Jr Learns Media

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Thanks for this....I'm wondering if it might be possible to use this to insert chapters into an audiobook a al Audiobook Builder on a mac.

Any thoughts on this.....

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

I figured out how to use your software for audiobooks. :)

Using this tool and editing the pod file, I was able to add the chapter marks and have it change the art to match the chapter changes. Awesomeness..... I'm stoked to run this on some of my other audiobooks....

Couple of things that I've discovered using this for audiobooks:
1. the href tags in the edit points are not needed to create chapters, it's useful for the podcasts to have itunes show a URL to click on, but doesn't really apply to audiobooks.

2. the catg metadata field is set to podcast in the example as is the genre tag (notated as ©gen in the example file) Edit the catg field to "music" to keep the song/file from showing as a podcast when you import it into iTunes. You can also edit the ©gen tag to "Audiobooks" to make it easier to import the file into the audiobooks section of your library.

3. The pcst, purl and egid fields are not necessary for audiobooks so I commented them out when I ran this against my test file.

Thanks!

# Ed: Audiobooks

Ed,

How are you determining the chapter locations, do the audio books come with a list of times?

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Joe,

They don't have a list of times, but the book that I was specifically interested in is broken up in to 1 m4a file per chapter.

I just use the time lengths for each chapter for chapter breaks when I combine them into 1 file.

ie - chapter 1 is 20 minutes, chapter 2 is 18 minutes, chapter 3 is 16 minutes. Chapter marks would be at 20:01, 38:02, 54:03, etc.

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

when i try to run it i just get an error thet says application configuration incorrent

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Make sure that you have quicktime 7.1 and iTunes 7.1 installed. I got this when I was running iTunes 7.0.1 on my laptop. Once I upgraded it worked.

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Same problem as Ali,
running XP w/sp2, both iTunes v 7.2.035 and QT v. 7.2 are installed
I've downloaded and installed SSA several times with the same result:
dragging the example.pod onto the exe yeilds the following:
-This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect-

DANG IT!

Anyway, I applaud your efforts to bring podcasting to Windows, thanks!

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Try downloading the latest version (1.0.2).

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Same result again.

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Ok. Download this file http://www.jrlearnsmedia.com/download/manifest.zip and unzip it into the SSA folder and try again. With any luck we'll get to the bottom of this.

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Worked like a charm! Thanks for your persistence.

Is this version going to function just like the others? (i.e. will the pdf instructions still apply?)

Thanks again

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

thanks for this application, it works great! I was able to chapterize one of my audiobooks! =D
my only question, in my ipod the chapters show as black vertical markers against the blue timeline progress bar, and I can move through these markers back and forth using the clickwheel, the art changes according to the chapter's mark and time, but the chapter text doesnt change at all, though it DOES change in itunes.. am I doing something wrong?

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

John,

You will not see the chapter title on your ipod, let's hope there is a firmware update soon to change that.

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

hmmm damnit! I hope they actually fix it sometime... I wish I could try an audible audiobook bought from itunes store to see if it does display chapter names on ipod... anybody knows about this?

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Audiobook files will NOT show the chapter text at all. The only files that will are podcasts. I ran the same file through SSA with 2 different pod files, 1 set as an audiobook, the other as a podcast and the chapter text shows on the podcast when playing, but not on the audiobook. This is due to the way that the ipod treats podcasts versus audiobooks.

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Jr, just wanted to say thanks for a great job on this SW. I have been trying to break-up audio files I use for quizzes for months now and your little Util is the best I have found...again a BIG THANK YOU!!!!

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Many thanks for creating this tool. I have a few mp3s which have full DJ sets and I sometime want to skip or skip to a song. In the past I have broken them up and stored them as an album but I found that I always messed up on the cutting. This will be a much simpler way of getting what I needed. It works great.

# Guide Up

For those of you having trouble with this, I just posted a guide on my site. http://www.vincentarnone.net/ Thanks so much to Jr Learns Media for this awesome program!

# you save my life

Hi guy,
Today , you saved my life with your page......

Thanks a lot i'll never thank you enought !

Sorry for the text, I'm french !

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Great program!

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

I use for quizzes for months now and your little Util is the best I have found.

# Front end released

Many thanks for this great utility - was being lazy and hoping someone else would write a front end for the audiobook side of things but given up waiting
Here is my attempt
www.sjhaley.com/ipodabc

Many thanks for making this possible

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

I've tried quite a few variations of the pod file, suggested by many who were successful.

When using the pod file created on the "POD File Creator for SSA" website, combining 12 m4a files as 12 chapters with images and an audiobook image, I got Microsoft's "SSA Application has encounted a problem and needs to close" dialog box with the "Send Error Report" button.

Using a single large m4a file and modifying the example pod file for multiple chapters finishes completely, but QuickTime simply says "Error -2041: an invalid sample description was found in the movie".

I'm running XP SP2, with QTPro 7.5.5 (249.36). I'm really hoping SSA is going to work!

Thanks.

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

I seem to have it working - mostly. Originally, I chose to rip the CDs (Harry Potter, of course) using Windows Media Player: iTunes had difficulty ripping each of my Led Zeppelin CDs plus WAV *is* Microsoft's format - one might expect them to handle it best. Next, I used Audacity to assemble the WAV files back into their chapters. Then I imported the ~700MB WAV files into iTunes 8 and converted them to Apple Lossless. Next, I removed the chapter from iTunes, renamed the M4A file to M4B for good measure, and re-added the chapter to iTunes. Last, I made the various settings in iTunes that made the M4B file behave like an audiobook. This audiobook plays perfectly.

I then tried to use these M4B files in Chapter Master. Chapters stay but sound disappears. Moved to SSA and got the errors posted previously. (BTW, if I use QTPro to add a chapter track and then rename the MOV file to M4B, I get the same "invalid sample" message.)

I've now taken M4B files from an earlier HP audiobook that I ripped directly to Apple lossless and successfully used SSA. The only problem is that gaps sometimes appear within the musical intros. If those could be eliminated, I'd be golden.

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

It seems SSA (and probably Chapter Master) cannot handle the Apple lossless files that iTunes makes from 32-bit WAV files. I had to convert them to AAC/Spoken Podcast (which I had done with my first audiobooks a year ago, to save space), SSA likes the "Low Complexity" profile.

To solve the gap problem I mentioned in my previous post, I join Chapter 1 to the musical Intro with Audacity and write down the time the real Chapter 1 begins in this new file. I then use the "POD File Creator for SSA" website website (http://podfilecreator.appspot.com/) to create a basic POD file from an iTunes Playlist. SSA then merges the files into a single M4A file. I then modify the POD file to insert an Editpoint for the real Chapter 1 and run SSA again to re-write the chapters stops, chapter images, and main image. This works perfectly except that the audiobook for Chapters 1-11 (which contains the pre-joined file) has the accumulating time error mentioned by lintujuh in http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=202606&highlight=SSA+POD - I had to adjust several chapter times by hand. On the other hand, the audiobook for Chapters 12-22 (which required only the first pass as it needed no new Editpoints) was absolutely perfect.

Here are some things I learned:
1) setting "audiobook" to true means combining multiple files into one and that each Editpoint must have a filename if a chapter stop is desired
2) setting "audoibook" to false (or omitting it) means inserting chapter stops/images into the file specified by "audiofile" in the [podcast] section
3) chapter images should be 300 x 440 pixels and are convert to PNG; didn't try using PNG files directly - I assume they will work fine
4) the metadata tags are CASE-SENSITIVE
5) ©alb sets the "Album" field on the Info tab of the Get Info dialog box
6) ©ART sets the "Artist" field on the Info tab
7) ©cmt sets the "Comment" field (Info tab)
8) ©cpy sets the copyright notice, but I cannot find where this is displayed
9) ©day sets the "Year" field (Info tab); I get this from the release date on Amazon (2000-02-01T00:00:00Z) rather than using &today
10) ©gen sets the "Genre" field (Info tab); you can make one up or use a value already in the field's drop-down list
11) ©lyr sets the text in the Lyrics tab
12) ©nam sets the value shown in the Name column of iTunes and in the scrolling title on the iPod
13) ©too ("tool") sets "Encoded with" on the Summary tab
14) ©wrt sets the "Composer" field (Info tab)
15) catg has to be "podcasts" for the file to be transferred to the iPod - I THINK; it does not set the "Media kind" field on the Options tab (that seems to be set automatically by the M4B filename extension)
16) desc sets the "Description" field on the Video tab; I commented this out - made no sense for audiobooks
17) disk - I could not get this to set "Disc Number" (or anything else), with or without various prefixes for the values; perhaps it has a custom format, like ©day
18) pcst - this seems to activate the mechanism that removes the "podcast" from the iPod when it is no longer considered new; as I was adjusting chapter times, audiobooks would alternately disappear/re-appear from my iPod until I set this to &00
19) pgap sets the "Part of a gapless album" checkbox (Options tab); still not sure what this does

I would love to know how to set the "Disc number" (Info tab) and Volume Adjustment (Options tab) fields. It would be nice to be able to set the "Sort Artist" or "Sort Composer" fields, too.

Again, many thanks for this utility Joe

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

One last note: I'm referring to release 1.0.5a, and I meant to say "...are converted to PNG" previously.

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

Two corrections:
1) Yes, you can use PNG files for all images.
2) Disregard the comment about chapter images needing to be 300x440 pixels. The width-to-height ratio is set by the cover image so the chapter images should have the same ratio, or you could simply use 300x300 for everything - as recommended in the sample POD file.

# re: Enhanced Podcasting on Windows

There is a program called slideshow assembler that will let you create enhanced podcasts on winxp. I have used it on my podcast and once you get the hang of things, its fairly efficient. Check out this guide that I wrote up, it takes you step by step through the process.
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