Audible.com and the Pre

[KEYofR]

Little further testing.
I loaded all of the above files on my Centro and played them with PocketTunes out via Softick Audio Gateway 3rd party Bluetooth A2DP to my car stereo. (Which is how I primarily listen to audiobooks)

2 things:

Bookmarks, saved position:
PocketTunes saves the position where you were playing in each file. You can exit ptunes, even power-cycle, even reboot, and when you pull up that file again the position will be where you left it on that particular file.
It seems to me that even without the patch above, media players would probably be among the first and most common of 3rd party apps to become available for Pre (though, no PocketTunes yet) and it's a complete natural for them to save state. It's rather a lack in the default player if it doesn't, not an extra special feature of say ptunes.
... ok it seems that Blubbles new player will do bookmarking, it's just not ready yet, partially thanks to PALM not opening necessary os hooks.
Thanks Palm, I thought this was supposed to be the righteous answer to the bad old locked down iphone & android. The remix player doesn't bookmark or save state but at least he claims to recognize it's a much-wanted feature, though he seems not to get the point and leans towards implimenting it in a way that won't be as convenient as it should be.

Quality:

Playing various of the above files on my Centro via Softick Audio Gateway 3rd party A2DP to my car stereo, using the 200kbps book-optimized mode, Some files that sound almost perfect on a pc sound a little worse played this way. (worse than playing the same file native .aa in the native palm audible player via the same A2DP device). And some files that sounded a tad less perfect on the pc, didn't sound any worse when played from the centro via A2DP. I don't have detailed report yet, but in general, they're all more than good enough to listen too, except for the ones I marked terrible already even on a pc, so for me it comes down to the considerations of encoding speed and final filesize. The ideal speed & size Helix mp3's do suffer slightly when played from the centro via A2DP, but only a little and I think the encode speed still makes this combo a win. But I'll go through the rest and try to pick a best-sounding regardless of other considerations.

I haven't tried the higher quality setting in audio gateway on these files yet because I've already determined that this mode slows down the entire device a bit too much to make for happy life, so who cares if it sounds better or how much if you can't really use it very often anyways? I'll try out all files both ways eventually just to see. For long books on long trips where you won't touch the phone for hours, it'd be worth it. Then again, The problem isn't to find a good audiobook-to-mp3 solution for the Centro, and the finer points of quality vs responsiveness will surely be different on the Pre, and it's the Pre we need to find the best solution for.

[snoPalm]

Originally Posted by bdhu2001

I finally found the settings to turn on the sound. After you tap classic in the left corner and go into options, change the options from fast to normal. Then you'll be able to get sound.

Thank you. My Audible is now audible.

Although it took a few tries, I got the Audible player installed in Classic and a 30-hour Audible book (with 4 .aa files) copied to ClassicApps\AudibleAudio\. Everything looked fine, but pressing Play did nothing -- no sound and the position counter did not advance.

All I had to do was change the Classic preferences from "Fast" to "Normal" (which changed Sound from "Off" to "On"). Voila. (I'll watch for any stuttering.)

Thanks again. This thread has been extremely informative and helpful.

[snoPalm]

Originally Posted by tearaway

Add your voice and tell Audible you want native Audible support on the Pre!

Here is the response I received yesterday from Audible.com (Dara K., Customer Support):

I understand that you are inquiring as to when the Palm Pre will be supported by Audible. To be honest, we are working to release an application that will allow the playback from the Palm Pre. However there is no estimated time as to when it will be released, as we want to make sure that the application is fully operational.

Please be advised that we are working as fast as we can towards this matter, as there are many loyal customers such as yourself now using the Palm Pre. I do apologize for the inconvenience that was caused, but if there is anything else that I can assist you with, please let me know.

Could be soon. Could be months.

For now, thank goodness I have managed to install Audible for Palm OS in the Classic emulator, and got the sound working (with the help of this thread).

[snoPalm]

Originally Posted by nerp

Do a web search for DRMBuster. This will make your audible files work as MP3 files for your Pre. It's kindof pricey ($50) but, it *does* work.

Although I have Audible working on my Prē, I still like to convert Audible .aa files to MP3, because my car CD player can play MP3 CDs (1 CD per book instead of 12 or more).

For most audio functions on my PC, I like jRiver Media Centre. It recognizes and can play .aa files. However, for some reason it hangs when I try to burn them to CD.

I use iTunes (free) to burn .aa files to audio CDs. It knows to split a large .aa file over 5 or 6 CDs. The individual audio files are typically about 5 to 8 minutes long (about 11 to 13 per CD), which makes coming back to your place fairly reasonable. I use rewriteable CDs and keep reusing them.

After I burn the audio CDs, I then rip them to MP3 files with jRiver. It makes it easy to edit the Artist/Album/Year/Genre tags and relatively easy to edit the track names (takes me less than a minute to edit track names for 1 CD). I incorporate the book title, part number (if multiple parts), CD number and tack number into each track name. For example, Angel's Flight by Michael Connelly has 2 audible parts, a total of 9 audio CDs and 102 tracks altogether:

Angel's Flight P1-D01-01
.....
Angel's Flight P1-D01-12
Angel's Flight P1-D02-01
.....
Angel's Flight P1-D05-08
Angel's Flight P2-D06-01
.....
Angel's Flight P2-D09-08

With this system, the files all sort into the correct order.

A couple of quirks. There is a tiny gap (maybe half a second) between tracks that I have not been able to get rid of. Also, the first 20 seconds of the first track of each CD repeats the last 20 seconds of the last track from the previous CD.

I definitely plan to check out MagicISO, since I assume burning to a virtual CD is faster than burning to a real CD.

[justjill3]

Hi folks.

I'm so glad to see so many people still interested in using Audible with the Pre. Me, too! But, I am having a great deal of difficulty trying to follow your procedures. I have been back and forth between here and MotionApps, but I need clearer guidance.

Please tell me step by step what to do. It would help if no assumptions were made as to what I should know. Don't get me wrong, my Pre has had homebrewed apps before there was a "Developers Mode" switch (happy to have that, though ). It's that I don't want to miss anything important. I appreciate this so much.

[swissarmy]

This is the answer I received about 3 weeks ago. I find it interesting he specifically mentions they have spoken with palm and have not agreed to have audible work with their device.... Hopefully they will get something worked out between the two.



Recently, you requested personal assistance via our on-line support center. Below is our response and a summary of your request.



Subject
Will there be an application for the new Palm Pre phone like the Iphone?

Discussion Thread
Response (Michael T.) 08/11/2009 12:59 PM
Dear Brad,

Thank you for contacting Audible.

I see that you are inquiring about Audible being compatible with the new Palm Pre. At this current time we have heard no word on its compatibility and if it will be made into Audible support. We have spoken with Palm but as of now they have not agreed to have their device work with the Audible files. I wish I had an ETA on this answer but as of now they have not informed us of anything on this particular device. While Audible would like this device to be compatible with our book titles but unfortunately the choice is up to Palm. I apologize if this causes any sort of inconvenience.

Thank you and have a nice day!

Sincerely,
Michael T.
Audible Customer Support

[bdhu2001]

Originally posted by justjill3:
Hi folks.

I'm so glad to see so many people still interested in using Audible with the Pre. Me, too! But, I am having a great deal of difficulty trying to follow your procedures. I have been back and forth between here and MotionApps, but I need clearer guidance.

Please tell me step by step what to do. It would help if no assumptions were made as to what I should know. Don't get me wrong, my Pre has had homebrewed apps before there was a "Developers Mode" switch (happy to have that, though ). It's that I don't want to miss anything important. I appreciate this so much.

Hi, justjill3. I'll try to save you some steps, but the relevant posts are on page 3 and the post #s are 53,54, &59. I've tried to summarize what currently works to keep you from a frustrating time:

*Go to page 3 post 53 to download current audible
*Attach Pre to PC and tap usb mode
*Copy the PRC file from your computer to the ClassicApps/Install folder on your Pre
* Launch Classic
* Tap the classic tab in the left hand corner so that it show the gray options like when you're selecting wi-fi or bluetooth. If it shows main, menu, etc it's the wrong one.
* Tap options
* Tap preference
* Tap sound on
Hint: After you tap classic in the left corner and go into options, change the options from fast to normal. Then you'll be able to get sound.

Hope it helps.

[akitayo]

I was wondering, how this guy did run Audible on Classic?


YouTube - PRE AUDIOBOOK ON CLASSIC

[justjill3]

Originally Posted by bdhu2001

Hi, justjill3. I'll try to save you some steps, but the relevant posts are on page 3 and the post #s are 53,54, &59. I've tried to summarize what currently works to keep you from a frustrating time:

*Go to page 3 post 53 to download current audible
*Attach Pre to PC and tap usb mode
*[COLOR="rgb(72, 61, 139)"]Copy the PRC file [/COLOR]from your computer to the ClassicApps/Install folder on your Pre
* Launch Classic
* Tap the classic tab in the left hand corner so that it show the gray options like when you're selecting wi-fi or bluetooth. If it shows main, menu, etc it's the wrong one.
* Tap options
* Tap preference
* Tap sound on
Hint: After you tap classic in the left corner and go into options, change the options from fast to normal. Then you'll be able to get sound.

Hope it helps.

Pardon my frustration, but I STARTED w/ #53. When I went to Audible, I selected the software for Palm, of course. I downloaded that to the PC and stopped the process before it attempted to load to the Treo (which was not connected, anyway.) I have a file called AudiblePlayerPack-Installer.prc. Is this the file you are telling me to install on the Pre? The filename is not what I was expecting to need.

[justjill3]

Can anyone answer this?

[bdhu2001]

Originally posted by justjill3:
Is this the file you are telling me to install on the Pre? The filename is not what I was expecting to need.

Yes. It is a prc file. Put it in the ClassicApps/Install folder on your Pre. Do you have Classic installed on your Pre?

[justjill3]

Yes. I have Classic installed. With a title like "installer", I wasn't sure that it would do more than install ....saaaay RUN.


Ok! Thanks. I'm loaded. Now, if I understand correctly, the file extensions for the content are *.aa?

Have you all figured out how to use Audible Air to add content or how do I get it on the phone?

[bdhu2001]

Originally posted by justjill3:
Have you all figured out how to use Audible Air to add content or how do I get it on the phone?

Now that you have it on your Pre, look in your Pre usb files. Inside your ClassicApps folder, you'll find another folder labeled AudibleAudio. Drag your audible files to that folder.
Launch Audible, in Classic, and enter your audible user information.

[justjill3]

Pay dirt!


It took 3 attempts and one crash to register, but it works. I hear my radio show archives.

[bdhu2001]

Originally Posted by justjill3

Pay dirt!

It took 3 attempts and one crash to register, but it works. I hear my radio show archives.

I'm so happy for you. Being able to listen to your audio books & shows, makes the change to the Pre doable.

[hdhuntr]

For all thread followers. I have had Audible running on Classic for a while now. Long enough I'd have to go read my own postings and others in the thread to do it again...but just last Friday I installed quickinstall and now Audible is even more stable. I was still having crashes now and then and sometimes it'd just disappear etc.
Now this stuff seems to have stopped happening and it's the only change I made. Might have something to do with WEBOSDOCTOR being involved ...no idea really , but it seemed like a good tip to pass along.

[bdhu2001]

Originally posted by hdhuntr:
. . . but just last Friday I installed quickinstall and now Audible is even more stable. I was still having crashes now and then and sometimes it'd just disappear etc.
Now this stuff seems to have stopped happening and it's the only change I made. Might have something to do with WEBOSDOCTOR being involved ...no idea really , but it seemed like a good tip to pass along.

Did you use Quickinstall to re-install Classic or did you simply download Quickinstall to your PC. More details please.

[hdhuntr]

Originally Posted by bdhu2001

Did you use Quickinstall to re-install Classic or did you simply download Quickinstall to your PC. More details please.

I just added QI. I already had PreBrew on there and just left it. Now I notice that WebOSDoctor might have been part of that as well...so... It might be the version of WebOSDR OR something in Jason's code that made it more stable.

I don't know what else to volunteer but I'll answer any more questions as I see them. I have also not seen the BSOD since then and I used it 10 or 12 times on a long trip over the weekend.

Whoever had that tip on hitting search button while on was good too. Was that you?

[sillydino]

I have followed the different sets of instructions from this site and others with no luck. It looks like the audiobook version that Audible now releases (version 4) is not compatible with the latest audible app for palm os (please see the attached screenshot). Has anyone else seen this problem? Does anyone happen to have an audible install for palm os that supports aa version 4?

[snoPalm]

Originally Posted by sillydino

I have followed the different sets of instructions from this site and others with no luck. It looks like the audiobook version that Audible now releases (version 4) is not compatible with the latest audible app for palm os (please see the attached screenshot). Has anyone else seen this problem? Does anyone happen to have an audible install for palm os that supports aa version 4?

Format 4 was never supported on the Palm Treo (running Palm OS). You must download audiobooks from Audible in Format 3 for Palm OS (including the Classic emulator on the Pre). Format 3 uses a lower bit-rate which translates into smaller files.

Alternatively, download Format 4, then convert aa files to MP3 files and listen with the Music App.

[I never understood why the Audible player on the Treo was limited to Format 3, since other programs, such as pTunes, had no problem playing MP3 files which are the equivalent of Format 4. Perhaps they thought people would be downloading direct to the phone and wanted to reduce data minutes.]

I hope this helps. Although I got Audible to run in Classic on my Pre, I too had the stuttering problem. For now, I am continuing to use my deactivated Treo to play audiobooks from Audible.

-- Bruce