Oh, it helps, but it's kind of frustrating, because it seems like I
have to do all the work all over again. That orlet iTunes import
thefiles, and then go through and fix *all* of them. I suppose it's
gotta be done though.
Once that is done ... can I save the files at a lower sampling rate
in a different directory to put on said MP3 player?
Jane
On Mar 22, 2007, at 3:30 PM, Esther wrote:
Hi Jane, Lou, Tim and others,
For your problem playing back tracks in order, Tim Kilburn asked:
did you name them as 001 to 411. If you have varying numbers of
digits, they will be sorted in a fashion that would make 4 come
after 399. If you make all the names three digits followed by a
dash, you shouldn't have that problem.
Lou also mentioned the requirement for leading zeroes, and
explained that on the default settings iTunes will import
albums knowing the track order. He gave information on
how to create playlists sorted by track or album order; you
want to use album order for mulit-album audiobooks.
I assume you have all the book files as a playlist. So, be sure the
playlist is selected in the :"Source" pane. Then in the "Song" pane,
move to the "track" or "album" column with VO-Left (you can confirm
which column you are in with VO-Shift-C) and then use VO's sort
command (VO-Shift-\). The song list will be sorted by track. Now,
when you play the playlist, it will be in the correct order. And, you
did not have to rename anything!
Note: "Album View" (Command-Option-4) is not the same as "sorting by
album" which is what I described above.
A couple of other things to check when files play out of order, and
some
recommendations specifically for audiobooks: (1) Make sure
shuffle play
is not on. In fact, for audiobooks, check the boxes for "Skip When
Shuffling" and "Remember Playback Position" since you'll never
want to listen to books in shuffled order and you will want a bookmark
kept of your last played position. (2) On multi-album CDs make sure
to enter the disc number. Check it and don't rely on the automatic
retrieval of track names from the internet to get this correct.
The easy way to set "Skip when Shuffling" and "Remember Position"
is to use Command-a to select all the tracks in your playlist and then
use Command-i to edit the options for multiple tracks. Use VO-Down
arrow to get to "Remember Position" and VO-Down arrow to its
Pop-Up button. VO-space and down arrow to change this to "Yes".
Continue to VO-Down arrow to "Skip When Shuffling" and change
its Pop-Up button to yes, too. (You can ignore the "Remember Position
unchecked checkbox" and "Skip When Shuffling unchecked checkbox"
entries before the pop-up buttons -- the boxes automatically
get checked when you make changes from the current settings.)
Carriage return to leave the menu..
Now the audiobook tracks will never be played out of order as part
of a "Party Shuffle" or other random play options. iTunes will also
return you to your last played position if you've stopped your
audiobook listening in the middle of a file. If you want to use
fewer files
you can import your audiobooks 1 file to a CD by joining tracks. This
works fine with bookmarks in iTunes and on iPods, but won't work
well on an mp3 CD player or other device that doesn't
remember the last position. To join tracks on importing from a
CD, select (all) tracks in the Songs pane with command-a after you've
inserted the CD. Use VO-m to get to the menubar and VO-right
arrow to the Advanced menu. Down arrow to select "Join CD Tracks".
When you import, you will get a single file that you'll probably want
to rename the track with a number at the end, e.g., "My Audiobook 1".
You can also put these tracks into a playlist and sort by album. as
Lou described.
The easy way to check or enter the disc number, and other tags,
is to use "Get Info" on multiple tracks, as we did for setting
"Remember
Playback Position" and "Skip When Shuffling". After you've inserted
your CD and are in the Songs Pane, do the command-a to select
all tracks and command-i to "Get Info". Minimal entries are Artist,
Album, and Disc 1 of 7 etc. To enter the Disc number navigate
with VO-down arrow until you reach "Disc Number". VO-down and
enter the number of the current disc in the text box, then VO-right
arrow
3 times to the text box for the total number of discs. As you navigate
you'll hit the "Disc Number unchecked checkbox" first, and may not
hear the end of the string. Ignore the checkboxes, since they'll
be filled in when you make a change. I might type in "Books & Spoken"
for genre, and enter the Narrator under Composer, but that's your
choice. If this is a collection by several authors, I'll set the
compilation pop-up box to yes. This means the album folder won't
be listed as a subdirectory of a specific artisit.
And as Lou said, "Album View" (Command-Option-4) is not the same
as sorting by album -- it displays selections grouped by albums, but
the order of tracks within albums is determined by your sort criteria.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
