I asked this when I first for my unit, and did not get an answer, and the I've been thinking about it a bit so Iwanted to ask again.

As you all may or may not know, audible sells downloadable audiobooks.

They use several compression formats, two of which are some sort of encryped MP3.

To listen to them on a computer they need a special filter for either realplayer ot windows media player, and to download them into a portable device, they provide an application as well.

Almost all of the rio hand-helds are supported buy their download software (as well as palms, wince handhelds and franklin ebooks... :)

Anyways, the point of my meandering question is:
Are the plans to support this service in some way on the empeg/riocar?

Thanks
-S

Hmm, intriguing ...

I might just pop over to their site to see what they have. As it happens I have the whole set of Lord of the Rings on my empeg now. Considering the size of this trilogy the quality is not great though even though I would be willing to sacrifice a lot more space for better quality.

If I figure out a way to use those encrypted files (wonder what that is about) I will post it here.

Cheers,
Hans


Mk2 - Blue & Red - 080000431

It's always possible to play those files on the pc while recording them with cooledit or soundforge and then encode that into a clear mp3.

Of course it's not very convenient...

If anyone has a solution to this I would also be very interested (long commutes)

-D

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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764

Not sure if it will work with the WMA files at Audible.com but WMA Encode/Decode by X-Filez will transcode wma files to mp3 and claims to work with DRM protected clips assuming you have a license for your player to be able to play them.

I've used this on unencrypted clips and it works in > realtime. Worth a shot.

http://www.x-filez.com/aedtoolspage.htm

-Kit

You have an audio version of LOTR? Is it a dramatization or the actual book read aloud? By whom?

You have an audio version of LOTR? Is it a dramatization or the actual book read aloud?

If it's the BBC dramatisation (Ian Holm as Frodo, Sir Michael Hordern as Gandalf, Bernard Cribbins as Bilbo) then I can thoroughly recommend it. It skips bits to cram the whole trilogy into 13 hours, but it keeps the atmosphere brilliantly.

Peter

No it's by something called Recorded Books, narrated by Robert Ingles (1 s or 2 dunno).

Originally a set of tapes, recorded and encoded by someone who has nearly a thousand of those tapes laying around and decided to MP3 them before they got to worn or aged to play. I think it was released as such (as tapes) around 1990.

Peter, you happen to know where the BBC dramatisation could be found. The version I have is done by only 1 person, who does a great job distorting (so to speak) his voice for the different characters but the tapes were already in lesser state and the encoding is also on a fairly low bitrate leaving it somewhat lacking of brilliance. It is the unabridged version though so I suppose that means they do not skip anything, but I have the impression that it is based on the first edition, and not the second which incorperates intended alterations and revisions by the author.

Cheers,
Hans


Mk2 - Blue & Red - 080000431

Peter, you happen to know where the BBC dramatisation could be found

Go to http://www.bbcshop.com, and follow (on the left) Spoken Word, then (in the centre) Fiction & Drama, Modern Classics, JRR Tolkien (spelt wrong). £85 on CD, but then it is (or ought to be) a 13-CD set.

Peter

Ordered

Thanks a million, I had been searching the web for days for something like this already. Shoulda known this board was better then altavista.com.

Cheers,
Hans


Mk2 - Blue & Red - 080000431

Here I go replying to my own post again, well if Gollum is allowed to speak to himself so am I.

I just did some quick math, I have 15 mp3's well over an hour for the first book, 24 for the second each of 30 to 45 minuts and 20 of the third book, also 30 to 45 minuts a piece. All in all I guess around 40 hours for the whole thing. I would surmise that this is indeed the whole set of books read out loud. I was pretty sure it was as I happen to have like 5 different sets of the books and could easily follow the audio word for word in the latest version I have (a special edition made for the movies due december this year, next year and the year after).

Cheers,
Hans


Mk2 - Blue & Red - 080000431

Greetings!

Another good LOTR item is a set of tapes done by Caedmon a while back. It is only specific passages, not the entire book. It is, however, read by J.R.R. himself! An interesting listen. My favorite of these is a large-ish fragment of "The Silmarillion" read by his son Christopher. That is sitting on my empeg right now.

By the way, was this the set you were refering to?

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (40GB Smoke)

Edited by pgrzelak on 28/06/01 07:40 PM.

Ah more nice pointers. The one on Amazon does indeed look a lot like the BBC dramatization Peter was talking about yes. Grumble, it's even cheaper ... but then getting it to Europe would cost a lot more making it about even in price I think. Best I can tell Amazon UK doesn't have it (weird considering it's a BBC item).

Cheers,
Hans


Mk2 - Blue & Red - 080000431

Great - I'd been looking for a place that did audible books without much success. I managed to download off one of the binaries newsgroups the first episode of a Star Wars serialisation that I believe was on the radio in the US. Anyone know if these are commercially available?

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Steve - 18GB Mk II Amber

Well, so far I've ordered The Hobbit (currently downloading 84MB file) and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (12MB file). I'm considering The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. Anyone find out how to convert these files to MP3 yet? I've tried a few with no joy. I'm currently considering playing through Media Player while recording using Music Match. God knows how big that file will be. But, as luck would have it, I seem to be getting some interference when recording. Think it might be something to do with one of my USB channels....

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Steve - 18GB Mk II Blue

What format are the downloads in? Do they play in Sonique or Winamp? If so, both programs have wav file writers that write the output to a wavefile rather than play them through your speakers. This will make a very big file but you can then use one of the many MP3 utilities to convert the wav into MP3.

Andy

26GB MKII Blue #090000727

Or have a go at Total Recorder. Using its driver, which is in between the player and the soundcard driver, you can redirect any source of audio. You don't have any loss like playing and recording at the same time.

Edwin de Vaan
mk2 rev.7 Trillian # 080000263 6+20Gb blue/red

What format are the downloads in? Do they play in Sonique or Winamp?

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The format is their own. When you order from the site you download a plugin for a number of players like Media Player or for different devices like the Rio 500. Unfortunately, not for my Rio 300.

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Steve - 18GB Mk II Blue