Helium Music Manager User Forum

[sbroeer]

Hello,

does anyone tried to convert his mp3 files to m4b audiobook format?
i would like to see my audiobooks on my ipod also under "Audiobooks".

I tried it with the "AudioBookConverter", but after that, a lot of tag information are lost or cut.

Is there another way to get audiobooks in mp3 format as audiobook on an ipod ?
Or does anyone knows a better software or way to convert the files without losing information?

Thanks for any idea!

[Listener]

Isn't m4b just an m4a renamed to m4b? I thought I read that somewhere, if that is the case - simply convert to m4a and rename them.

[sbroeer]

Isn't m4b just an m4a renamed to m4b? I thought I read that somewhere, if that is the case - simply convert to m4a and rename them.

hey listener,

shame on me.

you're absolutely right.
sometimes things are so easy that you just didn't notice them.

[giacomogo]

Isn't m4b just an m4a renamed to m4b? I thought I read that somewhere, if that is the case - simply convert to m4a and rename them.

In case it helps, there are several versions/specifications of AAC, and iTunes can only properly handle the "simplest", Low Complexity.

I was simply renaming low-bitrate .m4a files to .m4b. But I ran into trouble using a low-bitrate to encode audiobooks -- using dMC:
http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=17624&highlight=audiobook
The solution was to force dB Music Converter to use Low Complexity AAC, "AAC-LC", rather than the so-called "High-Efficiency" HE-AAC format. HE-AAC is optimized specifically for low-bitrate encoding -- seemingly the perfect AAC encoding to use for spoken word. But iTunes can't read HE-AAC properly, so avoid it.

Wikipedia, as usual, provides the details I can't:
AAC Standards
HE-AAC