How many hours' worth of recorded material do I have at Librivox?

Post by **TriciaG** » March 28th, 2020, 11:05 am

tovarisch wrote: ↑March 28th, 2020, 10:50 am It's kinda funny, but I can't help thinking of more efficient (lazy) ways of doing it. For instance, if you have your mp3s someplace, then using Windows Media Player you can add them to a playlist, and it will count the running length for you, I believe. I bet that on MacOS there is a similar way...

I haven't tried this myself on a lot of files, but in Win7:
- Go to the top level folder
- Click in the search box in the address bar, and select "type:" in that bottom part that says "add a search filter"
- Select MP3
- Click on one, and do Ctrl-A (to select all)
- On the bottom toolbar, select "Show More Details"
It should show the total length of the MP3 files in that folder and its subfolders.

It worked for a file in which I have 330 files in various subfolders.

EDIT: It worked on my big store of files, 4348 files. These include things like dramatic readings I've edited, so it's not accurate to show what I myself have recorded, but it logged it as 1200:33:34. I guess that's 1200 hours, 33 minutes, 34 seconds?

Post by **knotyouraveragejo** » March 28th, 2020, 1:57 pm

Yeah, I did that at one point as well.

Tovarisch's playlist suggestion, that is. Tricia and I crossposted.

EDIT: OK I tried what Tricia suggested and came up with 363h 35m 48s for all my cataloged recordings through the end of last year. Seems I need to get busy...

SonOfTheExiles · Post by **SonOfTheExiles** » March 28th, 2020, 2:53 pm

I tend to put most of my material on my YouTube channel, so that would make it easier to count.

By the way, since moving to a new platform I can’t use the old MovieMaker app anymore to put a wallpaper behind the audio in an mp4 for YouTube upload. Would anyone happen to be aware of a good cheap app that is available to do this task?

Cheers,
Chris

ej400 · Post by **ej400** » March 29th, 2020, 10:00 am

You could go to your catalog page and look in every project you were in (solos and collabs), and count up all the times. For DR's, you could re-listen to the DR, and count whenever you speak. That is a very time taking process, but it's workable.

But I also wanted to ask, did anyone think about their PLing status? I would consider all the time I've PL'ed as "hours worth of PLing material I have." Maybe that's off topic from this topic and is another discussion....

KevinS · Post by **KevinS** » March 29th, 2020, 12:41 pm

ej400 wrote: ↑March 29th, 2020, 10:00 am You could go to your catalog page and look in every project you were in (solos and collabs), and count up all the times. For DR's, you could re-listen to the DR, and count whenever you speak. That is a very time taking process, but it's workable.

But I also wanted to ask, did anyone think about their PLing status? I would consider all the time I've PL'ed as "hours worth of PLing material I have." Maybe that's off topic from this topic and is another discussion....

You know---to be honest---I never thought I would PL that much, thinking it kind of monotonous, I guess. But I'm doing more and more of it and find it tremendously rewarding. I'm learning a lot and enjoying it, too!

I guess that's my plug for PLing.

As I get older, I'm sure I'll end up PLing as my sole contribution, but that's okay. I'm accepting that and no longer fear not being 'fully in the game.' Recording would be a disaster without our dedicated PLers.

DACSoft · Post by **DACSoft** » March 29th, 2020, 2:59 pm

ej400 wrote: ↑March 29th, 2020, 10:00 am You could go to your catalog page and look in every project you were in (solos and collabs), and count up all the times. For DR's, you could re-listen to the DR, and count whenever you speak. That is a very time taking process, but it's workable.

But I also wanted to ask, did anyone think about their PLing status? I would consider all the time I've PL'ed as "hours worth of PLing material I have." Maybe that's off topic from this topic and is another discussion....

Being a spreadsheet and statistics "nut," I began using spreadsheets for both my recording and PLing activities once I started at LV. I have a separate file for each recording project, and a summary sheet that totals all the projects, including time spent in each phase (recording, technical check, editing, etc.) of a project by section, finished recording times, finished WPM (words per minute), etc. And something similar for PLing. Then it's a relatively easy task to keep them updated.

Yes, I know it's overkill, but spreadsheets and statistic are my life. I was once an accountant in RL.

Don

ej400 · Post by **ej400** » March 29th, 2020, 3:03 pm

DACSoft wrote: ↑March 29th, 2020, 2:59 pm Being a spreadsheet and statistics "nut," I began using spreadsheets for both my recording and PLing activities once I started at LV. I have a separate file for each recording project, and a summary sheet that totals all the projects, including time spent in each phase (recording, technical check, editing, etc.) of a project by section, finished recording times, finished WPM (words per minute), etc. And something similar for PLing. Then it's a relatively easy task to keep them updated.

Yes, I know it's overkill, but spreadsheets and statistic are my life. I was once an accountant in RL.

Don

Wow Don! That's pretty amazing. I wish I had done that when I first started. Honestly, I'm VERY statistics orientated, so I have wrote down all the places I've PL'ed, BC'ed, and read in. I wish I had kept track of how long those took me.... I'm sure I could figure it out sometime if I sat down and did it. But that's incredible. I wouldn't call it overkill though... just that you like to keep things neat

linny · Post by **linny** » March 30th, 2020, 6:44 am

I'm on a windows platform. I keep all of my PLing for the year in a single folder.

If you highlight all the audio files in the folder then right click>properties>details you will see your total length.

So far this year is 172 hours. Last year was 162.5.

silverquill · Post by **silverquill** » December 10th, 2020, 11:39 pm

From the beginning, I kept a huge spread sheet of all of my projects, both reading and listening, so I could total things easily. I had a hard disc catastrophe a few months back and lost almost all of my data. I'm hoping to get it recovered, but it's expensive. All I have are a few old backups. I've got a cloud backup in place now, so that will never happen again. Maintaining the spreadsheet took extra time, but it also saved time in some ways, and just helped me keep my work organized, which was the point, more than saving stats.

realisticspeakers · December 11th, 2020, 12:34 am

silverquill wrote: ↑December 10th, 2020, 11:39 pm From the beginning, I kept a huge spread sheet of all of my projects, both reading and listening, so I could total things easily. I had a hard disc catastrophe a few months back and lost almost all of my data. I'm hoping to get it recovered, but it's expensive. All I have are a few old backups. I've got a cloud backup in place now, so that will never happen again. Maintaining the spreadsheet took extra time, but it also saved time in some ways, and just helped me keep my work organized, which was the point, more than saving stats.

oh man, I hear you.

KevinS · Post by **KevinS** » December 11th, 2020, 4:09 pm

At some point you just have to let go. I have to say, my earliest memories are my best and I'm told that these are the ones I will hold onto the longest. I'm pleased about this.

But I understand the desire to keep things orderly and at one's fingertips, so to speak. I do that with my stamp collection. I've given up on other things, though. I pull a book down from my library shelves, for instance, and it ends up somehow on the kitchen table for a week and then gets shifted to a nearby end table and then disappears somewhere else until I need to reference some obscure fact. Then I'm cooked, but it's kind of fun to go looking.

As for my recordings, I trust in the archive.org computers a bit too much. But think of all the chatty e-mail messages you've sent and received. One day you'll no longer have access to something saved somewhere and in Windows95. You just have to let go.