Portable MP3 player advice?

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » June 6, 2005, 12:18 pm

Im looking to buy a portable MP3 player, but first of all im not sure which models are good ATM.

And 2nd, im looking for at least 1 of 2 VERY special features i would love, but that im not sure exist in any portable MP3 player today. Im looking to play audio books on it, figured that doing 1 hour of training i might as well listed to something usefull.
BUT since most audio books are 1 mp3 in a big 100+ MB chunk, you got a problem if you want to stop in the middle of it.
Do you know of any MP3 players where i can either put a "bookmark" saying how long i got into a mp3 file, so i can continue my audio book where i left it, or a mp3 player where i can manually select how far into a number i want to go, normal fast forward in a 2+ hour audio book = useless

.

Hope to get some good reccomendations, and maybe a confirmation if those features i want even exist in a portable mp3 player

.

Drolgin Steingrinder · Post by **Drolgin Steingrinder** » June 6, 2005, 12:42 pm

The newest iPods have a specific audiobook feature that allows you to bookmark. I haven't tested it on mine since iTunes won't recognize my iPod and the alternate program I use (ephpod) doesn't have the audiobook thing.

Mak · Post by **Mak** » June 6, 2005, 1:08 pm

How are you getting your audio books?

The only books I know of that come in large files are the ones from audible.com. If you're getting them from there, I'd recommend you go to the newsgroups instead. In almost all cases, you get books that are already in mp3 form AND are broken up into managable blocks. If you need help with that let me know.

If you need to break up a large mp3 file, a program called Goldwave can do that easily. I use it to convert the audible.com .aa file and break it up into smaller .mp3 files.

I use (or did before it disappeared) a Rio Chiba, 256. It held about 8-10 hours of audio, assuming that the .mp3 was at about a 64 kbps. You shouldn't need anything higher than that for books, although if you go any lower it starts to sound tinny. Any .mp3 player should work fine if you can spend a few minutes working on the files.

Trias · Post by **Trias** » June 6, 2005, 7:51 pm

i have the newest ipod mini available and it does have the feature you are looking for; though i haven't used it yet ^^

Vetiria · Post by **Vetiria** » June 7, 2005, 12:52 am

I have used that feature and it works great. It picks up where you left off.

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » June 11, 2005, 7:08 am

Are there any special version numbers on the Ipod Minis so youre sure you get the newest version?

Oh, and can you copy normal MP3s from your HD, or do it need the CDs to sync? Had some wierd mini tornado come inside my apartment and sweep up most of my CDs after i made them into MP3s /cough

Drolgin Steingrinder · Post by **Drolgin Steingrinder** » June 11, 2005, 8:51 am

You can transfer your mp3s just fine.

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » June 11, 2005, 9:37 am

Hehe, just bough a IPod Mini.

I wonder if my PC will hate me now, feel like a heretic for buying Apple products.

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » June 11, 2005, 5:09 pm

Ok, got it to work now, and been transferring files.
But ran into a small problem with ITunes.

2/3 of my MP3 Itunes find and see album, genre and so on.
But the rest are just shows all mixed around (having 40 numbers next to each other called Track 1 for exampe), since ITunes cant figure out that i got it sorted in libraries called the album name.

Are there some smart way to get ITunes to read the dir names and sort after that, or add the dir names to the ID3 tag easily (assume ITunes use Id3), so i dont need to add info manually to around 1500 mp3s

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » June 14, 2005, 5:33 pm

I get my audio books from Bittorrent or Edonkey

.
Thanks for the tip on Goldwave, seems to work fine when splitting files up, will take some hours to edit it, but then ill have The Dark Tower 1-7 in nice 5-6 min long files

Mak · Post by **Mak** » June 21, 2005, 10:01 pm

I actually like book files that are about 15 minutes in length. Easy enough to work with, and short enough that if you advance, stop, etc. accidentally it doesn't take too much effort to find your spot again.

What bittorrent site are you using?

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » June 22, 2005, 12:49 pm

Piratebay. Havent been there lately though.

Mak · Post by **Mak** » June 27, 2005, 1:15 am

Don't forget DC++ has a couple of nice hubs for audiobooks.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » August 30, 2005, 3:45 pm

Bump!

Aside from torrents or Usenet, does anyone have a good link (or even reviews of any audio book rental places (ala NetFlix)) for audio books?

Also in the same line as this thread.. has anyone tried out the iPOD shuffle? Yes, I know it's barebones, but some reviews show the audio on it to be better than the iPODs or the Zen's, and it's only 99 or 139.. I'm looking for something to run/bike with and from what I've heard, the hdd players aren't a wise choice for that bouncing around.

tia!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » August 30, 2005, 4:20 pm

If you use your MP3 portable players to listen to Audio books, you should read this article *here* (there's no link because I can't remember where I found it). Certain portable players have better bookmarking features that help keep track of where you are etc. The iPod isn't one of the better audio book players.