[André]

Hi,
Does anyone have this problem?
I've been listening to an audiobook of about 18 hrs long and I got to about 1 hour and 20 into it by just listening to it. But now I can't get back to where I left off.
I can get forward a little bit (about 20 minutes into the story is as far as I can get) but if I try to get further the Ipod jumps back to the beginning of the audiobook.

I've tried getting forward with the ffwd button and by pressing the centre button until I got the diamond bar and then using the circle wheel.

I've got an Ipod nano 4GB on version 1.1

I've also got some audiobooks of only an hour and I am able to navigate freely in those.

I've only bought it 4 days ago and I'd like to know if it's broken or if it's normal.

[icruise]

Is it an Audible file?

[André]

No, does that matter?
Do Audible files play better or worse than other files?

[icruise]

What format is the file?

[André]

Originally Posted by Icruise 

What format is the file?

It's an MPEG-1, Layer 3.
Most of the other ones are MPEG-2, Layer 3, except one which is 17.5MB and 38 minutes long and inside which I am able to navigate.

[icruise]

Well, I'm not sure what to tell you. I've never tried using an MP3 that's 18 hours long. All of my audiobooks on MP3 are split up into smaller sections, I believe. I do have some Audible files that are around that length and they seem to work fine, though. It could just be something odd about that particular file.

[michaelb]

I'd guess that the MP3 has bad encoding which is causing problems for the iPod.

I've had a 25+ hour MP3 audiobook - it was the 5th Harry Potter book, I believe. Played just fine and the jog dial worked well.

In the past, I did have problems with books transcoded into AAC .m4b format that were longer than (roughly) 10 hours or so. I used this format because it was bookmarkable, and a few generations back, iTunes didn't have the "Remember playback position" option. Now it does so I just leave them in their original format, which is often MP3 spliced together to make a single file, so I often have giant MP3 files, and they all play just fine.

I try to keep all audiobooks as a single file; it makes them like books on a shelf. Downloading books that people have ripped from 6 CDs at 20 tracks per disc drives me nuts. I splice them all together.

For your case, I'd put it down to bad MP3 encoding. The older a file is, and the more dodgy the source, the more likely the iPod is to have problems with it. Earlier generation iPods weren't as good at coping as later models, though skips and navigation glitches still happen with badly encoded files.

A solution:

Often you'll find iTunes or QuickTime can play a file that an iPod can't. In which case, if you transcode it to an AAC of approximately the same bit rate, you'll get a file that sounds much the same but will play well on an iPod.

(Make sure you do change the bit rate though: if you transcode a 32kbps MP3 into a 128kbps AAC, it will still sound crap (though acceptable for voice) but will take 4 times the space, which is just a waste. Change the setting: MPEG-4/AAC has been optimized for low bit rates so you can take it pretty low.)

[André]

Hi michaelb,
Thanks. That works. I converted it to AAC in iTunes and now I can navigate inside it on my nano.
And it's funny that you mention Harry Potter part 5. My file is part 6. I'll go on listening to it now.