Another audiobook importing tool for Windows
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago by AldereteIn a recent post I recommended a few tools for importing audiobooks, which work around some of the more tedious aspects of importing audiobooks using iTunes. Last week I came across another interesting tool for Windows users, which might also be useful:
I have not yet tested it with importing a book, but it looks like it gets a couple of things really right, namely allowing you to set the meta data for the tracks manually, overriding what comes in from the Gracenote CDDB lookup that iTunes does automatically, and which is often inaccurate. Bogus meta data is one of the top causes for problems that people have with sort and playback order of audiobook tracks, and if this tool can reduce or eliminate that, it’s going to be very useful indeed.
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May 2nd, 2008 at 5:47 am
Looks very promising. Not clear from his website if the join tracks option is done; I use iTunes because of the ability to join tracks. So if I understand correctly when I download this program I use its info in place of iTunes info as I’ve always done per your instructions?
Lately, I’ve had one or two ripped books to simply cut off the end anywhere from
1 minute to longer. Can’t figure if this is a CD problem or iTunes.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:56 am
For merging tracks (thereby getting around the sorting problem), I strongly recommend Direct MP3 Joiner. I don’t even remember where I got it, but I’ve tried a number of Windows programs to do this, and this is the only one that doesn’t fail.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
I have an iPod Nano with the latest software. My problem is that the instructions for “Optimal iTunes Import Settings for Audiobooks” don’t seem to apply, e.g., I don’t find any “Preferences dialog” to make any of these settings. I am able to import an audio CD into the iPod and then synch it. However, at that point, if there were, say 9 CD discs, I will have the tracks showing up in the iPod menu under “Cover Flow”, not Audiobooks. The tracks will have no overall title. Also, I will have 9 of each track, e.g., 9 “Track 1” etc. So the result is practically unusable.
With respect to the advice about renaming the file extensions from the FAQ, where does one find the files to rename? And does one reimport and resynch after renaming?
June 5th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Thanks for linking to my program. @Donna: Sorry, there is no built-in way to join tracks. I’m not sure what would happen if you did it manually in iTunes first before importing using my program.
I welcome constructive feedback. You can email me at the address provided from the “Instructions” button in the program. You can also get my email address by clicking the PayPal button on my web page (you don’t need to donate to get my address).
June 15th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
it does seem to work if you join up the cd tracks before using the program, now if only i could link several cd’s together in “chapter” format like the audible books… i’d be set.
July 12th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I have read your many articles on taking audiobook cd’s and importing them into iTunes and then onto a iPod. You talk about MP3 CD’s. What about audio cd that have a .cda extension? How does one covert, import or whatever to get these into iTunes Audiobooks. I really would like them in this Library instead of into the Music Library.
July 13th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
@Joe: Whenever you’re dealing with an unfamiliar file extension, it’s often useful to look up what the file kind is. For example, the .cda extension is described as:
So most likely you don’t have the actual audio tracks, and therefore there’s nothing to convert. What happens when you double-click them? What about if you copy the file to your computer, and then eject the CD, and then double-click it?