Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 

I'm not familiar with this program or that format.

But the Nokia Audiobook Manager program is free and converts .wav or .mp3 files to .amr files. (Windows only, I think.)

I converted a few audiobook files this evening, and they seem great. A podcast too.

I launched the MPlayer-AMR by double-clicking on the .amr book- file in File Manager. I could pause and resume, but it might be a pain with really long segments if you can't quit and then resume from the same spot later.

I've got a number of Khmer-language learning tapes (er, mp3's) that I'll try next. And, for practicality, I'll probably split them up into smaller pieces in Audacity first.

Not something I know. But I hope that whatever language it's written in, they were clever enough to think about using it in more than one place and can easily port it to our tablets.

Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 

Well, OK, you've convinced me. Anyway, I'm way better off now than I was just yesterday.

Thanks again!

Roger

Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 

Actually yes it is...they would need to have licensed a player for the NIT's. Many of their phones play Audible so it is reasonable to assume whatever was required should have been done for the tablets, whether that be shoehorn in the needed support for the AA format or work the deal with Audible.

The mantra of "...well, then ask...{insert whoever here}...for an app for the tablets..." is as unproductive a reply as can be posted.

So I will retort with an equally banal response to research the issue before posting:

http://www.audible.com/adbl/store/de...&whichMfgr=177

Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 

Size varies by the audio quality you want. There are 4 levels. Format 1 being the lowest quality up to format 4 which is at least 128kbps and i forget the other tech specs. My Creative Zen Xtra only supports format 4 so I am most familiar with those sizes. I would guess a book like Shantaram which is a bit over 43 hours takes up 618MB in format 4 and about 165MB in format 2. Format two is fine for almost any book but format 4 obviously sounds the richest.

I mention Shantaram because it is a burnable title and I forget the exact number of CD it takes but it's at least 30 CD's and I seem to recall it was more like 50. That is because the AA format is extremely compressed.

So uncompressing the AA files, even the lowest quality format 2 (not much is out there in format 1) results in BIG files. Sure you can resample them to reduce the size but even then you have big files to deal with.

And Audible has always seemed to try and support as many devices as possible. I do recall that SanDisk really botched on eof the series of MP3 players, the original "C" line I believe, (they released an modified version 2 of that line under the same name, but it's almost impossible to know which you are buying online so even though it's a great player as it supports SDHC ya gotta know for sure when buying) but the hardware simply could not support the Audible files. I would find it very disappointing to learn that is why there is no Audible support on the NIT's w/o some intermediary like Orb.

I mean it's fine since a smaller easier to manage device can be had for $30 and hold several long ebooks on just a 1gb Audible compatible player. But it sure would be nice if once in a while a person could use the tablet to play them too.

Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 

I actually agree, even my Garmin Nuvi has Audible support in it.

But Nokia don't really seem to care, like look at the current AMR-WB support. Nokia released a working package for S60 phones (but I guess it is easier as phones already support AMR) but nothing for us. Come on, Nokia, even I have managed to make 2 things which support AMR.

Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 

I poked around a little. It seems that an emulator is too complex and not likely to be practical.

Does Nokia read this forum? would they pick up on interest in an audio book reader for the tablet? How can we communicate with them? Maybe they can port the book player for us.

I poked around sourceforge and found an apparently old package (vintage 2006) with little recent activity called KABOOK. Any interest in looking at porting (maybe updating) this?

Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 

I can't figure out how to untar this :P

They packed it stupidly.

I dunno, that's for mp3's. With my Media Player Package, you can play AMR-WB in the Media Player now. Lacking resume but everything else is perfect.

Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 

I just wanted to bump to say that the files to support inbuilt media player are released. Much recommend over mplayer as there is a gui, easy playlists, pause and resume support.

Same link as mplayer version.

Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 

Confused in several different ways here . . .

Do you mean that putting the 4 amr libraries in /usr/lib/ is sufficient for Media Player to play audio files in this format?

Because that seems to be what is happening on my N810.

Is there any need to install the mplayer-amr that you so fortuitously provided (other than one's preference for mplayer over Media Player)?

Um. How would you launch the mplayer-amr and select the audiobook you wanted? Double-clicking on the audiobook opens Media Player on my tablet.

As you can see, I'm confused. This is actually what happened yesterday — I listened to the Cory Doctorow podcast in Media Player without realizing it.

Roger

Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 

Hmm, now I'm confused.

Installing mplayer amr shouldn't have affected the media player as media player wouldn't work with just those libraries on it's own.

Well, I provided mplayer as that is the first thing I thought of. But when I saw the limitations, I decided to do it for the media player.

I would still recommend installing the media player amr support as it provides proper gstreamer support (the media player backend) and shows the amr files in the library.

mplayer is a bad choice compared to media player for amr files.

But if you want to use mplayer:
"mplayer /path/to/awb" in a terminal.
If you didn't replace the mplayer already installed, then try mplayer-amr instead.

Also mplayer-amr and the media player support aren't dependent on each other.

Also, unless you chose it manually, file manager wouldn't have known what to do witth the file as none of the mimetypes would have matched.

If you wish to be sure of anything:

Download this:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jji5udocmj6
and save it to internal card and open terminal and "sudo gainroot"
and run
mv /media/mmc2/mplayer /usr/bin/mplayer-amr
chmod +x /usr/bin/mplayer-amr

Then to use that mplayer:
mplayer-amr /patch/to/awb/file

Then grab http://rapidshare.com/files/106591605/amr.tar.gz.html , save to internal card and open terminal and sudo gainroot.

mv /media/mmc2/amr.tar.gz /
cd /
tar zxvf amr.tar.gz
./installamr

So mediaplayer will be the default to open awb files. mplayer will only open amr from the command line, when you invoke it manually. media player is much better for awb files than mplayer

Best Regards.