Comments on: How to create an iTunes/iPod compatible audiobook (MPEG4 m4b) on Linux using MP4Box and mp4v2 v1.9.1 – it can be done!

By: Perl Script to Convert an Audiobook (m4b) to mp3 files splitting on the chapters | Jason L. Froebe - Tech tips and How Tos for Fellow Techies

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:29:07 +0000

[...] BOSE radio that allows me to hook up an USB thumbdrive containing mp3 files. The problem is most of my audiobooks are in m4b format. Previously I’ve used tools like mp3splt and tried to split on [...]

By: Othniel Graichen

Othniel Graichen — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:49:56 +0000

I’m a Linux user with a iPod Classic but no iTunes. I download .m4b audiobooks which I can play fine on Ubuntu/friends. I can’t transfer them to the iPod and get them to play. I want to hear the AAC stream and see the PNG artwork which changes periodically.

I use gtkpod to transfer TO the iPod, but the m4b audiobooks dont show up in Audiobooks on the iPod interface.

What am I doing wrong?

By: San

San — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 22:03:08 +0000

m4a to m4b without reencoding.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10604092#post10604092

By: San

San — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 22:01:20 +0000

i put some dirty but hopefully useful script on ubuntuforums for converting m4a files in directory without reencoding. want to try? http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10604092#post10604092

By: How to Copy Audiobooks to iPhone | Mac Password

How to Copy Audiobooks to iPhone | Mac Password — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:04:42 +0000

[...] Under Linux, you’ll need to string together a few tools for a custom solution, perhaps following this guide: How to create an iTunes/iPod compatible audiobook on Linux. [...]

By: Jason L Froebe

Jason L Froebe — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:32:08 +0000

Do you mean the MP4Box file size limit for concatenation? http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-93240.html

You could sum the sizes of the audio files prior to merging them to determine how many files you can merge together.

By: Jason L Froebe

Jason L Froebe — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:05:55 +0000

In this particular case, I just used the audiobook cd track times IIRC.

If you’re pulling from cassette tapes or a single recording, you’ll have to scan for the chapter ends. You’ll find them typically at 2 – 5 second quiet periods in the audio. Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) is excellent for finding these quiet periods.

By: PG

PG — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:31:45 +0000

I thought a sample workflow might be useful:

- decode MP3s
cd /home/music/directory
for i in *.mp3; do lame –decode “$i” “`basename “$i” .mp3`”.wav; done

- combine wavs into one mp4 file (repeat -if file.wav for each wav)
neroAacEnc -cbr 64000 -if file1.wav -if file2.wav -of out.mp4

- convert chapters
mp4chaps –convert –chapter-qt out.mp4

- add tags
neroAacTag out.mp4 -meta:title=”book name” -meta:artist=”author” -add-cover:front:cover.jpg

- rename to m4b
mv out.mp4 finalBookName.m4b

By: PG

PG — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:11:35 +0000

Thanks for this useful blog.

I just wanted to let you know that the free (as in beer but not as in speech) Nero encoder has an album mode which combines multiple input files into one output file and automatically adds chapter marks, so you don’t have to create a chapter file. You do still need to run mp4chaps to convert the chapter types though.

The downside is it only takes wav files as input so you have to decode your MP3s first, but as a bonus it also comes with a tagger which can set album titles and also add cover art. I believe it is a much better quality encoder than faac too, but I’m no expert on that!

By: Jason L Froebe

Jason L Froebe — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:28:50 +0000

That’s wonderful Benny! Great work!!!!!

By: Benny

Benny — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:41:59 +0000

Everything works now.
Thanks to your post I created a python script and posted it here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1418085

By: Benny

Benny — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:48:18 +0000

Aaaand sorry again. Found the mistake.
My chapters file looked something like this:
CHAPTER3=00:03:18.7002364274
I changed it to
CHAPTER3=00:03:18.700
and everything works…not!
VLC and iTunes show the chapters and play everything fine, but on the iPod the chapters don’t show up.
I will try to use iTunes instead of Amarok to transfer the file (see: http://forums.jrlearnsmedia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33).

By: Benny

Benny — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:47:08 +0000

Sorry, that should read “…and vlc shows…”

By: Benny

Benny — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:44:42 +0000

It helps a bit, thanks. But I can’t get it working, though .

I can’t play the m4b file in totem (“no known streams found”), and in vlc shows a length of 459:38:02 (instead of 18:58) and no chapters (same on the iPod).

Here’s the list of commands:
http://pastebin.com/m1c36f075

By: Jason L Froebe

Jason L Froebe — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:23:48 +0000

step one should read:

ffmpeg -i “track1.mp3″ -y -vn -acodec libfaac -ab 128k -ar 44100 -threads 3 -f mp4 track1.aac

thanks for catching that!

Does that help?

By: Benny

Benny — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:48:04 +0000

Thanks for your explanation, but it doesn’t work for me.
A few questions:
Do you have your audio book in a single mp3 file (here: test.mp3)?
If yes, where did you get the “track1.aac” file in step 3?

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:53:58 +0000

Thanks for sharing this! I’ve been getting fed up with having albums of audio books on my iPhone.

I downloaded and installed mp4chaps (v1.9.1) using “./configure && make && sudo make install” and got the following error:

mp4chaps: error while loading shared libraries: libmp4v2.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I solved it this way

$ cd /usr/lib
$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libmp4v2.so.1

By: Jason L Froebe

Jason L Froebe — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:04:23 +0000

Depending on which country you live, removing the DRM is likely illegal. Apple allows you to convert your music library to non DRM: Want to upgrade your iTunes DRM’d music (m4p,aac) to non-DRM legally? Check out iTunes 8 Unfortunately, I don't think that covers any DRM'd audiobooks. You can legally purchase non-DRM MP3 audio books: MP3 Audiobooks on Amazon Audio books on cd are quite inexpensive: Audio books on CDs especially if they're used: Used audio books on cd

By: gdgrte

gdgrte — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 08:01:56 +0000

if you need a drm remover,you can find what you need here.
http://www.dvdtoitunes.net/itunes-drm-remover.html

By: Jason L Froebe

Jason L Froebe — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:42:59 +0000

The time in the chapters file is the start of the chapter.