.wav PCM signed 16 bit mono are the attributes - tried it a couple of times and the sound is garbled - thanks emily
Chongpaul - thanks for that summary! One thing to note is that QuickSplit takes a .wav into a .mp3, not a .wma - though other programs may be able to go wma->mp3. estrachan - That is strange indeed. Those sound like the correct settings (what I use). In about 18 books I've never had that problem. Does this happen with every book, or have you only tried with just one? For now, I'll assume that it happens with every book. Since the splitting of the wav works (right?), just not the final conversion, this makes me think that your lame encoder is corrupted or something...I don't know, just guessing here. Oh - one very important thing to point out - lame takes a while to encode into mp3. You can tell when it is busy in one of two ways: (1) Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to open the Windows Task Manager. Click the "Performance" tab. Go ahead and try this now, so you can see for yourself. When mp3 conversion is taking place, your computer will be 100% busy. (2) Your computer runs really frickin' slow!! So, are you sure that when you try to open the mp3 it is done converting? Like I said, this can take a while before it is doen. I'd look into that, and also it can't hurt to re-download the splitting software. Delete QuickSplit and redownload it. Delete Lame, and replace it with a new download. Here, to save you some scrolling back, http://www.geocities.com/app_hq/AudioBook/index.html. Keep me posted how it goes! Sorry this is becomming so much trouble, but hey, you're learning new computer tricks at least, right?
absolutley correct - learning is fun - no complaints - I think that it may be my lame file - cause it is converting to mp3 way too fast - I will start there and keep you posted when I debug the problem - in the meantime I have a work around . . . thanks again
Chongpaul -- Thanks for the summary! Where do you find Riverpast v 4? Is this it?? http://www.soft32.com/download_4303.html ???
I also am an Audible member and would like to use my audible files on the mp3/wma player in the car and my no name mp3/wma player. I went through the whole discussion and learned that I could use the River Past v 5.0 for converting the audible files. I finally found the trial version 5.0 and could not set a higher bitrate than 56 kb but that would be ok as I could convert into wma format which is fine. As the trial version 5.0 was working so far, I would like to purchase the registration key, but as I understand one can only purchase registration keys for current RP versions that would not work with v5.0. Is that right? So in short it is not possible to purchase a working registration key and now I can uninstall v5.0 and give up on the whole thing? Thanks sonnen
You can probably use Riverpast V4 (since Chongpaul mentioned it) but you can also use Riverpast 5.0.0 (which I've been using). If anyone needs that, I have a 5.0.0 install, but I don't have any webspace to host it, but we could do a file transfer. PM me if you'd like it. -j (p.s. - it doesn't sound like anyone wants to go this route, everyone does seem honest and legit, but i won't give out a serial for it, so don't ask...not that anyone seems to be unwilling to pay the $30)
My suggestion is to use goldwave for 40 bucks - their current supported version can convert .aa files . . .
Sonnen You CAN pay the $30 to Riverpast and use it to validate version 5.0.0. If you are worried about doing this, you can do what I did, and contact them concerning it. The customer service Rep. said that the company had no issues with someone using the older (5.0.0) install and validating it with a paid for account. So yes, you should be able to validate 5.0.0 with a newly boughten serial. -j
I just bought a Dell Jukebox just for my AudioBooks (didn't look first) I have 30 gigs and jsut want to put my books on it. I don't care if they're all one track or huge files. Can anyone help?
Thanks o-rudeboi and estrachan. I followed estrachan´s suggestion and tried the current Goldwave version. It worked perfectly. The current version even allows to select from a wide range of bitrate settings when converting into mp3. But to tell the truth I am not exactly overwhelmed by Audible. The sound quality of the original audible files is rather poor - as if they where compressed with a 8 or 16 bitrate. The restrictions on the purchased files are enormous and even though I paid for the audio book, I cannot use it according to my requirements. It is like buying a sweater one is only allowed to wear in Walmarkets or streets beginning with an L or F - otherwise it will dissolve in air. For that doubtful return the price for downloading from audible is too high. I will rather keep on buying my audio books on CD. The quality is great, the prices are adequate and I can rip and copy them on any player and medium I wish to. Thanks for your help! sonnen
here here sonnen - I think I will feedback your opinion to audible . . . do you mind? - they might as well hear it from the street . . .
You dont´t have to tell them, estrachan. That was what I told them when closing my Audible account. By the way, Golwave didn´t work on all files. 2 out of 3 parts of my audiobook could not be converted - heaven knows why. I think I´ll give up on the whole thing now. It´s just too time-intensive. sonnen
Hi, Please help. I paid for RiverPast and downloaded the 5.0.0 version from a link on this discussion but it wont accept my activation key. And I can't open the .aa file I want to convert. I know it must be something simple. Please help.
Ok, if anybody is still out there. I ended up just loading the new version of RiverPast because I could never get the key to work. It did conver but, it cut off the first few minutes of audio. Can anybody help me with what might be going wrong. I have done goldwave and got it to convert directly from .aa to mp3 as well but when I went to play it it started like two hours in and i couldn't rewind it though it said all of the time was there. Please help me. I am frustrated with this. So many people seem to have gotten it to work for them without losing any part of their books so what am I doing wrong?
Hi Mandi, I'm using goldwave and I've no problem converting. I've used the 2-step method9 (ie. from .aa to .wav and then another program from wav to .mp3.) Program used: goldwave & lame I've suspect audible been fiddling around with their files to make it more inconvenient for converting. So maybe that's why you had problem. Paul
Hi Mandy, I have experienced the same frustration with the files being truncated. Heres the solution believe it or not: 1) Open the .aa file with Windows Media Player 2) hit control P to play it. 3) Hit control S to stop playing 4) Hit control P to check that the file starts at the beginning 5) Hit control S to stop playing 6) Close out Media Player 7) Open the file in gold Wave 8) Hit space bar to ensure that the file starts from the beginning 9) Hit space bar to stop play back 10) Save the file to your desired MP3 settings & you should be good to go! HTH...Keith
Thank you ozonebaby - That worked. I knew the .aa file had some sort of placemarker because each time I started it it would play back from where I left off - I just didn't know how to get rid of it. I have one last question, well actually a few dealing with bitrate and Hz. I have been able to successfully convert directly from .aa to .mp3 but, i wanted to know what the best sample Hz and bitrate for a good medium between quality and size. I found that the original file was "PCM Signed 16bit (whatever that means), 22050 Hz, 352 kbps, Mono." But when I converted to 22050 Hz, 16 kbps (as suggested in some other posts) it sounded metallic, very annoying to listen to. So I tried 44100 Hz(cd rate), 40 kbps and got good sound and a similar file size to the original but I couldn't get goldwave to open it even though I converted it using goldwave. So finally I just tried variations at 22050 Hz (160 kbps = 615 MB, 96 kbps = 369 MB, 64 kbps = 246 MB) But I am wary to go too much lower and the file size is still very large. So here are my questions: Will lowpass filtering help at the 22050 Hz level and improve quality so I can reduce file size? Is there some reason Goldwave won't open the 44100 Hz, 40 kbps file (I can listen to it but, I want to reopen it to split it using the cue method mentioned earlier - which works remarkably by the way, it picks out silent spots and puts the split there)? What are some suggested rates, I hear alot about the bitrate, but doesn't the Hz affect quality as well? What file size is reasonable for quality and a 256 MB mp3 player, the original size of the file is 122 MB (8 hours and 57 minutes)in .aa? Anybody who can help would be great. Thanks, Mandi
Mandi - I tried using cue on goldware and didn't get anyplace - so I have been using quicksplit to make shorter files - how did you get cue to work . . . Thanks
Hi Mandy, I get great results with downloading .aa files in format 4 & saving to: Layer 3 32,000 Hz 32 kbs mono I don't split files as my player has resume & book marking features so I can't help you there. Cheers!
