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[olarte]

With the 329 build of MC, using Podcast as genre, goes back to putting the file in the Podcasts section, saving the book mark (until next sync), and removing these files from showing up under music or coverflow.

One small bug (That was always there, and even ITunes may do...). The book mark is saved only until the next sync. When I add something to the ipod, I go back and the bookmark is gone. Can this be fixed?

[lalittle]

With the 329 build of MC, using Podcast as genre, goes back to putting the file in the Podcasts section, saving the book mark (until next sync), and removing these files from showing up under music or coverflow.

You say that they don't show up under "music" -- could you possibly clarify something for me?  If you browse to Music > Genre > Podcast (or Video > Video Podcasts), do you see the podcasts there?  This is how I always access my Podcasts on my 5th gen iPod -- are you saying that this does not work with the 6th gen?  On my iPod, I cannot navigate to my podcasts via the iPod's main menu "Podcast" branch since they are completely scrambled in no discernable order when I view them this way.  If they don't show up under Music > Genre > Podcast, this is a BIG problem for me since some of my podcasts have hundreds of episodes that I keep on the unit, and having them scrambled makes it impossible to navigate through them in via the main iPod menu "Podcast" section.

Regarding this "scrambled podcast" issue -- I'm not sure this is an iPod bug or an MC bug.  I posted about this a little while back, but I never got any responses.

One small bug (That was always there, and even ITunes may do...). The book mark is saved only until the next sync. When I add something to the ipod, I go back and the bookmark is gone. Can this be fixed?

I not sure what iPod you're referring to when you say that this problem was "always there," but I can tell you that this is definitely NOT the case when I sync my 5th gen iPod via MC.  I can do a new sync and still return to my bookmarked podcasts.  Are you sure that the behavior you saw was not due to switching from 328 to 329?  When you do a sync, can you check in the MC sync window to see if these podcasts are marked as "In Queue" or if they're already "On Device"?  If MC thinks it needs to re-sync these files every time, this could explain the loss of bookmarks in between syncs.

Thanks,

Larry

[olarte]

You say that they don't show up under "music" -- could you possibly clarify something for me?  If you browse to Music > Genre > Podcast (or Video > Video Podcasts), do you see the podcasts there?  This is how I always access my Podcasts on my 5th gen iPod -- are you saying that this does not work with the 6th gen?  On my iPod, I cannot navigate to my podcasts via the iPod's main menu "Podcast" branch since they are completely scrambled in no discernable order when I view them this way.  If they don't show up under Music > Genre > Podcast, this is a BIG problem for me since some of my podcasts have hundreds of episodes that I keep on the unit, and having them scrambled makes it impossible to navigate through them in via the main iPod menu "Podcast" section.

Regarding this "scrambled podcast" issue -- I'm not sure this is an iPod bug or an MC bug.  I posted about this a little while back, but I never got any responses.

I not sure what iPod you're referring to when you say that this problem was "always there," but I can tell you that this is definitely NOT the case when I sync my 5th gen iPod via MC.  I can do a new sync and still return to my bookmarked podcasts.  Are you sure that the behavior you saw was not due to switching from 328 to 329?  When you do a sync, can you check in the MC sync window to see if these podcasts are marked as "In Queue" or if they're already "On Device"?  If MC thinks it needs to re-sync these files every time, this could explain the loss of bookmarks in between syncs.

Thanks,

Larry

Hi Larry, the mp3 files marked as Podcast Genre do show up under music, genre podcast, and not under the Podcast category itself.... only "real" podcasts show up in that category.

As for the saving book mark in between syncs I had noticed this before, and no I don't replace the files... so it should have stayed.

[lalittle]

Hi Larry, the mp3 files marked as Podcast Genre do show up under music, genre podcast, and not under the Podcast category itself.... only "real" podcasts show up in that category.

What do you mean by "real" podcasts?  I am actually referring to "real" podcasts that I download via the "Podcast" branch of MC (as opposed to audiobooks that I "tag" as podcasts) but I don't think there is anything special about them.  These are just mp3 files that arrive to the system via the Podcast "system."  Are you possibly referring to m4b or m4a podcasts that have video, and therefore don't show up under the "music" branch since they aren't audio-only?

As for the saving book mark in between syncs I had noticed this before, and no I don't replace the files... so it should have stayed.

I actually wasn't referring to "you" replacing the files -- I was thinking that perhaps MC was "incorrectly" replacing the files behind the scenes, which wouldn't necessarily be obvious.  This can theoretically happen, and it could be verified by studying the sync list before doing the actual sync.  Files that are already on the iPod would be in the list twice -- once as "To be deleted," and again as "In Queue."

Thanks again,

Larry

[edbro]

You can mark an MP3 so that the iPod will remember (bookmark) its position when you move away from that file. You have to do it in iTunes though. In Tunes seltect "Get Info" and check off "Remember Playback Position."

[lalittle]

You can mark an MP3 so that the iPod will remember (bookmark) its position when you move away from that file. You have to do it in iTunes though. In Tunes seltect "Get Info" and check off "Remember Playback Position."

Thanks -- I actually just recently became aware of this feature in iTunes, and I've been asking about the possibility of similar feature in MC.  My thinking was that MC could offer an even BETTER feature than what iTunes currently offers by making any mp3 tagged with the "Audiobook" genre AUTOMATICALLY get the bookmark feature.  This way, you wouldn't have to "do" anything to get audiobooks to bookmark on the iPod -- they'd just do it by default, which I believe is something that everybody would agree is a good feature.

I haven't had any responses to these requests so far, but I'm still hopeful.

Larry

[rjm]

Thanks -- I actually just recently became aware of this feature in iTunes, and I've been asking about the possibility of similar feature in MC.  My thinking was that MC could offer an even BETTER feature than what iTunes currently offers by making any mp3 tagged with the "Audiobook" genre AUTOMATICALLY get the bookmark feature.  This way, you wouldn't have to "do" anything to get audiobooks to bookmark on the iPod -- they'd just do it by default, which I believe is something that everybody would agree is a good feature.

I haven't had any responses to these requests so far, but I'm still hopeful.

Larry

This is a great suggestion and is something I would use on a regular basis. If it is decided to implement this, I would like to suggest that it be generalized to apply to any selected genre. In my case, I use the genre "book" for audiobooks.

[ThoBar]

This is a great suggestion and is something I would use on a regular basis. If it is decided to implement this, I would like to suggest that it be generalized to apply to any selected genre. In my case, I use the genre "book" for audiobooks.

+1
C.

[leezer3]

Another person looking for this feature 
I've got an 80gb Video (Largest available device at the time I bought it), which is used exclusively for audiobooks.
Using the audiobook or podcast genres simply isn't feasible, as they are designed for much smaller numbers of files- There's currently about 400 different books/ radio series on the Ipod, each of which may have upwards of 60- 70 files, all depending on what it is, or the way it was ripped.
All of these are stored directly under Music on the Ipod and then drilled down either alphabetically by author, or by genre.

I'd use a slightly different approach- Not all files tagged with the audiobook genre will necessarily want to have the position remembered, depends on what it is. Instead, I'd use a library flag/ field for bookmarkable yes/ no; Thats that little bit more flexible, without making things too complex.

-Leezer-

[SwellGuy]

I'll look into adding this in the next build or so.

[lalittle]

I'll look into adding this in the next build or so.

That's terrific news!  I think this will be a feature that a lot of people will end up using.

Thanks,

Larry

[leezer3]

Cheers 
Carrying on from my idea, how about using the 'Bookmarkable' field for the main library to disable/ enable auto-resume on a per-file basis?
IMHO, that'd please those of us who dislike the auto-resume feature, and provide some flexibility in it's use/ application otherwise.

-Leezer-

[lalittle]

Using the audiobook or podcast genres simply isn't feasible, as they are designed for much smaller numbers of files- There's currently about 400 different books/ radio series on the Ipod, each of which may have upwards of 60- 70 files, all depending on what it is, or the way it was ripped.

I totally agree.  The iPod's "Audiobook" and "Podcast" menu items are downright pitiful.  They're unusable if you have any type of "Periodical" Audible audiobooks (i.e. daily or weekly releases) since you end up with a single list of HUNDREDS of titles with absolutely NO sub-categorization -- it's just a giant list of hundreds of titles.

All of these are stored directly under Music on the Ipod and then drilled down either alphabetically by author, or by genre.

Sadly, Apple removed this capability on the new "Classic" iPods.  Audible audiobooks and podcasts no longer show up when navigating by genre.  You now HAVE to either navigate then via the main menu items (which, as already stated, simply doesn't work in certain situations), or via a playlist/smartlist, which of course gives no subcategorization (i.e. you can't sub-navigate by "author" when using this method.)  Luckily, this only applies to aa audiobooks -- mp3 audiobooks still show up under the "genre" category.  Podcasts, however, don't show up under "genre," and the iPod's "Podcast" navigation puts them in reverse chronological order, meaning that when one finishes, the PREVIOUS one starts playing.  It's ridiculous.  At this time, the ONLY way to have Podcasts sort in ascending order on the iPod is to use a Smartlist.

I'd use a slightly different approach- Not all files tagged with the audiobook genre will necessarily want to have the position remembered, depends on what it is. Instead, I'd use a library flag/ field for bookmark-able yes/ no; Thats that little bit more flexible, without making things too complex.

I agree that it should be an editable tag.  However, I strongly feel that audiobooks and podcasts should "default" to being bookmark-able since I honestly believe that 99.9% of the time, people will want these genres bookmark-able.  Frankly, I can't think of a situation where you wouldn't want an "Audiobook" to be bookmark-able.  In what situation would you not want this?  That aside, what I'm advocating would still allow you to "un-check" the bookmarking capability on these files.

Larry

[lalittle]

Cheers 
Carrying on from my idea, how about using the 'Bookmarkable' field for the main library to disable/ enable auto-resume on a per-file basis?
IMHO, that'd please those of us who dislike the auto-resume feature, and provide some flexibility in it's use/ application otherwise.

-Leezer-

I'm honestly curious -- why would you ever want an audiobook to not resume at the position it left off?  It's pretty simple to navigate back to the beginning if desired, but it's a pain to have to find your place.

That said, I'm not proposing that this field shouldn't be editable on audiobooks.  I'm simply proposing that the original, "default" state should be set to "bookmark-able" -- i.e. that this tag is "On" when they're first imported into the library, or when a file is first changed to an "audiobooks" (or podcast) genre.  The same goes for podcasts.  I think it will be VASTLY more common for people to want these genres to bookmark, which simply means that you'd have to "uncheck" this capability if you didn't want it instead of always having to "check" it if you do want it.  This would really help people that download a lot of audiobooks or podcasts since they wouldn't have to constantly be editing new downloads in order to have them be bookmark-able, which I strongly feel will be the way most people will want them (as evidenced by the fact that both audible files and podcasts are ALWAYS bookmarked on the iPod, and I've never heard anyone complain about this.)

Larry

[leezer3]

There's all sorts of stuff I'd rather didn't auto-resume, including some types of audiobook. A short list-
# Language/ self help type audiobooks. I keep anything of this nature in per-chapter files, and its normally better to start at the beginning of the chapter.
# TV episodes/ films
# Longer bits of music (Classical etc)
# Some types of speech etc (Best example I can think of here is 'The Electric Warrior Interview', part of the 'Electric Warrior' album, but a c. 10mins long bit of speech) I have these variously filed under audiobook, speech & music, depends on what it is.

A lot of this is about more automation I suppose- I have a tendancy just to turn on things and leave them, and its that little more work to shift back to the beginning of a file when I could have prevented it earlier.
All personal preference really, I totally agree that most people will want the auto-resume by default, but equally I would like the opportunity to turn it on/ off when I think it's appropriate 


-Leezer-

[lalittle]

There's all sorts of stuff I'd rather didn't auto-resume, including some types of audiobook. A short list-
# Language/ self help type audiobooks. I keep anything of this nature in per-chapter files, and its normally better to start at the beginning of the chapter.
# TV episodes/ films
# Longer bits of music (Classical etc)
# Some types of speech etc (Best example I can think of here is 'The Electric Warrior Interview', part of the 'Electric Warrior' album, but a c. 10mins long bit of speech) I have these variously filed under audiobook, speech & music, depends on what it is.

I don't think that TV episodes, films, and longer bits of music would ever be in the genre "audiobook," so these don't really come into play in this regard.  The language and interview stuff would be audiobooks, and even though I'd think you'd still want these to auto bookmark, everybody has their preference.  I was just curious what you were thinking.

All personal preference really, I totally agree that most people will want the auto-resume by default, but equally I would like the opportunity to turn it on/ off when I think it's appropriate 

I totally agree with the ability to turn bookmarking on and off.  I was merely hoping for it to be "on" by default for certain genres so that "most" people wouldn't have to remember to tag these files in order to get them to bookmark, which would definitely be a pain for those of us that have a lot of new podcasts and audiobooks coming in all the time.  I'm sure that if JR pursues this, they'll come up with something clever that will work.

Larry

[leezer3]

True 
I've kinda branched out into the auto-resume feature of MC in general (IE. Play a video file, stop it and then re-start; It remembers the playback position), and the fact that it annoys me, & that therefore this may be an opportunity to change/ alter the behaviour somewhat to suit those of us with slightly less conventional tastes.

Admittedly, anything here risks heading towards the 'options overload' which the MC team has posted on various occasions that they're trying to avoid, but IMHO this is something that is worth changing- Others will disagree, and that's one of the merits of a discussion forum.
Anyway, whatever happens will get used on this end to one extent or another & a little bit of something is much better than a whole lot of nothing!

-Leezer-

[lalittle]

I'm not sure this was assumed or not, so I just wanted to "officially" ask for the bookmarking capability to work in MC as well as on handhelds, and if it would be possible for it to work "separately" over Library Server so that people listenning over LS could keep their OWN bookmarks separate from the people listenning from the server.  I think that the typical LS use is for two people to utilize the same library from each of their systems, so keeping separate bookmarks makes sense (and it's the way MC USED to work with aa files.)

At the moment, this does not work with Audible files, which revert to the Server's bookmarks every time MC is re-started on the client.  This cuts into the effectiveness of using LS since the person listenning on the client has to always write down their track position.  It would be GREAT if MC could go back to working the way it used to with aa files, which was to allow bookmarking on a "per system" basis when using LS -- i.e. the client had it's own bookmarks rather than using the server's.

Thanks again,

Larry

[SwellGuy]

The ability to use bookmarking on any file was added in build 12.0.370 via a new library field 'Use Bookmarking'. The default setting for this field is "Default" which will enable bookmarking on audiobooks, videos, and podcasts. Changing this value to Yes or No will override the use of bookmarking for any type of file. This bookmarking behavior will apply to use within the MC player itself as well as to playback of the files when transferred to an iPod.

[leezer3]

The ability to use bookmarking on any file was added in build 12.0.370 via a new library field 'Use Bookmarking'. The default setting for this field is "Default" which will enable bookmarking on audiobooks, videos, and podcasts. Changing this value to Yes or No will override the use of bookmarking for any type of file. This bookmarking behavior will apply to use within the MC player itself as well as to playback of the files when transferred to an iPod.

Perfect, just the solution I was looking for 
Many thanks to both the devs & the others who have shown support for this feature being implemented.

One small question now though- Is this going to require a resync of the whole Ipod to update this field, or can it just be applied via tagging the files already synced?

Now, GIMMIE!!

-Leezer-

[ThoBar]

The ability to use bookmarking on any file was added in build 12.0.370 via a new library field 'Use Bookmarking'. The default setting for this field is "Default" which will enable bookmarking on audiobooks, videos, and podcasts. Changing this value to Yes or No will override the use of bookmarking for any type of file. This bookmarking behavior will apply to use within the MC player itself as well as to playback of the files when transferred to an iPod.

Looks like you just sold me an iPod...

[SwellGuy]

You will have to re-sync any files that you apply this to that are already on the iPod.

[leezer3]

80gigs, ouch 
Another question- Is it possible to set this field off by default in the options? (Not a big deal, ought to be able to write a script either way, but IMHO, its easier to apply attributes to a set of files, than it is to find those that don't conform to my criteria )

-Leezer-

[lalittle]

80gigs, ouch 
Another question- Is it possible to set this field off by default in the options? (Not a big deal, ought to be able to write a script either way, but IMHO, its easier to apply attributes to a set of files, than it is to find those that don't conform to my criteria )

-Leezer-

One way of doing this would be to just NOT set the "Media Sub Type" field, which is apparently what the "Default" setting of the "Use Bookmarking" field uses to determine whether or not to enable bookmarking on a file.  Now that I say that, it occurs to me that the only files that will "Automatically" bookmark are audible downloads -- these files have a Media Sub Type of "Audiobook" by default.  When you rip a CD, it does not automatically set the "Media Sub Type" field to Aubiobooks -- it leaves it blank, which by default will not bookmark.  Therefore, by default MC will actually not bookmark files ripped from a CD even if they have the Genre "AudioBooks."  If you rip a CD, you have to either set the Media Sub Type field to "Audiobook" or set the Use Bookmarking tag to "Yes" if you want it to bookmark.

On this subject, what I would actually really like would be for MC to automatically set the "Media Sub Type" field to "Audiobook" or "Podcast" when files tagged with the genre "AudioBooks" or "Podcast" are first ripped or imported into MC.  Otherwise, people have edit the "Use Bookmarking" or "Media Sub Type" fields when ripping/importing these files.  This is "potentially" a problem give that many people won't realize that these files can bookmark both in MC and on the iPod.  It seems like this feature should automatically happen for these files with absolutely NO user intervention.

I realize that this is kind of the opposite of the behavior leezer is looking for, but I still believe that a lot more people will benefit from having bookmarking happen automatically -- I think that most people (by a considerable margin) will always want both podcasts and audiobooks to bookmark by default (which is the standard behavior on the iPod.)

Thanks again,

Larry

[leezer3]

Interesting 
I don't suppose there is a way to edit the list of sub-types which MC will bookmark by default is there?
My thinking is to clone my current custom subgenre field into the Media-Subtype field (FWIW, I don't currently use the media-subtype field, except where it's been filled already, normally Audible files) & have from there a list of the genres (subtypes) which should bookmark.

I'd have thought though that it would be better to use the genre rather than the media-subtype field to determine bookmarking from- The average user is far more likely to tag an audiobook using the Genre rather than the Media-Subtype field IMHO.

-Leezer-

[lalittle]

I'd have thought though that it would be better to use the genre rather than the media-subtype field to determine bookmarking from- The average user is far more likely to tag an audiobook using the Genre rather than the Media-Subtype field IMHO.

That struck me as well -- i.e. the choice of "Media Sub Type" rather than "Genre" for determining "Default" bookmarking behavior.  I'm thinking that the advantage to this method is that you aren't limited to certain specific Genre names -- i.e. instead of tagging Audiobooks with the genre "Audiobooks," you can use "Books" or "Spoken Word" or some other custom genre, and you'd still be able to use the "Media Sub Type" field to classify these files such that they bookmark automatically.

That said, the downside of this approach is the fact that bookmarking is not totally automatic by default.  In most cases, people will still have to manually tag their files with a Media Sub Type in order to get this bookmarking to work, and I wonder if most people will realize this.  My fear is that many people will just assume bookmarking doesn't work for some reason.

I'm curious to hear any thoughts on the advantages/disadvantages to using the "Media Sub Type" for determining this behavior.  Please note that I think this is terrific feature either way -- I'm just curious about the thinking behind using the "Media Sub Type" field.

Thanks,

Larry

[leezer3]

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the media-subtype field doesn't get filled by default, except on purchased Audible files & podcasts (Not filled on my videos either, does this mean that all are going to bookmark by default, or is there another set of criteria at work?). IMHO, its not the most intuitive field for a new user to look for when trying to get his audiobooks to bookmark automatically.
This is why I'd use the genre field (Or in my case subgenre, but thats a custom field and needs shunting about, not relavant for the normal user), and have a list of genres that should bookmark automatically, perhaps taking them from the preset ID3 list, and allow the user to add or remove from these as they wish?

-Leezer-

[lalittle]

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the media-subtype field doesn't get filled by default

IMHO, its not the most intuitive field for a new user to look for when trying to get his audiobooks to bookmark automatically.

That's my thinking as well.

This is why I'd use the genre field (Or in my case subgenre, but thats a custom field and needs shunting about, not relavant for the normal user), and have a list of genres that should bookmark automatically, perhaps taking them from the preset ID3 list, and allow the user to add or remove from these as they wish?

-Leezer-

Perhaps it doesn't need to be "either/or."  Maybe the "Genre" field could be used by the "Use Bookmarking" feature if the "Media Sub Type" was blank.  If the "Media Sub Type" had a value, it would take precedence over the "Genre," and the "Use Bookmarking" field would use this value instead.

Larry

[leezer3]

I'd see that as introducing an unncessary source of confusion. There needs to be a single field, which it is, is less important at the moment than consistancy.
While we as the more advanced users can see what's going on, again you need to think of the lowest common denominator, and the question of why only some of thier files aren't bookmarking automatically- Would they look at the tags to figure it out?

Cheers

-Leezer-