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PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 12:52 pm 
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Posts: 4
First of all, thanks for the great application and for making this forum available to users.

To make the best use of the chapter notes that come with some audiobook CDs, I'd like to have the option of having one part (i.e., file) per CD. The user could either specify the maximum part length (current method) or the number of CDs (user specified, default to one) per part.

-Michael


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PostPosted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 6:31 pm 
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As the previous poster mentioned, absolute sizes are not always ideal. I like the CD split idea, but have two others:

1) Manual part splits - Let me decide
2) Target size part splits - This is my real preference. Let me pick a preferred target size, and then pick the number of parts that makes each part closest to the target part size. Parts are always as big as possible during the final splits, leaving whatever is left for the last part. This will take some math, but here's an example:

File 1 - 1 hr
File 2 - 1.5 hrs
File 3 - 1.2 hrs
File 4 - 1.5 hrs
File 5 - 1 hr
Target Size - 2.5 hours

The result would be three parts, 2.5, 2.7, 1 hours. Does this make sense?


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PostPosted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 6:36 pm 
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I have a slightly different take on this. I like having Audiobook Builder split files into parts automatically, based on a maximum time I can specify. What I don't like is having AB split chapters across parts.

For example, I used it to create an audiobook of The Iliad. I'd joined the various tracks together to make chapters out of the 24 books of the original. I'd set the maximum time for a part at 8 hours. AB split chapter 12 across the second and third part.

If I set a maximum time, I don't mean "get as close as humanly possible to this." I mean, give me as many whole chapters as will fit into this and then create a new part."

Is there any possibility that would be an option in the future? For me, that would make AB as close to perfect as ... humanly possible.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:17 am 
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Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:31 pm
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Location: San Francisco, CA
What I would like to see is the ability to insert a Part Break into the list of chapters in the Chapters pane.

The idea is conceptualy similar to a manual Page Break in Microsoft Word. Word automatically "soft" breaks pages when the document's content fills one page and spills to the next. Word makes fairly reasonable choices about where to put a soft break, and normally that's all you care about.

Sometimes, though, the break is awkward, and you'd like to manually break the page a little earlier, so that the new page will start more naturally. So you insert a manual Page Break, and the page will *always* break there, ending the existing page early.

So likewise, a manual Part Break would be something you could insert into the chapters list to "break" to a new part at that point. That point would need to be sooner than the 12 hour (or user's preference) normal break mark.

This all sounds rather complicated, but from a UI standpoint, it would just be a new icon in the toolbar (Add Part Break), and a new element in the list that would basically have an icon and a line across the list to indicate a break. I think it would be extremely easy to understand.

You might also consider showing the "soft" breaks in the list, with a slightly different visual, to let users know where the automatic part breaks are going to occur.

Word does something like this, and as odd as it seems, I think it's actually a good metaphor. It's easiest to see how Word displays the different breaks when you're in the "Normal" view mode, instead of the Page Layout view.

Then again, sometimes less is more. One of the things that makes Audiobook Builder easy and useful is how simple it can be. Handling the parts behind the scenes is part of making things simpler.

Then again, the Chapters pane and chapters list, with chapters containing files, is already complicated, if you're trying to do much beyond taking what Audiobook Builder creates on its own. So maybe adding breaks is something that wouldn't be that bad, because most people don't fiddle in there anyway.

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:49 pm 
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I'd like to further this post. I buy most of my audiobooks from Audible. What I plan to do with ABB, meanwhile, is not to create audiobooks (.m4b), but classical music (.m4a). A single CD of classical music typically contains one, two, or occasionally three symphonies, sonatas, concertos, etc., hereafter called "works." A work, in turn, is divided into three or four movements. Usually, the movements are distinct periods of music separated by a noticeable silence, and sometimes with descriptive titles of their own. Therefore, each movement is a separate track on the CD. Like user cppgz (forgive me if I'm getting this wrong), I want to use ABB to keep my movements of classical music organized by the work they belong to. I want the movement titles to become chapters.

I believe that parts should be treated as a level of titles above that of the chapters, and they should be anchored to the iTunes song title. The "book" title, meanwhile, should be anchored only to the album title.

I have used JoinTogether in the past, but it is very limited in what it can do, and because it uses ChapterTool, its chapterizing feature will soon be obsolete. I want to be able to leverage the full power of Audiobook Builder in the future so that I can still maintain the full taxonomy that I require.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 12:47 pm 
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Here are some tips on getting your classical music organized:

1. When importing CDs, use individual files if you plan on splitting up tracks into various chapters or movements, or single file if you want to merge the CD into one big movement.

2. If you want to divide a CD into chapters or movements via chapters, click on the CD chapter that was imported and use the split button to make each track its own chapter. If you would like to combine a few of the chapters into one, just select them and use the join button.

3. Under the build options, select .m4a format to put your builds in the music section of iTunes instead of the Book section

4. Another Option while building to consider is part style. To make sure Movements (chapters) are not spread across parts, use 'Break Between Chapters' for part style. This will prevent any chapter from being split between parts. You can also make sure your target part length is at the maximum value with the slider all the way to the right.

I hope that helps somewhat with your organization. We still do not have arbitrary part breaks, but have them on our request list.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 12:27 am 
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I don't think I explained my conundrum clearly or even stated all the essential information. Track, chapter, movement—they all mean the same thing, because they all correspond to one track of a CD.

What I forgot to say is this: The most famous opening to a symphony has to be that of Beethoven's Fifth. A symphony usually has four movements, and therefore takes up four tracks of a CD. Because Beethoven's Fifth lasts only about 30-35 minutes, it is never the only work of a CD. Usually it is paired with another Beethoven symphony. But Beethoven's Fifth has no silence between the third and fourth movements. At the point where the track number changes, the music is very loud, and therefore, there is noticeable clipping: I am trying to avoid it. I tried to attach a file with the third and fourth movements, but I cannot upload it because AAC files are not allowed as attachments.

But I am also trying to avoid having the entire symphony in one chapter. Sometimes I want to know the tempo marking of a movement, which is what I use chapter titles for. I am resigned to downloading my music in FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and using software to convert it to Apple Lossless: lossless formats exclude the possibility of clipping. What I want from ABB, mostly, is to create chapterized files that do not take up the entirety of their albums.

Either I want custom part divisions (which I might be able to re-title in iTunes), or else, I want album title, track #, and disc # fields to be added to ABB, where the iTunes "Album" and "Name" fields are no longer linked. Thank you!


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:24 am 
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My preference would be to average out the length of each part automatically, allowing for breaks in track length.
If my book is 19 hours long, I don't want one part 18 hours long, with the last hour as part two, I would rather two 9.5 hour parts to bring with me.
Once I set the max size, I would like the program to figure out the rest and give me roughly even parts.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:08 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2011 11:06 pm
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Location: China
I saw a comment about no silence between parts. Is it possible for ABB to create a chapter using some length of silence?
I know I can set iTunes to start or stop a track at a certain point in options, and that ABB will use that. That is great for removing comments at the comments about turning the tape over or comments about what page the track is restarting on.

However... That makes me do all the work. There is always a silence at those places, and they are found inside the tracks, not at the start or end. So iTunes prefs are no use.

This has got to be a useful option when creating an audio book, right? 1 hour segments is convenient in a lot of ways to break up large mp3 files. But if ABB could find the silence and break the track into chapters at that point, it would be even more help!

Thanks!

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 10:03 am 
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Unfortunately, Audiobook Builder isn't capable of recognizing lengths of silence in order to put in Chapter breaks for you. You're right, you'd need to do some outside audio editing with another application.

We've had requests in the past to incorporate tools into Audiobook Builder for splitting up tracks. You're idea is an interesting alternative to those sorts of editing features. So, thanks for the great suggestion. We can certainly look into adding that to a future release of the application.

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Splasm Software
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