Convert Audible/Itunes .aa Protected Files to Mp3 the easy way

[Innie808]

Hi,

I know this doesn't fit into the TV/DVD conversion, It is on the topic of conversions. I thought it might save someone the headaches i went through.

The story goes:
Bought an Ipod a couple of years ago. Ipod died after about a year. In that time, WAF bought 4 audio books from Audible.com and 1 album from Itunes store.
Removed Itunes from Computer (Big sigh of relief).

Present day:
Waf now has fancy iriver x20 Mp3/mp4 player. Wants all Audiobooks back.
Well, Audiobooks are encrypted .aa files. Cannot play on anything other than Icrap.
Load Itunes back on computer (Cursing involved). Add Audiobook tracks to itunes, Asks for Account and password to Audible.com. (Loud Swearing enuses)
Hunt starts for old email with password. Find password, track are now Authorised (It tells me I have registered on 2 computers, Will only allow a maximum of 5!!(I bought the damn things, paid money, and yet after 5 authorizations i no longer own the Files!!!)

The plan:
Burn each Audiobook to CD then re-rip to mp3.
The Hurdle:
Audiobook are huge. Looking at up to 15 CD-s per book with 10 tracks per CD.

The Solution:
Use Nero. Nero has an option under "new/CD/Audio Book". When you add a .aa encoded file, Nero goes out on the net and connects to the content provider(audible.com in this case) and asks for Account and Password to authorise the files.
Once you have Authorised the .aa files, you can drag and drop, then burn to an Image File (.nrg).
In my case i had 14 .nrg files for 1 audiobook, This is 200% more efficient than burning to CDRW's.
Once you have the .NRG image files, use the Imagedrive to load the .nrg, then use Nero's "Save Tracks" to rip back to low rate MP3's (I used 32kbs, wma format). Save Tracks will keep the title and track numbers when ripping. (very important with 77 tracks(chapters))!!

Audiobooks are a pain in the proverbial to convert. I will never touch any online Apple stores, or buy the ipod range again. Lesson learnt.

Oh, last step, Remove Itunes from computer. Pheeew!

[logifuse]

Sheesh!

Have you ever tried Tunebite or Muvaudio?

Justin

[Innie808]

Never heard of them.

Do they allow you to decrypt the .aa files? Most applications cannot strip the DRM out of Itunes files. Only Itunes can, and it's a pain in the a&$se. Also, Itunes only allows you to rip to CDR, not to the disk, so that would mean 9 CDr's to rip part 1 of a 2 part audiobook.

I'll check em out anyway. If they are helpful I'll give you some points.

[logifuse]

They basically record the sound output, but they can do it at faster than normal speed (I think Tunebite can do 4x, Muvaudio 10x?). Last time I used Tunebite, I still needed itunes to play the original file (but that was quite a while back).

It's effectively a digital>analogue>digital process, so it's fine for talking books, but I'm not convinced that it's the best for music.

Justin

[Innie808]

Well, yes those programs would have done the job, but as you say Itunes needs to be installed. With the Nero option, You don't need to go near Itunes.

Thanks for making me aware of these, I'm pretty happy with the Nero solution, and I only have 4 audiobooks to rip.