Here's the Chapterizer Automator Workflow (Apple OS X Tiger only) that I created. It takes a series of MP3 files, merges them into one file and sets up chapter stops (chapters work in iTunes and on iPods) named after each of the files that you added. Your merged file will have stops at the beginning of each song.
You'll first need to download and copy the ChapterTool binary from this disk image to the root of your hard drive. The binary is called ChapterTool and has a black rectangular icon.
Finally, open TextEdit (in your Applications>Utilities folder) and under Preferences, make sure TextEdit defaults to using PLAIN TEXT for all new documents... not RTF.
Then, just run the workflow and press play. Follow the instructions in the dialog boxes. It will help if all of the MP3s that you want to merge are all in the same folder.
One great thing about this workflow is that, because of Applescript, you won't need to have QuickTime Pro in order to merge your MP3s.
One problem that I'm currently working on is the fact that Chapterizer doesn't like to merge AAC encoded files. I'm doing some testing and for some reason, QuickTime is reporting an incorrect duration for the file.
Your outputted file can be found in your root folder once the script has completed.
Okay, so it's not really that useful a hack for the new Motorola ROKR (merging several MP3s into one will let you store WAY more than 100 songs on the DRM enabled phone). However Chapterizer definitely IS useful for lots of other stuff. Things like:
- Concert albums made up of separate MP3 files
- Audio books (like the ones from Project Gutenberg) that are made of a dozen (or more) MP3 files
- Podcasting... just record each part of your podcast as a separate file and when you merge them, you'll automagically have chapter stops!
Download Chapterizer for OS X
