Codec to convert *into* Audible audio .aa format [Archive]

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Cnidaria

04-03-2005, 02:02 PM

rchewings

04-11-2005, 11:48 PM

I'll vote for that one too!

The reason is not obvious unless you listen to books on MP3 and .AA formats. Audible players have a bookmark function that saves your place when listening to an .AA file but not an MP3 files. Nobody listens to an entire book at one sitting so a bookmark is REALLY useful.

When I rip audio books from CD, I want them as .AA files so I can listen on my "Audible Ready" player.

I would imagine there are 3 major issues, however:
1. the format is probably copyrighted and I doubt if Audible is interesting in sharing it for free.
2. the copy protection may be implemented in a way such that making the format compatible without the encryption might be prohibitive.
3. lack of universal interest.

(Not to be negative, just technical)
Robbin

LtData

04-12-2005, 12:43 AM

I think the main problem is legal issues, i.e. audible not wanting their format made elsewhere and if they do, then charging for it. This would force Spoon to charge for that codec and well, he doesn't. Anybody have a Russian server handy? :D

Cnidaria

04-12-2005, 09:40 PM

Audible claims that their format #4 is a version of mp3 . . . I wonder if there's some way to trick Audible Manager/Audible players into accepting mp3 files modified in some way??

FRZ

05-04-2005, 10:14 PM

There is a lot of talk about converting Audible audio's .aa format into mp3 or whatever, but I'm looking for the opposite. I really like Audible's player on my Palm and I'd like to be able to listen to other audiobooks with it. So how about a codec to convert mp3 or wav into aa? Thanks!

Audible uses MP3 or AAC (low bit- & sampling-rate) with a proprietary encumbering DRM addition. That's about it. You can get a similar effect by using the WMA codec with digital rights restrictions if your goal is to make playback on most machines more difficult.

I think you're slightly mad to want such things. Just use AAC or MP3.

Cnidaria

05-04-2005, 10:40 PM

No no no! I don't want their crazy DRM restrictions! I just want to be able to play my own content (ripped audiobook CDs, for instance) on their excellent player.

mattwhitlock

06-20-2005, 08:40 PM

Cnidaria, you're absolutely dead-on with wanting this. Anyone who's listened to audiobooks as mp3 and through audible would agree. DRM is beside the point, and I can't believe it was even mentioned.

For me, audible.com files on my ipod can be played back at 125% of recorded speed, and saves my place regardless of what else I've listened to. Never going back to mp3 audiobooks for me.

There are a couple options, out there for ipod users, don't know if they'll work with the audible player or not.

The best way to start is to convert your mp3 into AAC format (gives you type 3 or type 4 audible format). In itunes, you just convert it to AAC, change the file extension from .m4a to .m4b and bookmarks work. I'm testing the MarkAble software from www.ipodsoft.com to see if it makes things easier.

Good luck, and try google searching "ipod markable" or "audible bookmark" if this doesn't work for you.

ElizabethPaints

08-16-2005, 03:50 AM

You can bookmark mp3s by following these instructions:
http://forums.ipodlounge.com/archive/topic/45967-1.html

mjm70

05-31-2006, 08:42 PM

I'm testing the MarkAble software from www.ipodsoft.com to see if it makes things easier.

I use that, but it is not the same. an M4B file can only have a single bookmark, where an AA file can have chapter marks. This makes a big difference if you want to skip forward a bit, or back a bit.

gilex

07-26-2006, 04:21 PM

maybe you could ask nicely to audio audible if they could do it for you!

martin_bryant

04-19-2007, 07:06 AM

I would like this too. My iPod Nano distinguishes between Auudio books (aa) and music (MP3) and I would like to use this feature for my existing MP3 audio books.

Bookmarks are nice too.

Martin

damovee

07-24-2007, 02:27 AM

anyone ever heard of a .aa file editor. This way I could listen to the best parts of my favorite radio show on my ipod without having to keep the whole episode. Man, that would be great.

Spoon

07-24-2007, 05:20 AM

Write m4b files, which are m4a audio books.

damovee

07-24-2007, 03:36 PM

how do u do that?

Spoon

07-24-2007, 03:49 PM

Install the m4b audio codec:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-m4a.htm

damovee

07-24-2007, 06:34 PM

will installing this codec allow me to edit out the content i dont want and turn all other content into separate files?

Spoon

07-25-2007, 04:39 AM

You are best editing in Wave, splitting then encoding to m4b.

volvoguy

08-01-2007, 06:07 AM

I found this thread while looking for a way to do the opposite, so I may need to start a new thread - but I thought I'd chime in. :-)

If you encode your file(s) into the .m4b file format, you get the "bookmarking" feature on your iPod by default. It sounds like what the OP is looking for is "chapters" within a given .m4b file (correct me if I'm wrong).

What I was actually looking for is a way to take my input files (separate CD tracks or mp3s), and combine them - with each file starting a new chapter - and then encode it into .m4b. That way you could have a whole book (or whole chapter - if it's a long book with multiple breaks per chapter) in a single m4b file, and have chapter markers (the CD tracks or separate input files), AND have it bookmarkable. Does that make any sense?

If this is too off topic let me know and I'll start a new thread, but it sounds to me like we're trying to do similar tasks.

Aaron

LtData

08-01-2007, 08:13 AM

Currently, dMC doesn't have a method to combine files.

Sheryl22

12-10-2007, 11:53 PM

The most universal device I have seen is my Treo 650. Between Kinoma Player support for .m4a and .aac files with bookmarking and Pocket Tunes support for .mp3, .wav, .wma, and .ogg, I haven’t found anything that it can’t handle assuming that it I can find a way to convert it into one of these formats. I can then bookmark as much as I like.

The problem I am experiencing is in helping someone who has an audible ready Device. Downloading an Audible product gives them all sorts of functionality such as bookmarking. Any other supported format does not. I finally realized that the answer was to convert the audio file into .aa format. But while Audible has been very concerned about forbidding conversion from .aa format, they seem to have no interest in allowing their law-abiding users to perform conversion of their own content to that same format.
_________________________
Here is a website Audio Books (http://www.im-listening-audio-books.com/) where I have downloaded lost of books

volvoguy

01-24-2008, 06:14 PM

Hopefully it's ok that I give this thread a "bump". I'm kind of surprised that with the new dMC, DSP and utility plugins that there isn't a way to do what I was asking about ~5 months ago (I know, priorities - and that's cool). Is the difficulty knowing how to make the chapter markers that iTunes/iPods understand? Otherwise, butting a group of files together into one file seems pretty trivial. I can do that part (and even batch combine them) in SoundForge and convert the results to .m4b with dMC, but I still don't know of a good/easy way to put the darn chapter markers in where the individual files started (except a "kind-of" applescript solution, but that's not really easy to switch platforms to do one task).

So, I'm not trying to be pushy or anything - just curious what the hold up is for this kind of feature. Google it - there's a bazillion people asking about the same thing elsewhere!

Otherwise, keep up the good work! I really like the new stuff in 12 Reference and look forward to some of the "todo" features for future versions (like multi-cpu/multi-machine encoding!).

Aaron

Proteus

05-04-2008, 12:18 PM

'Bumped' from several years ago, but I have the same question:

I'll vote for that one too!

The reason is not obvious unless you listen to books on MP3 and .AA formats. Audible players have a bookmark function that saves your place when listening to an .AA file but not an MP3 files. Nobody listens to an entire book at one sitting so a bookmark is REALLY useful.

When I rip audio books from CD, I want them as .AA files so I can listen on my "Audible Ready" player.

I would imagine there are 3 major issues, however:
1. the format is probably copyrighted and I doubt if Audible is interesting in sharing it for free.
2. the copy protection may be implemented in a way such that making the format compatible without the encryption might be prohibitive.
3. lack of universal interest.

(Not to be negative, just technical)
Robbin

I've been an Audible.com member since 2003, and enjoy 'reading' whilst driving. At a pricetag of $20/month for TWO books (any price) its a real deal for me. BUT . . . I also have books that I have transferred from audio tape or ripped from CDs or even downloaded from UseNeXT, and all are in MP3 format. I would like to 'read' these too using my little Audible Otis (the freebie 'reader' Audible used to give new members).

The previous edition of the Audible Manager (v4.x) loaded MP3s (music or book files) no problem, and would bookmark the spot where you had to stop. Since updating to Audible Manager v5.x, this function is no longer available. I contacted Audible Customer Service with this complaint as soon as I noticed it, and got back the usual 'copyright' blah blah (as expected) for the reason. It was really nice to fill up extra space with MP3 music programs.

Audible's .AA format also seems to be much more 'squished' than MP3 files. I can get over 8 hours of a book in the 64Mb the Otis holds, at least 2/3rds more than an MP3 file. Also, the .AA files load much faster into Otis than an MP3 file of the same size would load into an iPod.

So the question remains: Is there a converter or codex available to change an MP3 file into an .AA file? BTW, there are several available to do the opposite function.

Proteus

LtData

05-04-2008, 01:15 PM

Audible's .aa format is proprietary and, as far as I know, there is no way to convert TO .aa. Also, I believe most of the new .aa files are just mp3 files at low compression, about 64kbps.

thx01138

08-14-2008, 12:35 PM

For now, the best solution I've found is the following:

-Use DMC to rip to mp3, individual tracks
-Use the DOS copy command to concatenate them.copy "Track01.mp3" /b + "Track02.mp3" /b + "Track03.mp3" /b "Combined.mp3"
-Use DMC to convert combined mp3 to .m4a.
-Use Chapter Master (http://www.rightword.com.au/products/chaptermaster/download.asp) to add chapters, manually.

The end result is a .m4b that contains chapters.

Illustrate needs to get on this to automate this process, along with chapter titles. I won't be upgrading again until that happens -- it's the only new feature I need.

jasmck2

08-16-2008, 10:48 AM