Creating m4b's from mp3's

[LuciferEternal]

I need help in the form of suggestions.

PART 1

I have about 60 gigs of audiobooks in mp3 format currently. I'm realizing though that in iTunes if I get the files to be in aac with the m4b extension then they will move out of my music section and into my audiobook section. Sounds good right?

Well, I can easily just tell iTunes to convert the files, but one audiobook in particular is a 28 hour long book and would take 2.5 hours to convert, so I've been searching for a better way to do this... and came upon this site.

What might you suggest, settings wise or another program, to decrease the time it takes to convert into m4a (which I later rename to m4b)?

PART 2

Also, I've been having some problems with these converted files (I converted that 28 hour book with dBA as Apple Lossless and it registered in iTunes as a 777 HOUR long book! Yeah, that's not right! (I'm retesting the same book with the Nero AAC codec, but since it's going to take 2.5 hours (same time as iTunes!) I don't know if it will work yet.

Any ideas why I'm having the time issue? I've seen the same issue before with YAMB when I combine anything that is larger than 14 hours long... the time signature jumps to the hundreds of hours.

PART 3

As mentioned above, I'm merging the files for the audiobooks into one file with YAMB (when they are already m4a's) and MP3 Splitter & Joiner (when they are still mp3's). I've had no issues merging mp3's, but m4a's seem to be a different beast and I've had the time signature problem so much!

Essentially, does anyone know of a better way? A way that won't cause iTunes to see it as too long, and that will work every time, and that might be quicker than my current methods?

[LtData]

Re: Creating m4b's from mp3's

dMC has a m4b converter, so you don't need to just rename the file. However, in order to get the tags to move over, you need to install the main m4a converter. Also, a new version of the m4a codec was released from beta yesterday, make sure you are using that version. As for the time problem, I believe if you use the profile "Force LC AAC" then the time issue is fixed.

[LuciferEternal]

Re: Creating m4b's from mp3's

Ok, so I tried to do the m4b converter and set it to force LC AAC, but with no luck on the time that it reads. I don't get why it's not working.

The file converts, loads into iTunes and plays, but reads as way too long. I guess, to be honest, this isn't too big of a deal and I haven't tried it on the iPod yet, but it really bugs me.

[msandersen]

Re: Creating m4b's from mp3's

All this time spent on other encoders to avoid the 2.5 hr conversion, I bet you've spent more time on this issue than iTunes would have taken converting it. No idea if it's an iTunes problem or an encoder issue, or if iTunes would do the same. I doubt it's a limitation of the format, that would be dumb, especially as the iTunes store carries books close to that length. As mentioned in the other post, Dune is 21hrs.
Set iTunes to do the coversion of a batch overnight if you don't need them straight away.

[msandersen]

Re: Creating m4b's from mp3's

Also, while not a solution for the iPod, if you haven't already, you could simply create a playlist of Audiobooks. If they are tagged as such, it could be a Smart playlist. Not as neat as having it in the Audiobook section, though, but avoids transcoding 60Gb of audio.
Would be nice if you could place any file there, like any file with the genre Audiobook. Guess they only think of their store.

[steele]

Re: Creating m4b's from mp3's

This converter is working fine, BUT the Time Problem is really bad, is there any way to correct this. ALL my conversions have the wrong time stamps.

I am converting from MP3 to M4b. As a test, I converted from WAV and that has the same problem.

It's coming out double or more, the speed of playback is correct, but one second != 1 second.

[DoctorTim]

Re: Creating m4b's from mp3's

I've had the same problem with times being off on m4b.

[Dylan1]

Re: Creating m4b's from mp3's

I use <spam> for all of my video converting needs.

You can always trust the forum newbie to bring up a three year old thread :blush: