Audiobooks and bookmarks?

Question

Audiobooks and bookmarks?

Hello all,

I'm not an iPod owner and new to this forum, but I'm looking for some feature information in order to make a buying decision. More detailed, I'm considering buying a MP3 player as a present for my parents that would primarily use it for listening to audiobooks. Personally, I do own a Rio Forge and would get this one, but unfortunately Rio was sold and its future unknown. Also, the Rio doesn't always resume playback of an audiobook correctly if batteries run out while listening. So, I'd like to know from other iPod users how the new Nano (or also some older models) would work for me - mainly how bookmarks work. As far as I can tell, older models don't support (user settable) bookmarks, which is nearly a must for me. It seems it isn't supported on Nanos either (but why not?? This seems to be a basic and simple enough feature to me), but I'd like to make sure in advance. Also, how does the Nano behave if batteries run out while listening? Does it shutdown cleanly and remember the position, or is it "sometimes" lost?

On my Rio, I can set up to 10 global bookmarks on the fly whenever I listen to any audio source (be it mp3, audible or wma). "Global" means global to the device, not the particular audiofile. A bookmark just remembers the audio file and the current position within it and stores it on flash memory. As long as the file isn't removed, one can always jump back to any of the 10 bookmarks.

This or a similar feature is essential to me so it is possible to listen to a long audiobook, while still being able to change to some music in between and then go back to the audiobook where I paused it. Also, it would allow two people to listen to their individual audiobook and still keep their listening positions.

Is my assumption right that no similar feature is available on any of the iPods? I couldn't find any information about it, just about some scripts to transform mp3 to aac, but this would only allow to resume playback at the position you left listening to (meaning it only allows one bookmark). What is not clear to me: if you have an aac file (which seems to be bookmarkable), and in the middle of it switch to some other file (another audiobook, or an mp3 song), can you at least go back to the position in the previous audiobook? In other words, is this "single" bookmark per device (which would be bad), or per file (which would be good)? And if the latter, is really one current position per (bookmarkable) file stored, so it would be possible to listen to 2 audiobooks in parallel?

And if so: I understood .aac files are bookmarkable; what about audible files? Are they bookmarkable in the same was (so one could listen to 2 audible files in parallel, and music in between)? Last but not least: if you transform mp3 to .aac file, do you loose quality (is it a real re-encoding, or just re-"labelling"), and how much?

Thanks for any help,
Andy

Posted on Sep 26, 2005 12:10 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 26, 2005 2:39 PM in response to Andreas Greulich

Wow a little but too much information there but lets see if I can answer your question. In Itunes and 5 and the Ipod Nano you can make longer files bookmark-able. When you make files bookmark-able when ever you pause (or switch from a file) the position is stored and when you go back to the file later it will kick back up where it left off fairly accurately most of the time. When ever you sync with Itunes the bookmarks are also transferred back and forth than when you are in auto mode. So from what your saying it would be " or per file (which would be good)"

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Answer 2

Sep 26, 2005 11:59 PM in response to firemandan900

Thanks for the fast reply, these are good news 🙂 Sorry if my question sounded stupid, but before you actually got such a beast yourself, this is not self-evident.

One thing also important to me is what's happening when the batteries run out while listening to a bookmarkable file. Of course it should remember the current bookmark (or at least a position not more than a minute or two in the past when it last "auto-saved", if such a thing occurs); but as my Rio sometimes looses the position (probably when it didn't have enough time to save), I became careful. Did anybody experience a similar problem with the new Nano? OK, maybe it is too early to tell, but I'm sure some people did use it for more than one battery charge already g.

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Answer 3

hudgie

Level 7

26,410 points

Sep 27, 2005 6:55 AM in response to Andreas Greulich

I haven't had that issue with the nano. Probably because I don't have one.

With my other iPods that's been hit or miss.

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Answer 4

Sep 27, 2005 8:59 AM in response to Andreas Greulich

I have had a 4Gig Nano for about a week and a half. I have quite a collection of audiobooks in MP3 to listen to. I cannot find a way to bookmark an audiobook. This feature was quite easy on my Creative Zen, (that the Nano replaced due to 3 years of wear and tear)but nearly impossible to find on my Nano

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Answer 5

Sep 27, 2005 9:47 AM in response to Mark DuBose

There are ways to convert mp3 to audible (boomarkable) format. See Aaron Feibus, "iPod Nano and mp3 Audio classes (not audible.com)" #1, 08:15am Sep 21, 2005 CDT. I haven't tried it myself yet. If you try it, let us know how it goes.

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Answer 6

Sep 27, 2005 9:53 AM in response to Mark DuBose

In iTunes 5 you can set ""Remember playback position" (in Info/Options) for any/all tracks. Should work for MP3s AFAIK.

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Answer 7

Sep 27, 2005 11:03 AM in response to Laurie Forbes

I've tried the "remember playback position" option. Doesn't seem to work for me. Once I switch to another song and then switch back, the playback position is lost.

Anyone else tried it and got it to work?

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Answer 8

Sep 27, 2005 11:17 AM in response to SleepsAtNight

"Too much information"

I drive 54 miles to and 54 miles from work daily. Most audio books I listen to are 10-14 CD's long, with each CD being around 1 hr 10 minutes long. I almost finish an entire "CD" when I arrive at work. When I leave in the afternoon, the Nano has "reset" back to the main menu.

Even if I write down where I am in a track, there is not even a "fast" fast forward to move 60 minutes into a 70 minute track in less than about 8 minutes.

I am hopeing (and used to) I can flag a track with a bookmark so that ANYTIME I come back to that track, I can return to its unique bookmark.

For 3 years now, I have had this function. Now that I have decided to choose Ipod, and APPLE, I do not. Is there a remedy other than changing brands?

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Answer 9

Sep 27, 2005 11:40 AM in response to Mark DuBose

There are many options. But they're not all pretty.

1. The ipod does have a fast fast-forward feature. When listening to the audiobook (or song), click the middle button. You will see a diamond pointing to where you are in the track. Use the click-wheel to advance; the faster you go the faster it goes. You can advance to the 7th hour of an 8hour audiobook in a few seconds.

2. Supposedly, you can select "remember playback position" in the Get Info -> Options of iTunes 5.0, but I haven't got it to work properly.

3. You can covert your audiobook mp3s to m4b (bookmarkable) format. There are a number of ways to do this. Here is one (I haven't tried it yet) Aaron Feibus, "iPod Nano and mp3 Audio classes (not audible.com)" #1, 08:15am Sep 21, 2005 CDT.

4. You can split your audiobook mp3s into smaller files using something like MP3 Magic http://www.replay-video.com/mp3magic/index.php. Then you just have to remember which "track" you left off on.

5. You can "record" your audiobook mp3s to audible.com format using something like http://replay-radio.com. I use this to record radio broadcasts (though I am doing much less of it now that many are available as downloadable podcasts). There is an option to save the recording as mp3 or as audible(bookmarkable) format. You can record from any streaming URL and/or from any sound coming from your computer speakers (so you can record your mp3s). This is a slow process reminiscient of recording LPs to Cassettes, but since it's all digital very little is lost. You can have it run overnight (and you can schedule recordings similar to a VCR or Tivo).

6. There are many other tools that convert mp3 to m4b and other formats. Just google the formats and you'll see. I haven't tried any of them.

Sleeps.

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Answer 10

Sep 27, 2005 12:07 PM in response to SleepsAtNight

Thanks Sleeps!

The fast fast forward helps me out a lot.

As I have about 400 CD's worth of mp3 audiobooks, I am hesitant to convert to another format. For the record,

Ipod will not bookmark mp3's?

I must convert to another format for an (any) Ipod to be able to set bookmarks?

Thanks again...
Mark

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Answer 11

Sep 27, 2005 12:33 PM in response to Andreas Greulich

If you use the latest version of iTunes i think you can select Show info on the audio file - and then you have an option for "remember position" (i don't have the english version, so the labels is probably not 100% correct..)

For the audio file to show up in the audiobooks section in the library, i think the file type has to be .m4b

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Answer 12

Sep 27, 2005 3:41 PM in response to Andreas Greulich

This forum is great. I did not know that you could fast forward by pushing the center button and turning the wheel.. I have been frustrated by trying to find my place in an 8 hour audible.com download.

About your 400 cd's... you could load them to music match (free download) and then add them to your itune library. I do this with my 1,200 music cd's... it is a lot of work, but it saves your library in mp3 format.

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Answer 13

Sep 27, 2005 6:57 PM in response to SleepsAtNight

I've tried it (Remember playback position)with a couple of books stored as MP3 and it seems to work as advertised - you can go back after listening to other tracks or turning the iPod off and it carries on where it left off.

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Answer 14

Tony Raza

Level 3

500 points

Sep 28, 2005 12:12 AM in response to Andreas Greulich

After reading this thread, I'm a little confused if everyone has solved their problems or not.

Nevertheless, the discussion seemed to leave it a a little unclear as to whether books were bookmarkable on the iPods. I just want to state clearly that I listen to lots of audio books from 1) downloaded CD's, 2) iTunes, and 3) Audiobooks.com. All of them are bookmarkable. Specifically, what I mean is that when I stop listnening to a book and turn to listen music and then go back to the book, it picks up where I left off.

I don't actually recall which settings I used, I thought it was just the default settings. Anyway, i was left witht he impression that some were not sure if it worked, and although I don't have step by step guidance, my point is i didn't want anyone to give up becuase they though it didn't work with ipods. it does.

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Answer 15

Sep 28, 2005 6:06 AM in response to Esther Delurgio1

I already have the CD's saved as MP3's on my PC. I am sure you can imagine how long this took. I am simply hopeing I can use them as is, instead of converting them once again to another format.

Mark

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