Duh, regarding audio books in Mp3 format, using Itunes (Yuk!) one can simply do Get Info, then remember position. That will make it work the way it used to, without having to convert to an m4b file.
I'm not clear on what you're saying here. Are you saying that there is a setting in iTunes called "remember position" that, when activated, will result in mp3 audiobooks being bookmarked after they're synced to the iPod? Is this setting a toggle? Why would anybody EVER want audiobooks to not bookmark? Thanks for clarification on this.
However, the "podcast" genre is not working the way it used to when I was using MC to sync to my old Ipod.
Just to clarify, on my current iPod (5th gen), the iPod automatically bookmarks ANY mp3 that is tagged as the genre "Podcast." You're saying that this is no longer the case -- i.e. that mp3 Podcasts simply aren't bookmarked on the iPod anymore? This seems reall odd to me -- I'm wondering if this is a bug in the new units. Is this possibly an issue with the iTunes implementation, or is there possibly another setting for Podcasts like the one described above for Audiobooks? I actually went to an Apple store and spoke with one of the "Geniuses" (their official title) about some of these issues (since I was curious about the new "Classic" units), and they had NO idea what I was talking about.
And in any case, using the true AUdiobook format will allow you to play books slower\faster via the settings menu, and also they will show up under the Audiobooks menu, instead of the music menu so I guess it's cleaner, just a lot more work.
I always found the main "Audiobooks" menu on the iPod to be completely useless since it put every book into one big list. If I instead navigate to Music/Genre/Audiobooks, they are sub-organized by Artist (i.e. Author) and Album (i.e. Book), which makes navigating them MUCH easier in my opinion. If you have a lot of "periodical" type audiobooks, where there are dozens or even hundreds of episodes, having them all in one big list is a mess.
Thanks for the information,
Larry