Splasm Software Discussions

Questions:

1) In ripping books I am not getting chapter breaks in iTunes, just long sections labeled "Part 1" and 'Part 2" (if the item is long enough). The chapters show in the Book Builder before they are joined and sent to iTunes.

2) In addition, there are missing areas of the books in some cases .... just log stretches of silence.

Things I have done to troubleshoot (in addition to searching online areas):

- Listened to the actual disks that contain the missing sections (with the same disk drive) - no problems
- Burned a project with only the single chapter - also worked, no problem when imported to iTunes

Thank you for your help.

Scott

_________________
Captain Puget

iTunes should add a menu named "Chapters" to the menu bar, just to the right of the Window menu, right after you start playing an Audiobook. Each Chapter should show up in that menu. Can you try playing one of your Audiobooks and check to see if that menu appears?

Missing audio usually indicates that Audiobook Builder ran into some hardware-level errors when reading from the original disc(s). This sounds whonky because the discs may work in other circumstances. In our case, we're telling QuickTime to treat the files on each disc as an audio file, then export that file to an AAC file inside your Audiobook Builder Project. This is identical to what would happen if you asked QuickTime Player to convert a track from a CD to AAC - and it works fine when hardware errors don't occur. One way to check for these kinds of errors is to try importing a disc that you know Audiobook Builder hasn't worked with before into a new Audiobook Builder Project. After importing, launch /Applications/Utilities/Console.log and switch to the system.log in the list of logs on the left side of the window. If you see anything that says "I/O error" or "SAM Multimedia: READ or WRITE failed" then we're looking at a failing drive, bum discs or both. iTunes has ways of working around some of these kinds of errors, though, so resorting to importing into iTunes first, then adding the iTunes tracks to Audiobook Builder Projects using the "Add iTunes" feature can be a viable option.

_________________
Keith Gugliotto
Primordial Sea Captain
Splasm Software
https://www.splasm.com

Thanks Keith,

Chapters found .... I was looking for them broken-out, specifically .... but I guess I could import each individually if I need that navigation ability (might be a good option switch to add in the future?)

On the missing audio .... this sounds more like a bug (or feature request . It appears the only way to avoid multiple rips.... and then having to listen to verify is to import to iTunes first .... which kind of defeats some of the purpose of Audiobook Builder. Any plans to add error checking and recovery in a future release?

_________________
Captain Puget

I also ran into situations where after ripping via ABB, the last part of the file contained just silence. In debugging this, I ripped the chapters as individual files (vs. one file for the CD). I would reach a chapter where the last part of the chapter file contained silence but the subsequent chapter(s) would be fine. Looking at the CDs where this was happening, I found that the CD was either globbed with jam or whatever the previous user had been eating or it had been used as a test for #80 sandpaper. I also found that using a different (external in my case) reader was more forgiving re: the crud on the CD.

My workaround has been to "Show Package Contents" for the ABB project, drilling down to the files folder and open/play the very first and last parts of each file after ABB has completed importing it. This way I can tell if I need to retry the import. It does add to the time ripping, but not that much as I have to be there to eject/insert CDs anyway.

It would be nice if ABB could detect and alert when there is an unrecoverable read error or whatever error occurs when this situation is occurs. I don't know if this is technically feasible though, but it would be nice.

ABB is a great product, regardless.

Good ideas, especially the observation that "bad" (dirty/ damaged) CD's greatly contribute to this problem.

My current process:

1) Look at the CD. If it looks dirty/ damaged; clean and repair (use cleaning and repair kit w/ liquid solution, if needed). This kit is available at most CD stores.... lot's of brands, w/ various cost and effectiveness points.

2) If still damaged or questionable, rip to iTunes first (to take advantage of the error correction capabilities). Then import to ABB to build a book.

This avoids having to listen to selections, which costs too much in time ... and I view it as a work around until either ABB releases a new version with error correction or iTunes starts allowing import in Audio Book format.

_________________
Captain Puget

Now that the new constant bit rate setting in the latest iTunes/Quicktime no longer gives you constant bit rates, however, this will require encoding twice -- once in iTunes upon ripping a disc, and again in Audiobook Builder upon building a project. Here's a link to an Apple support discussion featuring several frustrated audiobook afficiandos:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... 3&tstart=0

Another idea for badly scratched discs would be using "Max" (http://sbooth.org/Max/) to rip them. It includes the cdparanoia code (for more info, check this out: http://xiph.org/paranoia/faq.html), one of the best ways to ensure your ripped sound is exactly as you plan it to be. Make sure that in preferences you turn on "full paranoia".

You could rip to WAV and then create an audiobook in Audiobook Builder. Therefore no loss in sound quality and the peace of mind to have a perfect rip. At least for those problematic discs I found this to be a viable solution.

Does Max let you rip to CBR AAC? If so, that could save some re-encoding time in Audiobook Builder - and temporary disk space, too.

_________________
Keith Gugliotto
Primordial Sea Captain
Splasm Software
https://www.splasm.com

I'm pretty sure it can. You can define one or more output formats, one of which is AAC. You can select CBR or VBR encording. As long as QuickTime is able to encode in CBR, Max is, too.