Creating MP3 files with track selection options for listener

[wgdefoore]

Hello

I create MP3s from presentations that I make professionally, and sell them on my web site--so they are monologue, with music intros.

Previously, all of my MP3 programs (40 minutes to 95 minutes in length), have been in one MP3 file, which does not allow listeners to make track selections as they listen. I would very much like my listeners to have the option of selecting individual tracks on MP3 programs that they download.

I have used the Export Multiple option, and now have (my current program that I'm working on) in multiple MP3 files, and also in multiple WAV files.

What I don't know how to do is this: I don't know how to take the multiple (WAV or MP3) files that I now have and create one file (or folder?) for my customers to download, so that they don't have to download every individual track separately. In other words, when I download an album from iTunes, for example, I purchase the entire album, I watch as individual tracks are downloaded, then I have the entire album in one place on my computer and I can select and listen to the individual tracks i choose--that is what I want to accomplish for my listeners.

This seems like a fairly simple problem, but for some reason I haven't been able to figure it out.

Any help will be appreciated.

William

[steve]

iTunes probably has some special mechanism for downloading multiple files, but I don't use iTunes.
One way you could do it would be to pack all of the MP3 files into a ZIP archive.
You could include a "playlist" so that the user can unzip the archive, then play the "playlist" and each track will play in the correct order.

[wgdefoore]

Thanks, Steve. I'm not committed to using iTunes, by any means. I'm also not sure how to do what you recommend with the zip file, but I'll give it a try. If you have any other references you can point me to, that would be great.

[kozikowski]

You could include a "playlist" so that the user can unzip the archive, then play the "playlist" and each track will play in the correct order.

What program runs the Playlist? The iTunes version of that is open all your music in iTunes, create a separate "playlist" and drag your music to it. Push the music up or down to get the desired order. You can burn a playlist to a Music CD and the music will retain the order of the managed playlist.

Playlists and Music CDs play from a selected point forward. They don't stop at a song boundary.

The first thing that drift through my head was the programming for a simple web site and stream the music.

Koz

[wgdefoore]

Yes, that is how I create a CD using iTunes--put the tracks in a playlist then burn to CD. And on the CD, I can select individual tracks to listen to. My question is how to create an MP3 file that, once downloaded, also allows the selection of individual tracks, instead of being all one track.

As you can see on this product, I offer both the CD and audio download option:
http://www.angermanagementresource.com/ ... s.html#eit

Customers who purchase the CD and easily select among the various tracks to listen to information on a particular topic of interest, whereas customers purchasing the MP3 download get one solid track, and have no way of selecting an individual track to listen to.

Am I making sense?

From what you said, Koz, it occurs to me that if I could convert the playlist into an MP3 file, that might do the trick. Whatever I do, the final outcome has to be in the format of an MP3 file for customers to download. I know that when I download a music album, I purchase the entire album, then I watch as each track is downloaded (as separate MP3s?) and then I can select tracks, or listen to the whole album---at any rate, that is the effect I'm looking for.

Thanks for your help with this...

[kozikowski]

Thanks for your help with this...

Yes, well, I haven't helped yet.

You need a management wrapper. The iTunes system is a management wrapper that "knows" what a playlist is and can manage groups of files including mixing video, audio, data, etc. I don't believe that one single MP3 file has enough smarts to know about chapter markers, or other program divisions.

I've been wrong before.

I think your insistence on delivering in MP3 pretty much locks you out of being able to supply chapter markers or song divisions. The tradeoff is going to be delivery in MP3 which will play on anything made this century and a more comprehensive format with bells and whistles. I'm just now thinking hard about this. Have you ever seen a system outside of a CD, Windows Media, iTunes or a DVD that lets you scan forward and back to a specific point in the show?

Sorry. One more. BluRay.

You can get on-line systems to do this -- YouTube and their cousins, but the work isn't being managed by you, it's being managed by the YouTube servers.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Here's a discussion of what you want. Turns out it exists (scroll to the bottom) but nobody's players can deal with it.

http://www.macosxaudio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17771

Koz

[wgdefoore]

Very interesting. Good solution, but like you said, limited usability. I can change from MP3 format, I think...I've just never seen any other audio download format on the web for my type of product. I have downloaded commercial royalty free music in 30 second clips in WAV format, but WAV is too big for my 100+ minute programs. If I did a "management wrapper," what would the format be?

William

[steve]

Would this be a workable solution:
Click here to download sample pack.
Obviously you could use MP3s in your "pack".

[wgdefoore]

I think that could just work. I will play around with it and see what I can do.

Thanks, Steve and Koz!

William