Must an iPod Shuffle...shuffle?

R

RobbW

Joined
Oct 15, 2003
Messages
2,988
My daughter gave me her iPod Shuffle to listen to books with, the problem is the chapters are all shuffled, I can't get them to play in order. Is this inherent with the Shuffles, or is there a way to get them to play in order?

Also, I put one complete book (5 CDs worth) into my iTunes library, but only one CD at a time can be placed into my Playlist for that book for synching with the Shuffle.

Background: yes, I have "shuffle" turned OFF in iTunes and on the Shuffle player itself. The Shuffle is 2nd or 3rd generation, not the stick but the the clip-on type.

Thanks
 
There is a little switch on the bottom with one position labeled with what looks like a figure-eight and the other with an elongated O. Move it to the O position.
 
thanks Gollnick. I did that, reloaded the files, and it plays them in order. I still can only get one CD worth of files into a playlist at a time. Any ideas??
 
Create a "new" playlist and then move all 5 of the cd's onto the "new" playlist. Then load onto the shuffle.

I hope this helps.

garciajr
 
garciajr said:
Create a "new" playlist and then move all 5 of the cd's onto the "new" playlist. Then load onto the shuffle.

I hope this helps.

garciajr
Click to expand...

I've tried that a few times. The first and last CD copy to the playlist, but not the middle three. After the first and last are in the playlist, it won't accept any other CD.

:confused:
 
Shuffles have very little memory, it's very possible there is more data in the CD's than available to hold on the Shuffle.
 
That must be it, I filled the available memory. I think I need a larger player. Thanks for the help.
 
Shuffles come in different sizes. The size of your unit is printed on the end of it in tiny print. But, especially for "books on tape," you should be able to get more than two CDs on one. In the iTunes software, you can set the compression ratio used when you rip the disk. A low ratio gives better quality but takes more space. For spoken material which will be listened to with earbud headphones, you can use a very high ratio and still have very acceptable playback quality.
 
RobbW said:
That must be it, I filled the available memory. I think I need a larger player. Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...
If these are DRM-free files (or if they can be MADE DRM-free) you can re-encode and heavily compress them. A 96kbit audio-book MP3 will not sound much different from the 1411kbit stream straight from the CD.

Even a 512MB shuffle should be able to take 10 CDs worth of audiobooks without a problem.
 
Thanks for the additional comments. I have a 1G Shuffle, so I should have plenty of extra room. I think there's a problem with the files I ripped from CDs #2-4 because I can't get them into a Playlist, or even into the Shuffle itself, even into an empty Shuffle.

I checked those CD files in Windows Explorer, and they went to a different folder than CDs #1 & 5. I don't know why. When I get some time tonight I'm going to re-rip the book, make sure the files get to the same folder, and see if I have better luck.

OTOH, I just dowloaded some Podcasts--14 hours worth, and they DLed and played just fine. :D
 
Itunes gets most of its info about track names and album art from an online library that doesn't always have the info for specific albums.

Also, for no obvious reason, sometimes Itunes can't figure out how to recognize track info, and it gets confused which album the track is from, or even how to get the info online.

Under the "advanced" pulldown menu, there is an option to get album artwork or get CD track names. Sometimes you have to click on individual songs and get the track name. This is especially the case when the main group on the album has a collaborator. Think "Rolling Stones w/ John Lennon;" sometimes Itunes pretends that that song is on its own separate album.

Alternately, you can always rename tracks. For example "audiobook 1 part 1."
 
Thanks, I'll play around with that and see if I can get the middle three CDs to get into a playlist or directly into the Shuffle.
 
RobbW said:
Thanks, I'll play around with that and see if I can get the middle three CDs to get into a playlist or directly into the Shuffle.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you can rename the filenames of the middle 3 cds and import them into your Ipod playlist.
Becdause fo lack of drag and drop in the early Ipods, I would never buy any Ipod. I found a 1 gigabyte Creative Zen MP3 player (Which does drag and drop 2 levels deep) at $29.95 to be a much better deal. But perhaps renaming the files would be helpful to you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top