Splasm Software Discussions

I'm a bit confused regarding the state of Audiobook chapter support. I've read every support posting in this forum I could find discussing chapters. Hopefully someone can help me understand!

I purchased a 43 file / 8 hour MP3 Audiobook online. I imported each file (corresponding to a single chapter each) into ABB and named the chapters. Then I built the Audiobook with "Break Between Chapters" set to 12 hours. I end up with a single M4B file as expected. The file behaves in different ways depending where I listen:

1. Using Quicklook (press SPACE on the file in Finder) shows a column down the left side with a bunch of cover art icons corresponding to the chapters, although no names are displayed.
2. In iTunes 11 (after import) the file shows up as a single 8-hour blob. No chapter information is displayed when clicking on the file. No chapter menu is visible in the iTunes menu bar. The Previous / Next Chapter menu items under "Controls" work correctly however.
3. After synching the Audiobook from iTunes to an iPhone 5 running iOS 6.12 the Audiobook appears in Audiobooks as expected. When playing no chapter information is visible. I tried tapping the Audiobook cover art and tapped the "list" icon in the upper right. The Previous / Next on screen controls skip chapters.

I downloaded the free iTunes Audiobook "FREE: The Future of a Radical Price". It behaves the same for case #1 and #3 above. In case #2 however, it shows the expected "Chapters" menu and names.

It seems clear the chapter markers are present in the data generated by ABB. However, the names don't seem to be exported correctly. If they were I'd see the iTunes chapter menu... wouldn't I?

It sounds like everything about your Audiobook was built properly with the Chapter information and the things should be displayed as expected. With the QuickLook for an Audiobook with Chapters, you can preview the Chapters but no Chapter's name will be displayed unfortunately.

With the Chapters menu in iTunes, that will only show up once the Audiobook is played. Did you try playing the Audiobook you built with Audiobook Builder?

Also, while an Audiobook is playing on the iPhone, it's the button in the top right that switches from viewing the Cover Art centered on the screen to the Chapter list. Are you saying you tried clicking there and the Chapters still didn't show up?

_________________
Allan Woodall
Phosphorescent Phage
Splasm Software
http://www.splasm.com

In iTunes I did not see the chapters menu with the ABB audiobook I made. It did appear with the iTunes audiobook.

On the iPhone I tapped the icon in the top right (which shows other songs on an album when playing music). With both the ABB and iTunes books I got a blank list (no chapters, named or otherwise).

Audible's app will play iTunes audiobooks but says it cannot show chapter information so that's no help.

I ended up taking the original MP3 tracks (1 per chapter in this case) and importing them into iTunes. Then I assigned the chapter titles as track names. I marked the tracks to "skip when shuffling" and "remember playback position". Marking them as type "Audiobooks" required some fighting with iTunes Match but I got it done by deleting and re-importing a few tracks. Once the title and author information matched exactly for all the tracks the audiobook seemed to play perfectly in iTunes and on the iPhone.

I noted that in iTunes clicking the ABB audiobook yielded a single 8 hour entry in the detailed view. When using separate MP3 files each was listed as a track (chapter in my case), which is what I'd expect. This is similar to how music albums and TV Shows are listed.

If I'm not doing something wrong then Apple's Audiobook support seems to work against ABB (and itself). Maybe I'm just spoiled by Audible. I gather not all audiobooks are nicely divided as 1 track per chapter. Still, why make M4B files at all when the support for them is so awful?

M4B support isn't awful from where we're standing, we just need to explore further why things aren't working as expected to there. The Chapters menu definitely appears in iTunes when an Audiobook containing Chapters is played. Have you for sure clicked on the "8 hour entry" that appears when your Audiobook Builder-built Book is selected and hit the Play button? If so, the Chapters menu should immediately show between the Window and Help menus. If it's not showing during playback, we'll want to have a look at the file and test with it here since there must be something like we've never seen before going on.

Anyway, would you be willing to send the file over to us? Since it's too big for email, we'd need to take it through Skype or iChat/Messages/AIM. We can accept file transfers anytime through any of those messaging services by sending to the account name "splasmsoftware".

Also, what version of iOS 6 is your iPhone running? With 6.1.2, the latest, M4B Chapter support is working just fine. Clicking the list button presents the list of Chapters for us here on any Audiobook, no matter where it originated.

_________________
Allan Woodall
Phosphorescent Phage
Splasm Software
http://www.splasm.com

I tested with an iPhone 5 running 6.12. Unfortunately you seem to have missed this below.

I was playing the ABB made M4B in iTunes and the chapter menu did not appear. It did with the iTunes M4B, which I downloaded so I knew what to look for in iTunes 11.

You're asking me to go out of my way to deliver this file created by your software to troubleshoot an issue that's demonstrably your bug since the iTunes file works.

You haven't answered why a (working) M4B is better than the MP3s I have (working) now. Apple breaks M4B support occasionally (see iOS 5.x). I have zero motivation to spend any more time to help track down this issue. I don't expect to use ABB in the future.

Good luck.

We do appreciate the time you've already put in describing the issue you've experienced. It's fine if you don't want go any further in exploring what may be the cause. Just know that we'd never ask for a file to be sent if the issue were at all reproducible here. We tested numerous Audiobook Builder created Audiobooks numerous times under the same conditions and everything works as expected.

Anyway, to answer your remaining question: there are numerous benefits to M4Bs over MP3s. As you know, the Chapter support capabilities yield tidy audio file packages since chapter-marks create further divisions within individual audio files. Also, with Chapters comes the purely cosmetic upgrade in the ability to add unique Chapter artwork which gets displayed as a Chapter is played.



There's even some metadata additions that provide room for Audiobook exclusive fields to be included in the files, such as 'Narrated by' info.

_________________
Allan Woodall
Phosphorescent Phage
Splasm Software
http://www.splasm.com

Hi all,

I'm experiencing the same on Itunes 11. Tried to put together an M4B-file from several MP3-files and organized chapters.
It is only displayed in as one chapter with the full length.

How is it possible to change it and to view the chapters of the book similar to the titles of a music album?

Thanks, Chris
ps: screenshots are available

Audiobook Builder would only add several items in as a single Chapter if they were Joined together in the Chapters section. Are your original MP3 files still listed as separate files in the Chapters section of the Project? If not, try selecting the single Chapter listing, then hit the Split button and rebuild the Book.

If that doesn't do the trick, screenshots would certainly be helpful. We'll want to see the Chapters section of the Project file as well as the listings under the Chapters menu for the Audiobook while it's playing in iTunes. Feel free to send the screenshots to support@splasm.com, if you'd prefer.

As far as viewing an Audiobook broken up like a Music album, that's doable but you'd still need to separate any Joined Chapters and then rebuild such that the Chapters are all built as separate files much how like individual tracks are broken up. For that, go into the Build Options, accessed by using the button beneath the Cover art image displayed in the Finish section. Then, select 'Per Chapter' as the Part Style.

_________________
Allan Woodall
Phosphorescent Phage
Splasm Software
http://www.splasm.com

Allan,

thanks for your reply. i sent the screenshots to the support mail address.

Regards,
Chris

Hi,

I had the issue that the chapter markers were there in iTunes, but not in my iPod touch (iOS 6).

The files were ripped from CD and the software put very long mp3 tags into the mp3 files (Authors, book title, some other stuff, track number). The first xx chars were the same for all files. Only at the end there was a number added (1, 2, ...).
I have seen in Audiobook builder that the end of the tags were cut for the chapter names. So, all chapters had the same.

After using a mp3 tag utility to shorten the tags to a suitable size, the chapters were shown correctly on the iPod touch, too.

Maybe you can check that and propose unique chapter names for that situation?

Best regards,
Michael

In Audiobook Builder, entire file names (with no tags being considered) get used for the Chapter names. Also, nothing actually gets cut off in the names, although what's displayed in the Chapters section view can get obscured by the window's bounds—if you stretch your window or double-click the name as if to change it and move through the text with the arrow keys, you'll find that a really long name goes on and on beyond what you see. So, in your case, the numbering would've been maintained, but you won't ever see the numbers later in iTunes since iTunes has its own Chapter name display limit. On the iPod/iPhone, though, you can tap on a Chapter and hold down to reveal a really long name.

Anyway, in tests, we found that iTunes won't show Chapters that use names of 499 characters or more and the same thing goes for iPod Touches and iPhones running iOS 6. So, it's particularly strange that you were seeing the Chapters in iTunes but not on your iPod. If you've kept up with your files in their original state, would you send several of them to us at support@splasm.com? We'd like to test with them here.

Now, when it comes to dealing with inordinately long file names in the future using Audiobook Builder, we'd recommend using a batch Rename. For that, select all of the Chapters, choose 'Rename...' from the Audiobook menu at the top of the screen, and then use the tokens to setup a new custom naming scheme. For example, if you typed "Chapter " and dragged in the blue bubble [Chapter #] token after it, you'd end up with your selected Chapters showing as "Chapter 1", "Chapter 2", etc..

_________________
Allan Woodall
Phosphorescent Phage
Splasm Software
http://www.splasm.com

Hi Allan,

sorry to say, but it seems that you don't know your software too much.

Here are the results of my experiments, I did with the first CD of an audio book. The files were ripped with iTunes 11.0.4 (64 bit).

First some common information:


First try with long title tags:


Second try with short title tags:


If you need the ABB files, let me know, where to upload them.

Michael

Thanks for sending the screenshots...

Earlier when I said that Audiobook Builder maintains the full file name, I was talking about when using the default setting. Evidently, your Preference is set to alternately use the tagged Title as the Chapter name, which is fine, but if you want to change that back choose 'Preferences...' from the Audiobook Builder menu. Anyway, the same thing goes with the Title length as with a file name length—the application will maintain the full title but the view can obscure part of it and, again, iTunes has display limits under the Chapters menu.

In your Audiobook Builder Chapters section screenshot, you should've been able to see the full tag name by widening the window. Below is what things look like here with the window stretched using the tagged title of your first file (the tag was added in iTunes).

Moving forward, you can change the names inside Audiobook Builder rather than using a tag editor beforehand to the shortened version and those will show fine in iTunes and on the iPod.

If you want to still send us some files, attach those to an email to support@splasm.com .

_________________
Allan Woodall
Phosphorescent Phage
Splasm Software
http://www.splasm.com