How to Get Audiobooks Onto Your Zune – and Off Again
Although I am a professional person author and blogger, although I proceed up with the latest tech trends, although I am, might I say, something of a geek, I practice not iPod. I don't even iPhone. This is not a political nor fifty-fifty a religious position, it is merely the Style That Information technology Is.
When Microsoft released the Zune, I scoffed. Until 1 day, I sauntered past the Zune brandish at a local Mega-Duper-Mart and, out of the corner of my eye, caught a glimpse of a sight and then hideously ugly, so repulsive in all its aspects, that I stopped dead in my tracks. The Brown Zune. Truly glorious in its ugliness, the Brown Zune features design that puts Soviet prison designers to shame – a squat, brick-like shape sheathed in a brown exterior whose ugliness is only increased past the green highlights when the calorie-free hits the device just so.
I had to have 1. And that dream came true ane happy Christmas morning time when I opened my present from my then-girlfriend – pure Brownish Zuney goodness.
To exist honest, it's not at all a bad media player. The desktop software is pretty skilful, if a fiddling resource-hungry; the sound and video are great; the device's interface is at to the lowest degree every bit good every bit whatsoever other media player'south interface (yes, including iPod'due south) – all in all, I'1000 happy with my Zune.
Except for one big thing. Although a firmware update some fourth dimension ago added audiobook functionality to the Zune, in its infinite wisdom Microsoft decided they wouldn't add it to the desktop software. Instead, Zune users demand to employ third-party software – Aural's for Audible audiobooks, Overdrive for everything else – to transfer audiobooks onto the Zune. I am not an Audible member, and then I haven't really used their audiobook managing director, but I do use Overdrive quite a fleck. Unfortunately, it'southward a piddling weird, particularly when it comes to deleting audiobooks from your Zune.
One matter neither Microsoft nor anyone else has seen fit to make easy, though, is how to get audiobooks from non-Audible and non–Overdrive sources onto your Zune. Maybe yous have an audiobook on CD that you've checked out of your library, or one that you own. Considering of licensing issues, information technology can be difficult and in some cases impossible to observe those files online – and in any case, why should you re-purchase an audiobook you lot already have in your possession, just for the "privilege" of listening to it on your Zune instead of on xviii CDs?
At present, you can rip the files and install them like any other music file, simply you'd better listen directly through, because you lot won't be able to resume playing from wherever you lot left off. You can also rip the files and edit the ID3 tags, setting the genre as"Podcast", which volition put all the files onto your Zune every bit a podcast, allowing y'all to stop and resume – only in my tests of this technique, the files came out in a random order that was useless. Since many audiobooks have tracks every 2 or 3 minutes, y'all can finish up with hundreds of files for a long book, and searching every few minutes for the next i when yous're barreling downwards the freeway isn't exactly a relaxing way to enjoy a book.
Fortunately, there is a way to make the Overdrive audiobook manager work for you and, with a little work (non a lot) you tin can rip audiobooks to your Zune, and remove them, quite hands. Here'southward how.
Using Overdrive with Overdrive Audiobooks
The Overdrive Media Panel is used almost oft by libraries for handling DRM'ed, time-limited audiobook downloads for their clients. My library, for case, offers audiobooks for a three-week "Checkout", during which the title is unavailable to other patrons. It's not the greatest thing always, merely it'southward a fair-enough compromise between publishers and rights-holders who would prefer people buy books and libraries and their patrons who are committed to the gratis commutation of information.
When yous check out an Overdrive book, you lot download an ODM file to your hard drive which is opened by default with the Overdrive Media Panel, which will download the actual book. One time it's on your computer, you can listen to it in Overdrive, or transfer information technology to a device. To install it on your Zune, connect your Zune and then close the Zune software (which will probably open up when your PC detects that the Zune is nowadays). Now, simply select the book yous want to transfer (unfortunately, Overdrive Manager cannot transfer multiple titles at the same time) and hit the "Transfer" button, which will open the Overdrive Transfer Wizard. The Transfer Wizard will find the Zune, so ask you which parts you want to transfer over—usually, you'll select "All", striking "Next", and await; when the files are all transferred over, click "Cease" to return to the Overdrive Manager.
Deleting audiobooks you've already put on your Zune is… well, information technology'south weird. If you delete the book from the Overdrive Media Panel window, it deletes it from your hard drive, but non from your Zune. So don't do that. Instead, you desire to select the book and, in a stunning break with intuition, click "Transfer" equally if you were going to put the book on your Zune. Wait for the Zune to be detected, then deselect all of the parts of the audiobook in the Transfer Wizard. Hit "Side by side" and wait for the Transfer Wizard to do information technology's thing – call back of it as replacing the files that are on their with the no files you desire. Hit "End" and the audiobook is gone from your Zune.
Creating Audiobooks from Your Own Mp3s
If you lot take your ain audiobooks that you lot'd similar to listen to on your Zune, yous're going to accept to exercise a little prep-work, essentially fooling Overdrive into thinking you have an "official" Overdrive audiobook. You lot'll use a couple of pieces of free third-political party software to make this all piece of work.
1. Rip the Audiobook
First of all, if the audiobook isn't already converted to mp3, you lot need to rip the audiobook. I apply CDex for this, although you can apply any ripper, even the ane built into Zune. To save space on your Zune, yous can profoundly reduce the bitrate from what y'all'd use for music – the spoken vocalization simply isn't all that complex. 128k is more than adequate for virtually audiobooks – 64k will audio perfectly good, fifty-fifty. You tin can besides rip in mono, cutting the file size in half. If your mp3 convertor has a setting to optimize for voice communication, use it – it will make sure that the least information loss occurs in the richest parts of the man voice.
ii. Merge the Files into I Large File
This step is not strictly necessary, but when information technology comes time to delete files (encounter below) you'll exist glad you did it. Employ an mp3 merging program – I like mergemp3, which is free and easy to apply – to combine all of the files in your audiobook into one giant mp3 file. This is much easier to work with – some long books take up 25 or more CDs, each with 10, xx, or more tracks – that'south a lot to keep track of! Using mergemp3, yous just select the folder where your files are, hit "merge", select a file name and a identify to save the file, and await a few minutes. Brand sure you save the file to its ain folder – this will be important in step three.
3. Create the Guide File and Transfer with Overdrive
Now you have a great large mp3, merely yous don't quite have something the Zune will recognize as an audiobook. What you need is a WAX file, which is basically the meta-data that defines the mp3 (or mp3s if you did not merge them) as an audiobook. To create this, download the Zune Overdrive Wax Creator. Before you lot run information technology, tough, go online and observe a picture show of your volume's cover and save it in the aforementioned folder as your ripped audiobook (make sure it'south in JPG format).
When yous run the Wax Creator, it will immediately ask you to choose the folder where your audiobook'southward files are stored. Find it, click side by side, and wait – the plan will browse the folder, create a file listing all the mp3 files in the folder (which is why you want just the audiobook and the embrace image in the folder), add the cover paradigm, and open the Overdrive Transfer Wizard. Now, yous can transfer the file only every bit you would any normal Overdrive audiobook.
Delete Audiobooks with Overdrive
What you'll notice when you lot make your own audiobooks is that they don't show upward in the Overdrive Manager like "proper" Overdrive audiobooks do.
And if y'all effort to delete them the same fashion – past running the Transfer Magician and opening the Wax file for your audiobook, then deselecting the files associated with it – the Transfer Wizard will requite you an fault.
And then how do y'all delete your audiobooks? If yous haven't updated to version 3 of the Zune firmware, there'southward a registry hack yous an apply to mount your Zune as a hard bulldoze, allowing you to browse the directory structure and manually delete the files. This doesn't work for people with upwards-to-engagement Zunes, though.
All is not lost, however – you can still fairly hands remove your audiobook files from your Zune, using Overdrive. To practice so, initiate a transfer and click the "Avant-garde" on the screen that pops upwardly after it's detected your Zune. In the new screen, click the "Browse" button, which will open up a new window allowing you to examine the contents of the Audiobooks binder on your Zune. Drill down to the folder containing the book y'all want to delete and right-click it – in that location's just one option in the correct-click bill of fare, and that'due south "Delete". Select information technology, abolish out of the Advanced options, cancel out of the Transfer Sorcerer, and you're done.
Hopefully Microsoft will add together better support for audiobooks in the next version of the Zune Desktop – ripping audiobooks and listening to them on your Zune should be at least as piece of cake as ripping music CDs to your Zune, which the Zune desktop software does automatically (it will even gear up that as the default action to accept when y'all insert a CD, if you let it). Until Microsoft comes to its senses, though, it's prissy to know that you don't have to carry a box of 26 discs and a CD role player to listen to your latest audiobook. Like me, you can fly your Ugly Brown Zune with pride!
Header photograph courtesy of yngrich via Flickr
Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/how-to-get-audiobooks-onto-your-zune-%e2%80%93-and-off-again.html
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