 player has bookmarks.

So when listening to the story, when I want to stop, I can add a bookmark. When I am ready to play the book again I start at the bookmark. What player do you have Gadget? I have the Zen Vision M which has been great.

Now for playing in the car, I wanted to put one of the books on CD's. I know before doing it I will be in that situation of no way to start again where I left off, unless I can add tracks before putting it on CD. I hope to find a way to do it. I think I stumbled accross a software to do it manually, but wish there was a way to do it automaticlly. The software I found was WavePad. Not sure if anyone has used this or not. Let me know.

[Cornucopia]

IF your mp3 player (car?) supports M3U playlists, here's my suggestion:

1. Cut your long MP3 with MP3DirectCut into bite-size chunks (aka "chapters").
2. Create an M3U playlist of the ordered, chaptered MP3 files.
3. Burn the cut (chaptered) mp3 files AND the m3u playlist file to a DataCD.
4. Play the m3u in your player. You'll be able to skip/return to chapters easily.

You can cut up the file as finely as you like...

Scott

[SS_Video_Newb]

Thank you Cornucopia....

I will try this out...

[gadgetguy]

My MP3 player has bookmarks.

So when listening to the story, when I want to stop, I can add a bookmark. When I am ready to play the book again I start at the bookmark. What player do you have Gadget? I have the Zen Vision M which has been great...

It's a SanDisk Sansa e200. I'll have to check and see if it has bookmark capabilities. That would certainly help make it usable for audiobooks. Thanks.

[on30trainman]

[/quote] It's a SanDisk Sansa e200. I'll have to check and see if it has bookmark capabilities. That would certainly help make it usable for audiobooks. Thanks.[/quote]

I don't believe the Sansa e200s have bookmark capability. If you haven't been there already - try the Sansa e200 forum at anythingbutipod.com and do a search on bookmarks. There are several threads there about that subject and I think I remember several posts trying to do exactly what you want.

[INFRATOM]

one of those FM transmitters maybe a simpler solution and you use your ZEN player.

[gadgetguy]

I don't believe the Sansa e200s have bookmark capability. If you haven't been there already - try the Sansa e200 forum at anythingbutipod.com and do a search on bookmarks. There are several threads there about that subject and I think I remember several posts trying to do exactly what you want.

It doesn't. It is on the list of requested features at anythingbutipod.com, but I don't know if SanDisk even knows about it, much less working on it. It's too bad because this really is a nice little device, just not for audiobooks.

Oh, and thanks for the link.

[AlanHK]

1. Cut your long MP3 with MP3DirectCut into bite-size chunks (aka "chapters").

Actually, MP3Cut has a configurable "pause detection" function that might be useful.

[mats.hogberg]

http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/mp3splt_page/documentation/man.html
Here's the CLI app I was talking about earlier. Splits by time or silence.

/Mats