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michaelb · Nov 10, 2004, 10:54 PM

Apart from the normal use of listening to music, I was wondering what people's favorite uses for their 'pods include?

I've just decided my favorite non-music use right now is listening to DVD commentaries that I've ripped and encoded to iTunes tracks.

I use the process:
1. Rip AC3 track from DVD with 0SEx 0.0110a1
2. Convert AC3 to AIFF using mAC3dec
3. Convert AIFF to AAC 80 kbps and tag using iTunes
4. Change type code to 'M4B ' using Make Bookmarkable (iTunes AppleScript).

(If anyone can suggest a better ripper than OSEx I'd like to know - its interface sucks!)

It's even better now because I've just got an iPod which can use the bookmarked tracks from step 4, so that you can go off and play something else then come back to where you left off. My previous iPod didn't have this 4G feature.

Oh, and not to mention album art, so cool!

Randman · Nov 11, 2004, 12:10 AM

Interesting idea. Will have to explore it.

hardcat1970 · Nov 11, 2004, 08:41 AM

my current favorite is steve job's keynotes that i ripped from the quicktime streams and like you, i also saved those audio files as m4b files.

brapper · Nov 11, 2004, 09:02 AM

Originally posted by hardcat1970:
my current favorite is steve job's keynotes that i ripped from the quicktime streams and like you, i also saved those audio files as m4b files.

I enjoy the keynotes, but without picture???
Crazy.

Anyway, I think they're great as a conversion starter...seems everyone wants to talk iPod.

Evan_11 · Nov 11, 2004, 01:36 PM

That's cool. It would be neat to have a slide show of the movie to go along with it. Maybe the studios could make up a DVD extra for that. The problem with commentaries usually is that I start getting engrossed with the movie and the commentary starts to become a distraction or vice versa. Something like this with a simple slide show and some music cues, sound clips etc. would be much better. Kind of like a story book.

hardcat1970 · Nov 11, 2004, 02:06 PM

Originally posted by brapper:
I enjoy the keynotes, but without picture???
Crazy.

Anyway, I think they're great as a conversion starter...seems everyone wants to talk iPod.

I watch all steve's keynote at least three times, so i can picture the entire keynote presentation when i just play the audio files.

michaelb · Nov 11, 2004, 09:23 PM

Originally posted by brapper:
I enjoy the keynotes, but without picture???
Crazy.

The Reality Distortion Field still works through pure audio, but I know what you mean. Apple Financial Briefings are okay as they're half conducted over phone connections anyway.

Anyway, I think they're great as a conversion starter...seems everyone wants to talk iPod.

Yes!

Except I've got a friend who hates Apple, hates iPods, and despises the fact that they're become successful, so it really just leads to arguments when I talk iPod with him.

He'd predicted 2 1/2 years ago, when I showed him my 1st Gen one, that they would fail because they were (1) too expensive, (2) unnecessary when you could get a CD player for 50 bucks, and (3) Apple would lose out once competitors came out with similar products.

Unsurprisingly, he uses and likes Microsoft, and had also predicted in the mid 90s that the world would be better when everyone used the same OS: Windows. One of these days I'm going to rub his nose in the fact that now almost everyone is and the result is massive viruses, spyware and lost productivity. He'll still hate iPods though!

Randman · Nov 12, 2004, 12:29 AM

Originally posted by michaelb:
I've got a friend who hates Apple, hates iPods, and despises the fact that they're become successful, so it really just leads to arguments when I talk iPod with him.

He'd predicted 2 1/2 years ago, when I showed him my 1st Gen one, that they would fail because they were (1) too expensive, (2) unnecessary when you could get a CD player for 50 bucks, and (3) Apple would lose out once competitors came out with similar products.

Unsurprisingly, he uses and likes Microsoft, and had also predicted in the mid 90s that the world would be better when everyone used the same OS: Windows. One of these days I'm going to rub his nose in the fact that now almost everyone is and the result is massive viruses, spyware and lost productivity. He'll still hate iPods though!

Your friend is a noob.

Too Artificial · Nov 12, 2004, 12:22 PM

Originally posted by michaelb:
Apart from the normal use of listening to music, I was wondering what people's favorite uses for their 'pods include?

I've just decided my favorite non-music use right now is listening to DVD commentaries that I've ripped and encoded to iTunes tracks.

I use Audio Hijack Pro to capture talk show streams as MP3s (haven't upgraded to 2.0 yet for AAC files). Then I'll put them on my iPod to listen to during the drive to work. Works well because I can't get the station on my car radio. Haven't tried the M4B trick, but think I will.

Dave N · Nov 12, 2004, 12:43 PM

I also use Audio Hijack Pro to capture talk show streams for later listening on my iPod.

I have a Streamlink membership as well that allows me to download mp3's of Coast To Coast AM, then I put them on my iPod and listen at work.

Actually, I rarely use my iPod for music...

turtle777 · Nov 12, 2004, 02:59 PM

Originally posted by hardcat1970:
my current favorite is steve job's keynotes

You nerd.

-t

turtle777 · Nov 12, 2004, 03:00 PM

Originally posted by Randman:
Your friend is an idiot.

Fixinated.

-t

michaelb · Nov 13, 2004, 05:13 AM

Got another one: Seinfeld episodes!

Works surprisingly well as an audio-only medium, and I've also cut & pasted episode guides from one of the numerous Seinfeld fan sites to put in the Notes folder, so if I want I can scan the trivia about it while listening to it.

Too Artificial · Nov 13, 2004, 01:36 PM

Originally posted by michaelb:
Got another one: Seinfeld episodes!

Works surprisingly well as an audio-only medium, and I've also cut & pasted episode guides from one of the numerous Seinfeld fan sites to put in the Notes folder, so if I want I can scan the trivia about it while listening to it.

That's pretty cool. I have a question regarding M4B files. Is it as simple as a file extension change or is there more to it, hence the need for the applescript? If the latter is true, is the Make Bookmarkable script available?

Thanks

michaelb · Nov 15, 2004, 09:22 PM

Originally posted by Too Artificial:
That's pretty cool. I have a question regarding M4B files. Is it as simple as a file extension change or is there more to it, hence the need for the applescript? If the latter is true, is the Make Bookmarkable script available?

M4B files are just AAC files with the type code changed to 'M4B ' (note the space for the fourth digit).

Type codes are not extensions, they are carryovers from the good ol' days when Mac files didn't need extensions...! They are probably being used here as a simple layer of obfuscation on Apple's part.

You can use any shareware tool that changes this, or if you have the Developer Tools installed, use the command:
/Developer/Tools/SetFile -t "M4B " yourfile

But the Make Bookmarkable is far more convenient because you can just click on the track in iTunes and choose it from the Scripts menu.

The script can be downloaded from here:
http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/s...kebookmarkable