Help - Audiobooks - not showing up in Audiobooks Library

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Does anyone know anything or have any suggestions to get my Audio CD's in the Audiobooks Library?





I have a lot of Audiobooks that I have purchased over the years. I purchased them as CD's not threw iTunes. Unfortunately when I import the books into iTunes, iTunes only recognizes them as music files and stores them under the Music Library. Consequently when I am scrolling threw my Music Library I hit long stretches of Audiobook files in between my music. This is both annoying and it makes it a little more cumbersome to scroll threw my music. But the biggest annoyance of all is if I set iTunes to Shuffle, after a few songs, a random audio track from one of my many books will start playing.



My girlfriend has both purchased books threw iTunes and has books she purchased in CD form. She noticed that noticed that only books that came from CD's randomly play when iTunes is set to Shuffle. Books purchased from iTunes, are stored in the Audiobooks Library and are not accessed when the Music Library is set to Shuffle.



I went to a Podcasting seminar at Apple headquarters almost a year ago. I brought this up with the Apple representative that was giving the lecture. He said that he wasn't aware that the Audiobooks would be played during Shuffle. I happen to have an Audiobook on CD to show him the problem. He acknowledged the problem, and said that he would take to someone in the iTunes development team. He seemed truly surprised by the problem and seemed agree to find a solution. I never heard from from him.



I thought with the release of iTunes 7, this problem would have been rectified but it does not seem to have been addressed. I still encounter the same problem.





Does anyone know anything or have any suggestions to get my Audio CD's in the Audiobooks Library?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    Did you set their genre appropriately?
  • Reply 2 of 10
    omegaomega Posts: 427member
    You need to convert the mp3s to AAC (in the advanced menu)



    Then go here and download the script that makes them bookmarkable
  • Reply 3 of 10
    Oddly enough, genre has no baring on this. (but yes, I did set the genre to Audiobooks)



    It is easier to understand why the genre has no baring when you consider how an iPod's functionality is effected by this problem.



    If I downloaded a book from iTunes then when I go into the iPod, I would find the book by following the path: Music - Audiobooks



    If on the other had I imported the book from a CD, then I search for it on the iPod I would take the path: Music - Genres - Audiobooks



    To complicate the matter, books dowloaded from iTunes will not be found in the path Music - Genres - Audiobooks.**And books imported from a CD will not be found in the path Music - Audiobooks.





    It comes down to this. When downloaded from Apples website, the file iTunes know it is an Audiobook. When imported from a CD iTunes only know that it is an MP3 or AAC file, which has some genre type attached to it. I can created any name to be a genre. Audiobooks, Audiobook, Book, Books. All these are different genres. iTunes just sees it as an MP3 file regardless of the exact wording of the genre. It may seem counter-intuitive because in iTunes, the Library - Audiobooks, the genre is "Audiobooks"; and one would think that if you type in the genre for the CD's exactly the same "Audiobooks", that they would all be listed together. But it does not work that way. iTunes see the "Audiobooks" from the iTunes store differently from MP3 files that are labeled as "Audiobooks".
  • Reply 4 of 10
    Omega, thank for your suggestion. This maybe exactly what I need. I import all of my CD's as AAC so I don't have to convert them. I'm reading threw the PDF instructions on how impliment the script to change the file type from AAC to M4B. Have you done this before yourself?
  • Reply 5 of 10
    omegaomega Posts: 427member
    I have plenty of audiobooks in mp3 format and just this weekend thought about fixing this library filing issue. Sounds like you are already half there.



    As for the script - once you run it the file disappears from the music library and shifts to the audiobooks. Try it on a small file and see what happens. If you are wondering I found this script on the apple discussion boards where it seemed to pop up as a regular fix for this issue.



    Obviously because the file is bookmarkable it means it handles differently (as in it starts playback at where you stopped last time)
  • Reply 6 of 10
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Omega


    I have plenty of audiobooks in mp3 format and just this weekend thought about fixing this library filing issue. Sounds like you are already half there.



    As for the script - once you run it the file disappears from the music library and shifts to the audiobooks. Try it on a small file and see what happens. If you are wondering I found this script on the apple discussion boards where it seemed to pop up as a regular fix for this issue.



    Obviously because the file is bookmarkable it means it handles differently (as in it starts playback at where you stopped last time)



    Omega,



    Have you gotten the script to work. I having trouble.

    I emailed the writer of the script but maybe you can explain this things if I don't here from him. Here's what I wrote to him.



    -----------------------------

    Help - bookmarkable

    \t\t



    I love the idea of your script but I can't get it to work





    in the PDF you wrote you said:

    "put is script in your iTunes Scripts fold. ... If there is no Scripts folder, create one and put the script in it."



    ??: Am I supposed to name the folder "iTunes Scripts" or "Scripts"





    I downloaded the script but I can't get it to unzip. I assume I have to unzip it to get it to work.





    I created the folder "iTunes Scripts",

    "It will then appear in iTunes' Scripts Menu..."

    I can't find a menu in iTunes called Scripts.





    Please could you help me.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    omegaomega Posts: 427member
    In your home directory navigate to



    /Library/iTunes



    Inside the iTunes Folder you may already have a folder called iTunes Plug-ins (not important, but just a frame of reference). Create a folder inside the iTunes folder called "Scripts". Drag the script into you new folder.



    From memory the pdf says to have iTunes closed at the time (which I never did and I do not think is important). So if you have, open up iTunes and then between Window and help you will see a funny icon on the menu bar (a funny curved S with depth). This is the script menu. When you pull down the menu you should have the option to make bookmarkable.



    Hope this helps



  • Reply 8 of 10
    Wow, that was soo easy. Thanks for the help advice Omega. I just did a test run and it works great.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    It just accrued to me to ask if you know of any way to merge some of the tracks of the (from CD) Audio books?

    For instance my Audiobook "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (purchased threw iTunes) has 8 Tracks, while my Audiobook "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (purchase from Borders as CDs) has 174 Tracks. (17 CDs with ruffy 10 tracks on each CD)
  • Reply 10 of 10
    omegaomega Posts: 427member
    In the advanced menu of Itunes you do have the option to join tracks, though I have to admit I have never used it so I am not too sure about how it works or the results.



    If you don't get a satisfactory reply a quick search of the forum or google should give you an answer. I know it can b done, just never done it myself.



    Glad to hear the script worked.



    =)
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