Anyone know of a program that will compress mp3 files (say 96 bitrate)to the size of audible files? There has to be one out there that will make them nice and small.
What you do is open them in Goldwave or similar application and save them out at a lower bitrate. 40 is ok for audible books with a sample rate of 11500 will give you quite small yet acceptable quality files.
ok 40 bitrate. but another question came up. What format do I download from audible? Usually I get the #3. Should I go for the 1 and then convert to 40 bitrate?
Iminem, I would recommend you start with type 4 if you can afford the bandwidth, because then you have a good base to start whitling down from. Start lower and 40 may not do it.It's a copy of a copy, and you want to start with as early a generation as you can. After the conversion, just kill the aa files.
This post is for anyone who might be having trouble using GraphEdit and getting the register.bat file to work. First of all, you can download GraphEdit at the following sites: http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/showsoftware_graphedit_141.html or http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=GraphEdit The stokebloke site mentioned in some of the forum posts doesn't seem to have this program anymore. I tried to use the other programs (GoldWave and River Past) suggested on this and other forums for converting .aa files to mp3, but they didn't work for me. With GoldWave I was never able to open my Audible file. It would freeze at 48% every time. I tried everything to find a solution, but nothing worked. Some people say that this method works only on some computers; perhaps this is the case with mine, or perhaps I couldn't get the proper version of either this or Audible Manager. Anyway, I also tried River Past but couldn't even get the program to open on my computer. (I downloaded all of the necessary software that it requires as well.) I was unable to find the older version of River Past anyway; all of the links listed on this forum either went to the new version or didn't work, so perhaps the older versions have been made unavailable. Also, I really didn't want to have to pay for a program to do this since I seldom need this kind of software. My only hope was to try GraphEdit, which sounded like a little bit of a pain, but it's free, and it's better than playing my audio book for nine hours while capturing the sound. I read the instructions for GraphEdit posted here and on other forums and successfully downloaded and extracted the files. However, I ran into trouble when I tried to run register.bat. When I double clicked on register.bat, the screen displayed a bunch of bad command error messages. I read a few comments on different forums from people who had this problem, and I couldn't find any solutions. The only suggestion I saw was something about manually typing in the path name for the regsvr32.exe file before each batch command, but it didn't explain how to do this exactly. Not knowing much about this subject, I was just about to give up on it, but I finally figured out a way to get it to work. There might be an easier way, but I don't know much about solving these sorts of problems, and this worked. You have to find the regsvr32.exe file (probably in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\). Instead of doing a batch registration of the DirectShow filters (which is what register.bat does), you can register the filter files manually by using Windows Explorer and going to the folder where the GraphEdit files are saved. (You will know which files they are if you try to run register.bat and get the error message because the file names are displayed on the screen.) When you try to open one, a window comes up asking which program you would like to use to open it. Browse to the regsvr32.exe location and open with that. There is a box you can check to tell it to always open this file with this program, and when I did this, the icons for all of the other filter files had changed. You have to open each of them to register it. Then you can run GraphEdit, and the appropriate filters will be displayed in the Graph--Insert Filters menu. By the way, the wav file I made was not quite as big as the posted guide for using GraphEdit would indicate; mine was 496 MB for a nine-hour book. Disclaimer: The reason I wanted to convert .aa files is that I bought an audio book from Audible to give to someone as a gift, and I wanted to burn it to CD. However, my CD burner is not recognized by Audible, so I couldn't do it. I used GraphEdit to convert it to a wav file so that I could then convert it to mp3. My purpose is not to distribute illegal copies but only to transfer what I legitimately purchased to CD once and then to delete the book from my computer. Unfortunately, Audible, by not letting us convert their files to other formats, not letting us burn CDs unless we have an approved CD burner, and pressuring anyone who makes audio converters not to convert their files, has forced those of us who want to follow the rules to find ways to get around them. I didn't want to waste the money that I spent with Audible, so this was my only option.
Hey there, I found this entire thread incredibly helpful, but now I can't find the 5.0 version of river past anywhere. All the links listed are either no longer available, or link you to the latest version. I also tried cheetah, but the software does not recognize the format. I've done numberous searches with no luck. Please help...I'm trying to convert the audible files to mp3 so that I can listen in the car without having to burn 30 cds. Thanks -T
This bears repeating. It's not Goldwave or riverpast that is important. Both of them depend on the CODEC from audible that allows you to listen in Windows Media Player. Neither of these or any other program will work without the codec. Also, the codec is encoded from audible to only allow you to open your own aa files, not some from someone else, so you can forget that thought right now.
Thanks to everyone above for the help you've been giving! What I'd really like to know, though, is does a method exist for converting MP3 files to AA files, through Goldwave or some other program. I think it was mentioned earlier that version 5.0 of the River Past software could do it, but that doesn't appear to be available any longer on the internet. Simon
Yeah, I'd like to know the same thing. Because the files are so small and compact. They can get 8 hours in about 58,000 KB. That's wonderful. I can't even get it that small using 40 bitrate.
Mostly they're great for the bookmarking feature, I'm on a Creative MuVo which I don't think is compatible with any of the other bookmarkable formats
I use the creative muvo and it book marks my mp3 books too. its not the aa file that book marks its the device or the software. The books I get from other clubs and burn into mp3 stop and start just like the audible books do.
yes, but if you leave the MP3 file and move to another, it won't remember your place, it'll just start you at the beginning again, this can be a real pain if audiobook MP3s are an hour long at a time, if I want to change to music and then go back ti the book, I end up spending ages fastforwarding through the MP3, looking for my place.
I've looked everywhere on the web for version 5 of River Past Audio Converter. Can someone help out and send me a copy?
If you are using a Mac will Audio Hijack Pro do this trick of converting audible files for mp3 ? this is the link I got but wanted a confirmation from someone on the forum - http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/ Rishi
