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Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
https://splasmstrands.com.splasm.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3671		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  drfrot [ Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
Hi,

Just bought Audiobook Builder and loving it. One thing I haven't got clear in my head though, is the relation to parts, chapters & tracks.

An example. I have a seven disc audiobook I already had in iTunes. I brought it over, and in the "Chapters" view, it initially put every track as a separate chapter. Hmm, I thought, that's not how I really envisage this book, and I went through the process of joining tracks together, so that I had seven chapters (one for each day of the week), each with about 7 or 8, ten-minute tracks inside them. The book is less than 13 hours long, so it's displaying in my iTunes library as one single item.

When I sync this with my iphone and come to listen to it, I have my one audiobook (great), I have my 7 named chapters (great)...... but I don't have any tracks, each with their individual titles (which are visible in the "Chapters" view of the app, nested beneath their chapter). This also means that if I press fast forward, it takes me to the next chapter (or disc, if you like), rather than the next track.

So what are my options? Is the only way to retain a Book-Chapter-Track hierarchy (where I can skip from one track to the next, while listening) to split this audiobook into 7 parts (each with a target of an hour), breaking by ??chapters.... and having each of the original tracks as individual chapters?

I suppose I could keep the whole thing as a one single part and have individual tracks as chapters... but then how would I divide the audiobook into my one-a-day seven segments?

Confused!
Author:  drfrot [ Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
Seriously?

No one can answer this question? Is this not the basics of how it works? Someone must know!
Author:  graphicwolf [ Fri Jan 27, 2012 9:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
I tend to listen to Audiobooks from Audible.com all the time, so I can tell you that and Audiobook works differently than a music track. An audiobook basically contains chapters that you can flip through by pressing your next track button (at least that's how it works on the ipod nano) However when you look at your audiobook in the finder you only see one file.

In iTunes you can even see the chapters. Just start an audiobook and a "chapters" option will appear in your top bar, click it and you can see all the chapters in that audiobook.

However.....the new UPDATED Audiobook Builder does not work this way for some strange reason the chapters now end up as multiple files so my library looks huge. BRING BACK MY OLD VERSION :(

Hope that helped.
Author:  Randy K. [ Sat Jan 28, 2012 3:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
Audiobook Builder will only create files for each chapter if you choose 'Per Chapter' in the Part Style in the Build options. If you want things to stay in large parts like before, make sure it is set to between files or between chapters, and make sure the part length is as long as you can make it for your given file quality. All of this can be done in the Build tab under the Build Options button.
Author:  nucki [ Fri Feb 24, 2012 4:03 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
I have a similar problem.
Lets say I want to import one CD with i.e. 10 tracks on it. I want my iPod to show these different files so that I can jump from one to the other.
But I cant get it in that way. I just get "Chapter 1" with no files. If I import 3 CDs than I get "Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3" also with no files to jump to.
I tried all the options and imported "all files" instead of "one file".
I have chosen "split after files" (I hope that is the correct wording because I am using the german version) because this seems logical to me.
Please be so kind and describe how it works to get every file listed on the iPod..

Thanks a lot! Great Program!
Peter
Author:  drfrot [ Fri Feb 24, 2012 5:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
Yeah, I think @Randy K's response was more directed at @graphicwolf's question.

I'm still keen to find out whether it's possible to do what we want to do in Audiobook Builder?

G
Author:  Allan W. [ Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
Whenever several tracks from a CD are joined together as a single Chapter, their individual identity is lost. In Audiobook Builder, you will still see the tracks contained within the Chapter so that if you ever want to split them up again in your project you can. In order to be able to skip from track to track within an Audiobook, each track needs to be a separate Chapter.

@drfrot: You are right, probably the best thing to do would be to keep the individual tracks as Chapters and then for your Build Options settings choose 'Break Between Chapters' as the Part Style and then set the Target Length to an hour. You will get your seven parts, but will still end up with a single Audiobook which will contain the individual tracks within the parts so that you can skip around.
Author:  nucki [ Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:56 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
Allan W. wrote:
Whenever several tracks from a CD are joined together as a single Chapter, their individual identity is lost. In Audiobook Builder, you will still see the tracks contained within the Chapter so that if you ever want to split them up again in your project you can. In order to be able to skip from track to track within an Audiobook, each track needs to be a separate Chapter.


ok, and how does that work? How can I get chapters out of my tracks?

br
Peter
Author:  Allan W. [ Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
In your Audiobook Builder project, select the Chapter that was created when the tracks were joined together. Then, just hit the Split at the top of the window (it looks like a zipper unzipping). This will split apart those tracks again as individual Chapters in the project. You can then rebuild your Audiobook.

If your tracks were joined when you imported the CD, using the Import as single file option, you will be unable to use the Split button in this way. So, this splitting only works if you used the Join button previously in Audiobook Builder.
Author:  nucki [ Mon Mar 12, 2012 4:20 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
Yes! Thank you! That was the key!
br
Peter
Author:  drfrot [ Sun Apr 08, 2012 12:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
Thank you Allan, very helpful.

I've been playing around with this a bit more, and you're right - the only way to keep the individuality of files (to skip through when listening) is to leave them all as chapters of their own. Then setting the target length, to break by chapter gives (largely) good results.

However, there are two related problems with this, that I'd love to see a solution to in a future update.

1. The minimum part length is 1 hour.
This is no good when trying to create an audiobook from a Radio series, where each "part" is around 30 minutes long. (In the end on this one, I gave up, did the whole thing as one part, set my six chapters as my six 30-minute episodes and lost the track detail)

2. The whole method relies on the parts being of almost identical, equal length.
I had one great audiobook, where there were 3 CDs, each almost exactly an hour long, with 5 decent-length tracks on each. I set the target time to 1hr1min (as one of them was just over an hour long) and hey presto - I have one audiobook, with three parts, retaining the individual tracks as chapters that I can jump between when listening.

But if I have another audiobook where the CDs clock in at e.g. 58min/59min/56min/1h02min, and the tracks are sometimes only a couple of minutes long, I'd then lose control of exactly where the parts were being split. If each file/track is a chapter, then however I set it, it's going to add short tracks from the next CD to make it up to 1h02, and the breaks would get out of sync.

Does that make sense? I'd like to see more control over how (actually, more like where) parts are split. And to allow shorter parts, as in example 1.

Don't get me wrong - I'm loving the software, it's a joy to use, but I would like that little bit more control of my finished product!

Thanks

Giles
Author:  Allan W. [ Mon Apr 09, 2012 1:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
Giles,

I get what you're saying. It would be cool indeed to have shorter Target Length options as well as the ability to manually set Part length splits. We can certainly look into adding those features to a future release.

We've got a request list going that we'll look to when we sit down to plan the next updates to Audiobook Builder. So, I'll definitely add your suggestions to that list. Thanks!
Author:  ryan10 [ Wed Oct 03, 2012 3:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
I was looking for this possibility as well, and couldn't find it. I have a very long book of 38 disks, that has its own 3 parts, and can't find a way to break it into these unequal part lengths, at just the places that would give me the 3 books as 3 parts. So I look forward to your solution to this.

Also, I don't know whether Apple has yet addressed the issue of generic track names on iPod touch and phone. But I listen to books only on my touch screen nano, which seems not to have that problem. With 15 GB, it has lots of room for quite a number books, and is easier to use while on public transit or working out. The track names there are always as entered. So it shouldn't be hard for them to include this on the others too.
Author:  Allan W. [ Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:10 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
For your particularly large Audiobook build, I'd recommend working with three separate projects—one for each book. We're still going to look into a way to group items in one project but, for now, perhaps this would be a good workaround.

Also, you were lucky in that the generic Chapters bug never extended to the iPod Nano. That bug only showed up on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. And actually, on iOS 6 the bug was fixed for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the iPad, though.
Author:  ryan10 [ Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Parts - Chapters - ?Tracks
Thanks for your reply, Allan. It would have been a good work around, but I already had all three copied into ABB as one project before I thought of how to separate them. If there is a way to separate them out, without recopying them, I'd like to know about it, otherwise, I will just make two parts more or less randomly and be done with it.
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