To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from there. This takes literally hours
Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?

On Oct 3, 8:55*am, fred wrote:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from there.. This takes literally hours
Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?

Plug it into the computer and copy them over?

Jonathan

"fred" wrote in message
...
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB
drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from
there. This takes literally hours
Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?

You can try http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

In article ,
fred writes:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from there. This takes literally hours

It would help if you gave more details about exactly what
you are downloading (source/format?), how you do it, and
what tools you use.

Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?

Yes, certainly.

Even if you go via an (audio?) CD, they can be ripped at
many times the normal playback speed on any modern drive.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

fred wrote:

To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from there. This takes literally hours
Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?

Yes, use a CD ripper ... oh wait a minute :-)

Are the CDs scratched to buggery?

Make sure you haven't got OTT cd-paranoia/jitter correction options enabled.

On 03/10/2012 08:55, fred wrote:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from there. This takes literally hours
Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?


Maybe the OP means he downloads the audio book as an ISO image. In that
case he could extract the contents uging IsoBuster, or install a virtual
CD drive (I use MagicISO but there are several others) and mount the ISO
file on that.

Either way gives fast access to the contents without burning a disc.
--
Reentrant

that was what he wanted to avoid.Audible is a on line library. I don't know
what format they reside in and what if any the drm restrictions are. all I
can say is that on downloading a book from my local library, and shoving it
into goldwave and saving it out as ogg I seem to have removed the drm
completely...
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Jonathan" wrote in message
...
On Oct 3, 8:55 am, fred wrote:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB
drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from
there. This takes literally hours
Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?

Plug it into the computer and copy them over?

Jonathan

Reentrant wrote:

Maybe the OP means he downloads the audio book as an ISO image. In that
case he could extract the contents uging IsoBuster, or install a virtual
CD drive (I use MagicISO but there are several others) and mount the ISO
file on that.

Either way gives fast access to the contents without burning a disc.

Ah yes, hadn't read it properly, no need to burn to CD just to rip back
to MP3 (or whatever), but a better description of the starting format
would help ...

Reentrant wrote:
On 03/10/2012 08:55, fred wrote:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB
drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them
from there. This takes literally hours
Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?


Maybe the OP means he downloads the audio book as an ISO image. In that
case he could extract the contents uging IsoBuster, or install a virtual
CD drive (I use MagicISO but there are several others) and mount the ISO
file on that.
Pretty sure Linux can mount a .iso file and understand what's inside it
pretty simply.



Either way gives fast access to the contents without burning a disc.

exactly.

--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

Brian Gaff wrote:
that was what he wanted to avoid.Audible is a on line library. I don't know
what format they reside in and what if any the drm restrictions are. all I
can say is that on downloading a book from my local library, and shoving it
into goldwave and saving it out as ogg I seem to have removed the drm
completely...
Brian

thats the magic of free invisible cryptocracker libraries that simply
know that you want the contents, not the wrapper.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 03/10/2012 08:55, fred wrote:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB
drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them
from there. This takes literally hours Is there anyway to drop them
straight on to a USB drive?

What format are you downloading? If its a .iso CD image, then rather
than burning a copy and then ripping it, just mount it on a virtual
drive like Virtual clone drive:

http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html

Then extract the audio from that using any CD ripper.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Rumm wrote:

What format are you downloading? If its a .iso CD image, then rather
than burning a copy and then ripping it, just mount it on a virtual
drive like Virtual clone drive:

http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html

I'm sure that works, but I prefer WinCDEmu, it's FOSS rather than trialware.

http://wincdemu.sysprogs.org/

On 03/10/2012 11:38, Andy Burns wrote:
John Rumm wrote:

What format are you downloading? If its a .iso CD image, then rather
than burning a copy and then ripping it, just mount it on a virtual
drive like Virtual clone drive:

http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html

I'm sure that works, but I prefer WinCDEmu, it's FOSS rather than
trialware.

http://wincdemu.sysprogs.org/

The slysoft one is freeware not trialware...

(their other products are paid for/trialware but the virtual drive is a
freebe)

The AnyCD / DVD product is also worth paying for - there seems to be no
free equivalent for that.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Oct 3, 9:45*am, Andy Burns wrote:
Reentrant wrote:
Maybe the OP means he downloads the audio book as an ISO image. In that
case he could extract the contents uging IsoBuster, or install a virtual
CD drive (I use MagicISO but there are several others) and mount the ISO
file on that.

Either way gives fast access to the contents without burning a disc.

Ah yes, hadn't read it properly, no need to burn to CD just to rip back
to MP3 (or whatever), but a better description of the starting format
would help ...

As stated, Audible.

MBQ

John Rumm wrote:
What format are you downloading? If its a .iso CD image, then rather
than burning a copy and then ripping it, just mount it on a virtual
drive like Virtual clone drive:

Audio CDs (if that's what is being referred to here) don't and can't use ISO
images. ISO is a copy of the 2048-byte data sectors on the CD. CD sectors
are actually 2352 bytes long. On a data CD the remaining bytes are used for
error correction behind the scenes. Audio CDs don't have error correction,
so the data is 2352 bytes per sector and if you get errors, tough. That
means you need different tools and read/write commands to access the audio
tracks of a CD compared with the data track(s) (a disc can have both).

http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html

I don't see any mention of audio there. It can be done, but you need a CD
drive emulator that supports audio. There's one mentioned he
http://damiencedwards.com/2011/02/a-...-files-to-mp3/

MP3s-on-a-data-CD, as playable by modern DVD etc players are something else
- in which case you just copy them off onto a USB stick. Any disc emulator
should do.

Theo

Yes but most rewritables only record at x4 so this could take a while. You
don't want to be using up a write once every time.
Did I not see some talk of ramsticks that look like an external cd to the
software at some time in the past. the snag then of course is that they
probably don't work on other devices.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
fred writes:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB
drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from
there. This takes literally hours

It would help if you gave more details about exactly what
you are downloading (source/format?), how you do it, and
what tools you use.

Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?

Yes, certainly.

Even if you go via an (audio?) CD, they can be ripped at
many times the normal playback speed on any modern drive.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

OK are these iso images by any chance? If they are I'm sure Ive seen virtual
cd emulation software around.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
fred writes:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB
drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from
there. This takes literally hours

It would help if you gave more details about exactly what
you are downloading (source/format?), how you do it, and
what tools you use.

Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?

Yes, certainly.

Even if you go via an (audio?) CD, they can be ripped at
many times the normal playback speed on any modern drive.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 9:58:11 AM UTC+1, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Brian Gaff wrote:

that was what he wanted to avoid.Audible is a on line library. I don't know

what format they reside in and what if any the drm restrictions are. all I

can say is that on downloading a book from my local library, and shoving it

into goldwave and saving it out as ogg I seem to have removed the drm

completely...

Brian



thats the magic of free invisible cryptocracker libraries that simply

know that you want the contents, not the wrapper.





--

Ineptocracy



(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to

lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the

members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are

rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a

diminishing number of producers.

Just to expand though thanks to Adrian I may have an answer.

I buy 'Audible' (note the parenthesis) books to listen to when driving, gardening etc.

Up until recently the only device that communicated properly with the 'Audible' software was an Apple one. Other than that I had to download the books.. Transfer them onto CDs, up to 7 per book, and them upload them from the CDs and on to a non Apple player. Tedious.

My new car allows me to upload music from a thumb drive to its internal memory. It doesn't recognise the iTunes format. I want to download the books to a thumb drive bypassing the CD route.

That is the way to go I imagine, which was why I asked about the format.
Lots of folk here have not apparently heard of audible.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Reentrant" wrote in message
...
On 03/10/2012 08:55, fred wrote:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB
drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from
there. This takes literally hours
Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?


Maybe the OP means he downloads the audio book as an ISO image. In that
case he could extract the contents uging IsoBuster, or install a virtual
CD drive (I use MagicISO but there are several others) and mount the ISO
file on that.

Either way gives fast access to the contents without burning a disc.
--
Reentrant

"fred" wrote in message
...

I buy 'Audible' (note the parenthesis) books to listen to when driving,
gardening etc.

Up until recently the only device that communicated properly with the
'Audible' software was an Apple one. Other than that I had to download the
books. Transfer them onto CDs, up to 7 per book, and them upload them from
the CDs and on to a non Apple player. Tedious.


I will repeat what I said http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

I will add
http://catontech.com/blog/2011/09/19...-audible-file/

How much easier does he need it?

On Oct 3, 1:06*pm, "Brian Gaff" wrote:
That is the way to go I imagine, which was why I asked about the format.
*Lots of folk here have not apparently heard of audible.

So they can JFGI!

MBQ

On Oct 3, 1:26*pm, "dennis@home"
wrote:
"fred" wrote in message

...

I buy 'Audible' (note the parenthesis) books to listen to when driving,
gardening etc.

Up until recently the only device that communicated properly with the
'Audible' software was an Apple one. Other than that I had to download the
books. Transfer them onto CDs, up to 7 per book, and them upload them from
the CDs and *on to a non Apple player. Tedious.

I will repeat what I saidhttp://audacity.sourceforge.net/

I will addhttp://catontech.com/blog/2011/09/19/using-audacity-to-convert-audibl...

How much easier does he need it?

" Although this method is time consuming it does work well".

If you take the time to read up the thread, you'll see the OP already
has a time consuming metod that works.

MBQ

On 03/10/2012 13:05, fred wrote:



Up until recently the only device that communicated properly with the 'Audible' software
was an Apple one. Other than that I had to download the books. Transfer them onto CDs, up
to 7 per book, and them upload them from the CDs and on to a non Apple player. Tedious.

So what was the format of the file which you downloaded before
transferring onto CD, and how did you create the CDs?

As others have said, chances are that you could find some CD emulation
software which would open the downloaded files, and treat them as
virtual CDs. You could then rip the audio tracks to .MP3 files and copy
them onto a thumb drive.
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

fred wrote:

Just to expand though thanks to Adrian I may have an answer.

I buy 'Audible' (note the parenthesis) books to listen to when
driving, gardening etc.


Ah a 'brand' not 'audio'

Up until recently the only device that communicated properly with the
'Audible' software was an Apple one.

why am I not surprised that anything done to for or by Apple is
expensive, time consuming, and restricted to the way apple want you do
do it?

Other than that I had to
download the books.

Ok

Transfer them onto CDs, up to 7 per book,

How was that done?

They must have existed in MP3 form at some stage to do that.

and
them upload them from the CDs and on to a non Apple player. Tedious.



My new car allows me to upload music from a thumb drive to its
internal memory. It doesn't recognise the iTunes format. I want to
download the books to a thumb drive bypassing the CD route.
Understood


OK I now understand the problem. Audible is copyright protected bollox
and you need software that will rip the .aa files

What you use will depend on what platform you have Mac, PC ,or linux.

That will extract essentially MP3 file out of the .aa files and you can
dump those on your thumbdrives.

This seems a good summary
http://stream-recorder.com/forum/rem...copy-t878.html

You CAN choose I think with a Mac to burn a 'virtual CD' which may also
work - you are still 'burning the CD' BUT its not real costs nothing and
is just a disk files so its blindingly fast.

so for a mac, use this

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/33355/virtual-cd-rw
and simply burn a virtual CD and rip that.

TBH i've spent half an hour looking at the alternatives and they all
require odd and rare and semi legal bits of software beacause audible
hammer anyone who does the job directly.

So do it the way you know already, but using a virtual CD to save money
and time.

And be quick cos after 15 days you have to pay for virtual CD

If you are on another platform than OSX google "burn virtual CD" - there
are tools for all

And don't upgrade the audible software because they have removed the
ability to burn CDS with it..

http://www.goodbyemicrosoft.net/news.php?item.683.2


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

Roger Mills wrote:
On 03/10/2012 13:05, fred wrote:



Up until recently the only device that communicated properly with the
'Audible' software
was an Apple one. Other than that I had to download the books.
Transfer them onto CDs, up
to 7 per book, and them upload them from the CDs and on to a non
Apple player. Tedious.

So what was the format of the file which you downloaded before
transferring onto CD, and how did you create the CDs?

As others have said, chances are that you could find some CD emulation
software which would open the downloaded files, and treat them as
virtual CDs. You could then rip the audio tracks to .MP3 files and copy
them onto a thumb drive.

If you google a bit it becomes clear that audible is the .aa format and
its proprietary DRM encoded and can only be read by Audible software.

However older versions of audible software DID allow you to burn a CD
and I think CURRENT versions of audible software will export to
I-tunes. And I tunes will let you burn to CD.

Once you have a CD - virtual or real - you can then rip it with the
standard '**** you, DRM' freeware to get MP3

Using audacity to record the whole book is ********, because its quicker
to burn and rip a virtual CD.

The problem seems to be that whilst ripping AA files is not
intrinsically hard, it is illegal and anyone offering this facility has
been 'ceased and desisted' by audible

BUT the loophole of going via CD still exists.

And virtual CDs exist for Mac and windows platforms.

So IF I had a bookshelf of audible books that's what I would do. Burn
virtual CDs.

And rip em.

--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

Man at B&Q wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

a better description of the starting format would help ...

As stated, Audible.

Never heard of it m'lud.

"Man at B&Q" wrote in message
...
On Oct 3, 1:26 pm, "dennis@home"
wrote:
"fred" wrote in message

...

I buy 'Audible' (note the parenthesis) books to listen to when driving,
gardening etc.

Up until recently the only device that communicated properly with the
'Audible' software was an Apple one. Other than that I had to download
the
books. Transfer them onto CDs, up to 7 per book, and them upload them
from
the CDs and on to a non Apple player. Tedious.

I will repeat what I saidhttp://audacity.sourceforge.net/

I will
addhttp://catontech.com/blog/2011/09/19/using-audacity-to-convert-audibl...

How much easier does he need it?

" Although this method is time consuming it does work well".

If you take the time to read up the thread, you'll see the OP already
has a time consuming metod that works.

Well you download the book, run the software.
I don't see where time consuming comes in.

MBQ

dennis@home wrote:


"Man at B&Q" wrote in message
...
On Oct 3, 1:26 pm, "dennis@home"
wrote:
"fred" wrote in message

...

I buy 'Audible' (note the parenthesis) books to listen to when
driving,
gardening etc.

Up until recently the only device that communicated properly with the
'Audible' software was an Apple one. Other than that I had to
download the
books. Transfer them onto CDs, up to 7 per book, and them upload
them from
the CDs and on to a non Apple player. Tedious.

I will repeat what I saidhttp://audacity.sourceforge.net/

I will
addhttp://catontech.com/blog/2011/09/19/using-audacity-to-convert-audibl...


How much easier does he need it?

" Although this method is time consuming it does work well".

If you take the time to read up the thread, you'll see the OP already
has a time consuming metod that works.

Well you download the book, run the software.
I don't see where time consuming comes in.

That's because your a completely thick **** dennis.


MBQ



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On Oct 3, 9:56*am, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
Reentrant wrote:
On 03/10/2012 08:55, fred wrote:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB
drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them
from there. This takes literally hours

Pretty sure Linux can mount a .iso file and understand *what's inside it
pretty simply.

I just tried Fedora for the first time. It seems exactly like Ubuntu
used to look. And there is a third party repository that will let you
decide what is right and wrong rather than the OS producer.

I have no idea about copying files. But it seems to me that the onus
is on the user not the manufacturer to be honest with what happens on
the equipment a person owns.

For that reason alone I think I will be migrating.

I have all sorts of tools that can get me into anyone's house if I
want to. The days of the jemmy, black mask and striped tee shirt are
long gone.

But it doesn't mean I am a burglar.
Why do computer programme suppliers insist on pointing out that
copyright is this and that before explaining how to copy files. FFS;
someone write and tell them: "OK we can take it as read."

Now then...
You were saying?

Weatherlawyer wrote:
On Oct 3, 9:56 am, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
Reentrant wrote:
On 03/10/2012 08:55, fred wrote:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB
drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them
from there. This takes literally hours
Pretty sure Linux can mount a .iso file and understand what's inside it
pretty simply.

I just tried Fedora for the first time. It seems exactly like Ubuntu
used to look. And there is a third party repository that will let you
decide what is right and wrong rather than the OS producer.

I have no idea about copying files. But it seems to me that the onus
is on the user not the manufacturer to be honest with what happens on
the equipment a person owns.


well you could argue that forever

"In my youth I did frequent
The tavern, and had great argument
But came out in not one whit
wiser, than wherein I went."

For that reason alone I think I will be migrating.

From what to what?

I have all sorts of tools that can get me into anyone's house if I
want to. The days of the jemmy, black mask and striped tee shirt are
long gone.

But it doesn't mean I am a burglar.
Why do computer programme suppliers insist on pointing out that
copyright is this and that before explaining how to copy files. FFS;
someone write and tell them: "OK we can take it as read."

The model is that its a licence they are supplying and their code
contains the license cracker.

They are not 'just files'


Now then...
You were saying?



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 03/10/2012 12:53, Theo Markettos wrote:

John Rumm wrote:
What format are you downloading? If its a .iso CD image, then rather
than burning a copy and then ripping it, just mount it on a virtual
drive like Virtual clone drive:

Audio CDs (if that's what is being referred to here) don't and can't use ISO
images. ISO is a copy of the 2048-byte data sectors on the CD. CD sectors

Yup, that's true - also IIRC .iso can only cope with a single track...

are actually 2352 bytes long. On a data CD the remaining bytes are used for
error correction behind the scenes. Audio CDs don't have error correction,
so the data is 2352 bytes per sector and if you get errors, tough. That
means you need different tools and read/write commands to access the audio
tracks of a CD compared with the data track(s) (a disc can have both).

http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html

I don't see any mention of audio there.

It handles audio without any problem, but you will need an image file
format such as a .ccd produced by CloneCD for it to mount.

MP3s-on-a-data-CD, as playable by modern DVD etc players are something else
- in which case you just copy them off onto a USB stick. Any disc emulator
should do.

Indeed.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
However older versions of audible software DID allow you to burn a CD
and I think CURRENT versions of audible software will export to
I-tunes. And I tunes will let you burn to CD.

I Googled "Audible File Format" which threw up a link "How to Convert
Audible .AA File Format to .MP3 ... - Bharat Karavadra".

Following that link triggered an AVG Threat detection about a "Phoenix
Exploit" virus.

I haven't got any .aa files to test with, but in the past I have used
the free "Super" converter to convert files from Apple formats to wav or
mp3. The converters in this were pretty poor and caused distortion.
The version of iTunes that I have does have an option to convert to wave
format, and this produces good results.

It would be interesting to know whether this i-Tunes converter does
handle .aa files. If it does, might that not be an easier path than
working with Virtual CD software?
--
Bill

fred wrote:
To cut a long story short I want to load 'Audible' books on to a USB
drive. The only way I know is to down load them to a CD and rip them from
there. This takes literally hours
Is there anyway to drop them straight on to a USB drive?

if you are looking for file format conversion at high speed and in decent
quality get hold of ffmpeg. Its available for Windows as well as for proper
computers.

If you want to edit and convert, but at a slower speed than ffmpeg get hold
of Audacity.

--
€¢DarWin|
_/ _/

In message

, Steve Firth writes
if you are looking for file format conversion at high speed and in
decent quality get hold of ffmpeg. Its available for Windows as well as
for proper computers.
See my other posting about audio quality when using "Super". My
understanding is that "Super" from eRightsoft is a wrapper around ffmpeg
and other free conversion tools.
It has the most garbled and confusing download site, so most people
probably give up on it, but I tried using it to convert some Apple
format audio files, and it did cause serious distortion.

I was just looking again at the iTunes to wave converter, and found my
test tone files still in the playlist.

I would test first if using ffmpeg for audio.
--
Bill

Bill wrote:
In message
, Steve Firth writes
if you are looking for file format conversion at high speed and in
decent quality get hold of ffmpeg. Its available for Windows as well as
for proper computers.
See my other posting about audio quality when using "Super". My
understanding is that "Super" from eRightsoft is a wrapper around ffmpeg
and other free conversion tools.
It has the most garbled and confusing download site, so most people
probably give up on it, but I tried using it to convert some Apple format
audio files, and it did cause serious distortion.

I was just looking again at the iTunes to wave converter, and found my
test tone files still in the playlist.

I would test first if using ffmpeg for audio.

super is an abomination, best avoided. There is no problem with ffmpeg
audio quality, it's used for conversion in professional studios, for audio,
video and much more (such as adding subtitles).

It isn't easy to use (at first) since it's entirely command line driven,
and the defaults for all conversions are set to silly values. However if
set to something sensible for MP3 such as a bit rate of 192kbps preferably
320kbps the results are better than most of the rather limited GUI
applications.

--
€¢DarWin|
_/ _/

In message

, Steve Firth writes
super is an abomination, best avoided. There is no problem with ffmpeg
audio quality, it's used for conversion in professional studios, for
audio, video and much more (such as adding subtitles).

It isn't easy to use (at first) since it's entirely command line
driven, and the defaults for all conversions are set to silly values.
However if set to something sensible for MP3 such as a bit rate of
192kbps preferably 320kbps the results are better than most of the
rather limited GUI applications.

This got me testing again, but first to answer 2 points, yes Super is an
abomination and you have to fight hard to stop it installing junk after
you have navigated their appalling website. But a wrapper for ffmpeg is
useful for casual use. Is there a better one?

I'm not sure use in professional studios necessarily means much beyond
that the users may include people who know what they are doing and what
features to avoid.

I took one of my sets of test files converted to m4a format, which I
think is basically aac format. The tests included a number of LF tones
plus a sweep from 20Hz to 20kHz. I seem to have lost or destroyed my set
of m4a files that I previously used to test for intermodulation effects

I ran it through iTunes, ffmpeg and Super (both freshly downloaded),
converting to wave and, in the latter 2 cases, to mp3 as well.

The iTunes conversion to wave was excellent. The full frequency range
was converted and the output sounded like the input.

Super produces a loss in level, but otherwise appeared identical to
ffmpeg. I ought to investigate this.
Ffmpeg retained the same levels in and out and sounded fine, but there
was a steep filter at 16kHz, with significant phase effects at around
the filter frequency. Of course, at my age, I can't hear any problem
with this, but it might be worth investigating further. Maybe this is an
effect that could be removed by looking more deeply into the defaults. I
think the filter is in the m4a codec.

So, I have to admit that ffmpeg is probably OK and better than I
previously thought. It doesn't seem as good as iTunes for Apple file
conversions, but I find iTunes annoying for anything technical. It
renames files and puts them where I can't easily find them.
--
Bill

Bill wrote:
In message
, Steve Firth writes
super is an abomination, best avoided. There is no problem with ffmpeg
audio quality, it's used for conversion in professional studios, for
audio, video and much more (such as adding subtitles).

It isn't easy to use (at first) since it's entirely command line
driven, and the defaults for all conversions are set to silly values.
However if set to something sensible for MP3 such as a bit rate of
192kbps preferably 320kbps the results are better than most of the
rather limited GUI applications.

This got me testing again, but first to answer 2 points, yes Super is an
abomination and you have to fight hard to stop it installing junk after
you have navigated their appalling website. But a wrapper for ffmpeg is
useful for casual use. Is there a better one?

I don't know, or TBH care. I write my own scripts for conversion and those
are easier to use than super.

I'm not sure use in professional studios necessarily means much beyond
that the users may include people who know what they are doing and what features to avoid.

It means ffmpeg is a reliable, robust and accurate conversion tool.

I took one of my sets of test files converted to m4a format, which I
think is basically aac format. The tests included a number of LF tones
plus a sweep from 20Hz to 20kHz. I seem to have lost or destroyed my set
of m4a files that I previously used to test for intermodulation effects

I ran it through iTunes, ffmpeg and Super (both freshly downloaded),
converting to wave and, in the latter 2 cases, to mp3 as well.

I'm really not sure why you used different file formats for output. It
makes comparisons invalid. You should have selected mp3 for iTunes output.

The iTunes conversion to wave was excellent. The full frequency range was
converted and the output sounded like the input.

And I'm sure that if you had converted files to wav in ffmpeg you would
have had the same result.

Super produces a loss in level, but otherwise appeared identical to
ffmpeg. I ought to investigate this.

Investigate it as far as dropping super into the Trash.

Ffmpeg retained the same levels in and out and sounded fine, but there
was a steep filter at 16kHz, with significant phase effects at around the
filter frequency.

Which is fairly diagnostic of where you are going wrong. Because mp3 is a
lossy format if you create CBR files passages of silence or continuous
tones (as in test files) are given equal weight and in a file recorded at
a low CBR something has to give. In general it is better to cut higher
frequencies because you can't hear them. The solution is to record using
VBR which compresses silence to a greater extent and permits more headroom.
Using VBR at the highest quality setting (-V 0) Williams remove the effect.
Using AAC or WAV or a lossless output will also fix the problem.


Of course, at my age, I can't hear any problem with this, but it might be
worth investigating further. Maybe this is an effect that could be
removed by looking more deeply into the defaults. I think the filter is in the m4a codec.

It can't be. If it were your input files would show the effect since they
were m4a.

So, I have to admit that ffmpeg is probably OK and better than I previously thought.

It's not ffmpeg. It's an inherent feature of the output codec you selected
and of the way you configured it.

It doesn't seem as good as iTunes for Apple file conversions,

You can't tell from your experiment. You didn't compare like with like.

but I find iTunes annoying for anything technical. It renames files and
puts them where I can't easily find them.

You need to look at how you are configuring both iTunes and ffmpeg. Both
seem wrong.

ITunes neatly stores everything I rip in a hierarchy of folders by artist
name, album, track. Very easy to find. If I rip an iTunes track to
something else it goes into the same folder as the original. Again, easy.

--
€¢DarWin|
_/ _/