iPod joining audiobooks and listening on iPod

[janey]

My one audiobook pet peeve in iTunes is where all of my audiobooks are labeled like "$bookname - Disk 01 - Chapter 01" and so on. Each part of an audiobook is a segment of the book (either by like 5-10 minute chunks or by chapter). Considering how having hundreds of these files is starting to get annoying (i like my audiobooks), I was thinking about using a couple of AppleScripts for iTunes and Apple's ChapterTool to create like one file per CD or book (depending on length) by joining all the chapters/segments from one disk, adding chapters to the file, and making the file bookmarkable.

Considering the length & size of each file, is listening to one of these joined audiobooks going to kill my iPod mini's battery (kill, as in like, drain the battery faster)? Or is there an iPod i could get that wouldn't die faster due to having to play like, a 10 hour audiobook from start to finish that was in one big m4b file without having to recharge?

Or, is there a sweet spot for the size of the audiobook?

Thanks in advance

 

[NicP]

http://gapless.itunes.wanderingfocus.com/

using long files will drain the ipod faster, how much faster i dont know, try it and find out

 

[betbest1]

http://gapless.itunes.wanderingfocus.com/

using long files will drain the ipod faster, how much faster i dont know, try it and find out

Will it work on Windows (i.e. is there a way to do it without ChapterTool)? Also, is there a way to join tracks across multiple CDs?

 

[janey]

right, i already know how to join audiobooks, add chapters and make them bookmarkable (already started, halfway done with the first book)

my question, really, is, what's the optimum size of each file for the iPod battery to be conserved the most?
iirc, the cache size on the iPod minis are 25mb, and there is none on the nano, but i'm not entirely sure about that.
but when the iPod copies the song(s) from the hard drive to the cache for playback, when presented with one big file, does it go back and fill the cache when necessary, or does it just not do that, or constantly access the HD - which would, I assume, drain the battery faster?

 

[janey]

Will it work on Windows (i.e. is there a way to do it without ChapterTool)? Also, is there a way to join tracks across multiple CDs?

i dont see why not. music files are music files.

 

[NicP]

right, i already know how to join audiobooks, add chapters and make them bookmarkable (already started, halfway done with the first book)

my question, really, is, what's the optimum size of each file for the iPod battery to be conserved the most?
iirc, the cache size on the iPod minis are 25mb, and there is none on the nano, but i'm not entirely sure about that.
but when the iPod copies the song(s) from the hard drive to the cache for playback, when presented with one big file, does it go back and fill the cache when necessary, or does it just not do that, or constantly access the HD - which would, I assume, drain the battery faster?

What ive read is that if the file is to big to fit in the cache it will read it straight off the hard disk (which makes sense as that would reduce the battery life). One would think that it really should fill the cache, then once its empty, refill it, regardless of the entire file will fitting or not. *shrugs*

Not sure of the cache size of the mini, i think the standard ipods have a 32mb cache.

 

[NicP]

Will it work on Windows (i.e. is there a way to do it without ChapterTool)? Also, is there a way to join tracks across multiple CDs?

No idea about the windows question sorry. I'm sure joining tracks across multiple cds would work, not sure why you would want to though.

 

[janey]

No idea about the windows question sorry. I'm sure joining tracks across multiple cds would work, not sure why you would want to though.

for when you want songs in one particular order, and you feel the need to make other people who will listen to said CD listen to it in that order...or when you want to mess around with the song and don't like listening to gaps...

but yeah, i think it reads it right off the hard drive, and doesn't even consider putting it in the cache, which would lengthen battery life. I've yet to try though, will do when school starts, wouldn't be the first time i've waited in horrendous crazy Los Angeles traffic for an hour to get back home

 

[balamw]

Will it work on Windows (i.e. is there a way to do it without ChapterTool)? Also, is there a way to join tracks across multiple CDs?

http://id3v2-chap-tool.sourceforge.net/ might be a good cross-platform alternative to Chapter Tool/GarageBand.

The M4A based approach that I used for joining tracks of the last Harry Potter set into chapters is in this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/161839/.

B