Xported mp3 file will not skip forward or backard

[huntington]

I have Windows XP and used Audacity 1.3.7 to download an mp3 ebook to my computer. On the original ebook there is a special sound at the end of each chapter in the book. When the original ebook is played on an mp3 player it is possible to skip forward and/or backwards from each of those chapters. I exported the mp3 file from Audacity and used CDBurner XP to burn it to an (mp3) CD. That CD plays in a CD Player and the special sounds are heard at the end of each chapter. However, the player will not skip forward or backward, nor is it possible to stop the CD and return to that point later. The only choice at this point is to play the CD forward or return to the start.

What can I do to make the CD able to skip foward and/or backward at each of those well over 100 chapter sounds?

[kozikowski]

<<<download an mp3 ebook to my computer.>>>

You need to talk a lot more about that. How do I reproduce the problem exactly?

Do you have Show File Extensions selected in Windows? My Computer > Properties > Tools > [ ] Hide File Extensions (unclick)

This slippery icon-based hiding business leads most Windows Users to assume that everything that crosses their desk is an MP3 file.

Koz

[huntington]

Koz,

Thanks for your quick reply.

I am not sure how you could reproduce the problem, but here is what I did. I have a borrowed portable audio book. It is not a standard mp3 player. It is a self-contained "pre-loaded" mp3 player with one jac for a head phone. I have that one jac connected to the Line In port on my computer. I downloaded the audiobook using Audacity 1.3.7. When the downloading was completed, I exported the book as an mp3 file. I assume that it is an mp3 file because Audacity said it was exporting it as mp3 and the extension on the exported file is .mp3.

Hide Files Extensions is not checked.

I hope this is the information you need.

[kozikowski]

It's almost a certainty that the original file was not a standard MP3. MP3 technology is millions of years old (1987) and relatively inefficient. Nobody does it that way any more.

It's a safe bet that the player has a special MP4 or M4A software that "knows" where the music breaks are by a sensitivity to that tone. Standard music players will not do that.

<<<used CDBurner XP to burn it to an (mp3) CD. That CD plays in a CD Player and the special sounds are heard at the end of each chapter>>>

You made a standard Music CD or you made a Data CD with MP3 files on it? Not that it makes that much difference. The only way to get a standard Music CD player to do what you want is to break up the show into chapters (individual sound files) and use standard Music CD Authoring software to make a show with that many chapters and no break between all the segments. That process is limited to 99 "songs."

Koz

[kozikowski]

Oh, and it's also limited to 80 minutes per disk.

Koz

[huntington]

Koz,

Thanks for the additional information. I was hoping that there was some way in Audacity to use those tones that are between the chapters to automatically make chapter breaks. If that is not the case, I guess this is a lost cause. Going through the ten hours of recording and finding those 110 tones seems an overwhelming task.

Thanks for your help.

[steve]

Going through the ten hours of recording and finding those 110 tones seems an overwhelming task.

You could easily split the recording into regular sections of say 10 minutes duration using the "Regular Interval Labels" from the Analyze menu.
Then use "Export Multiple" to create the individual CD tracks.

[huntington]

Steve,

Thanks for your suggestion. I will use it and see what happens. This is my first time using Audacity and I need all the help I can get.

[huntington]

It looks like using "Regular Interval Labels" would work for me, but there are two problems:

First, since this was my first Audacity project, I was not sure whether it was sensible to save the entire ten-hour audio book as one project. So I saved it in two not quite equal parts. If I have numbered interval labels in each of the two parts, the numbering would begin at number 1 in each part which, of course, would not work when I combine the two parts on a CD. Is there a way to have the numbering start at the appropriate higher number in Part 2? Or, is it possible to open the two parts in Audacity at the same time so they can be numbered sequentially?

Second, when I tried "Export Mutiple" to export one of the parts (for a trial), I could not get past the "Edit metamedia" window. I did not think there was anything to edit after the interval labels were added, I just want to export them. But when I click on "Export," the "Edit metamedia" window opens. What do I need to do to actually export t

[kozikowski]

<<<this was my first Audacity project>>>

It might be good to start your Audacity career with a 3 minute show and make all the mistakes there, not a ten hour, multiple GB, difficult to manage, slow, prone to crashing and failure extravaganza.

Do you have one (or multiple) Exported WAV files of your work -- the original work, not the edited work? A common mistake is to do everything in Audacity Projects and never export safety WAV files anywhere in the process. If an Audacity Project crashes, as, in your case, it is very likely to do, the Project explodes into thousands of brightly colored shards and fragments and your next message will be...

How do I recover a crashed Project?

Crash Recovery
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... shRecovery

Just wanted to get that out of the way now, so you won't need to ask later. Another thing the WAV file does is give you a really good idea just how large your Project actually is. Let's see, ten hours..put down five...carry the one..plus two...I'm guessing 7.5GB of drive space before UNDO files, production, and safety backups. People who manage highly compressed sound files have no idea how horrifyingly large they can get when production is needed.

Are you up for that?

Koz