Hi Dónal, You wrote: > You've hit the nub of it actually Travis. One of the reasons I wanted to > play the books faster was to record them in other formats using Audio Hijack > Pro. This, incidentally, is *not* illegal as it is for personal use. I > could record to CD and then rip to the alternative format I'm just trying to > bypass the CD phase. I also don't wan to record the book(s) in realtime as > this would take forever.. The QuickTime option was the first thing I tried > but alas no joy. Your original question was:
• This is a very simple question really. Is it possible to replicate the IOS functionality on a Mac which enables the playing of audiobooks at higher speeds? Based on your reply to Travis, I'm going to scratch a large part of the draft reply I composed until I find out more about what you want to do. FIrst, of all are you trying to play Audible or other DRM-encoded files at faster speed? Because if you just need the output to come out on your Mac so that you can use Audio Hijack Pro, you can just send the output from the Audible app or other apps on your iPhone that you play at faster speed to your Mac with AirPlay, assuming that both devices are on the same wireless network. At the present time, you need some sort of helper application to run AirPlay on your Mac, so I'm using an app named AirServer (currently $15) that I bought when it was half price several months ago. I think AirFoil from Rogue Amoeba may also support this. However, AirPlay support for the Mac is one of the features Apple announced for Mountain Lion, so this should be available to you with the new OS release within a few short days. The way this works for me is that at the bottom right corner of the Audible playing screen on my iPhone or iPad, there's an "Airplay" button that appears when I'm on a Wi-Fi network where there are other AIrPlay compatible devices. Alternatively, if you have an AirPort Express on your network, that device will also be recognized when you double tap the "AirPlay" button in the bottom right corner of your Audible app's playing screen. When I double tap the "AirPlay" button, I get the options "selected, video route, iPad, button", "video route, Esther's MacBook Air, button", and "audio route, Study, button", along with a "Cancel" button. The first option is for my iOS device, so it supports both audio and video playing. (I put a lot of my Audible books on my iPad, since it has more capacity, and better sound quality if I'm listening and don't need to interact with the screen.) The second option is for my AirServer enabled Mac -- one of the reasons I chose that software over AirFoil is that it would mirror everything, both audio and video, at a time when AirFoil only had support for audio streaming. The third option is the location tag for my AirPort Express. With Airplay, only the streamed audio and video get relayed to the speakers on my Mac -- not VoiceOver's announcements as I navigate the buttons on my iOS device. So you could use Audio Hijack Pro to capture the audiobook that is played speeded up from your iPhone and sent to your Mac. If you want to play your tracks speeded up directly on your Mac, and the tracks don't have DRM, then you can use either VLC or QuickTime Player 7, both of which let you access playback controls that speed up the audio. While the version of QuickTime Player that ships with Snow Leopard and Lion doesn't include these controls, you can download QuickTime Player 7, which is the version that shipped with Tiger and Leopard, and use that instead. Furthermore, you can use AppleScripts to control the speed up and switch back and forth between your selection in iTunes and in QuickTime Player so that your position is remembered. There's a whole discussion thread on how to do this on the archives for this list from February: • Speeding up podcasts on the Mac [was Re: Speeding up podcasts on iphone] http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg08057.html Finally, if you want to specifically speed up Audible books, this topic was also discussed on this list about a week and a half before you rejoined it. Take a look at my archived post from early July: • Converting Audible files to MP3 [was Re: Audiobook Builder questions.] http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg10666.html There's a program called "Macsome Audiobook Converter" that some people have used to make copies of their Audible files. Again, this uses iTunes and your authorized copy of Audible books to make the MP3 copies. I haven't used this myself, but I've heard that some other VoiceOver users have. I'm not sure whether it works on the newest higher quality formats, but I believe it works on all the older file formats according to the MacUpdate reviews. So, depending on what you want to do, it seems there are three options to explore: 1) Send the output from your iOS device to your Mac with AirPlay, then record with Audio Hijack Pro. (And get the AirPlay support automatically with Mountain Lion, or else download a trial of either AirFoil or AirServer to test this out.) 2) Play tracks without DRM at faster speeds using QuickTime Player 7 or VLC -- the link to the archived post I gave supplies links and information on downloading QuickTime Player 7. (The AppleScript technique for QuickTime Player 7 listed in that post works on movies as well as audio tracks.) 3) Try Macsome Audiobook Converter to make the copy in faster than real time. In the case of archive links, I suggest that you use Control-N and Control-P to read down and up the other posts in the thread. HTH. Cheers, Esther <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to [email protected] You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free! Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
