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-   -   Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=18927)

RogerS 2008-04-09 16:57
Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 
Quote:
Poking around the Nokia BetaLabs site recently, I learned about Nokia Audiobooks, which is pretty much just what you'd expect: Recorded books that you can listen to on your Nokia S60 phone.

The description points out that MP3 compression isn't really suited for voice, and that using the AMR-WB codec* makes for way smaller files — 5 to 10 times smaller — that still have "excellent speech quality"

So you take any audiobook, convert it to the speech-optimal format with Nokia's free Audiobook Manager software, and listen to it with Nokia's Audiobook Player on the S60.

Why bother? Well, why waste space? "A typical 400-page novel translates into 10-20 hour long audiobook, which would traditionally take more than dozen CDs or hundreds of megabytes of low-quality MP3 files." Transfer times are faster and storage needs lower.

Maybe MP3 players will become MP3/AMR-WB players, handling this new format for on-the-go listening. But, honestly, I'd rather listen to an audiobook on my internet tablet than my phone.

Me, I don't like headphones or earbuds, so I really like the NIT's speakers. I wonder, Why doesn't Nokia port the Audiobook Player to the tablet? Or adapt the built-in media player to handle AMR-WB?

It makes a lot of sense to me. And, well, that's what I'd like to hear.

_______________
* "AMR-WB codec: Nokia Audiobooks uses standardized Adaptive Multi Rate-WideBand speech encoder (3GPP 26.190 / ITU-T G.722.2 See www.3GPP.org / www.itu.ch) for audio data compression in order to keep memory requirement for a book very small while maintaining excellent speech quality."
Read the full article.

GeraldKo 2008-04-09 17:15
Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 
I couldn't agree more! I would like to see Nokia support AMR-WB in the N-Series Tablets. Another possibility is that Canola could someday support it (though I think Canola may be only a front end and may need some other program to do the audio file decoding).

You stated the case very well.

schmots 2008-04-09 17:53
Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 
I would rather a better full featured ebook. Something about my mind doing the voices that beats audio books. FBreader is ok, but I am thinking about getting a sony ebook reader just for a decent ebook. and with FBreader sometimes when I click to the next page it starts going through multiple pages till I hit the page back button.. then I have to find my place again.... Sorry got kinda off topic there.

RogerS 2008-04-09 18:00
Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by schmots (Post 167498)
I would rather have a better full featured ebook.
I want it all: a great ebook reader, yes, but also the capability to listen to audiobooks without their being hundreds of megabytes long.

More than that, I want a text-to-speech capability (with voices I have purchased) that I can crank up on one of those ebooks I'm reading and listen to the book while I'm running errands. (Or saved web pages, or reports, or whatever is necessary. But you get the picture.)

GeneralAntilles 2008-04-09 18:13
Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by schmots (Post 167498)
and with FBreader sometimes when I click to the next page it starts going through multiple pages till I hit the page back button.. then I have to find my place again.... Sorry got kinda off topic there.
There's a "Maemo" tab is preferences where you can enable a temporary fix for this bug.

Benson 2008-04-09 18:33
Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 
Hundreds of megabytes? Seems a little over-the-top; 20 hours is only about 150 MB at 16kb/s. You could even go 8 kb/s.

brecklundin 2008-04-09 18:37
Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 167463)
Until they add support for Audible I see little value in this feature as my whole library of audiobooks is from Audible. I am not going to spend the time ripping a set of CD/DVD's and then re-encode them to whatever the fickle NIT is willing to support.

And I am not going to repurchase my content just for the NIT...it makes more sense to just use an MP3 player that already supports Audible as well as MP3 or other formats.

chlettn 2008-04-09 18:57
Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 
Well, then ask Audible to support the NIT's - it's not Nokia's fault that they don't support a proprietary file format/DRM scheme...

GeraldKo 2008-04-09 18:57
Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by brecklundin (Post 167525)
Until they add support for Audible I see little value in this feature as my whole library of audiobooks is from Audible. I am not going to spend the time ripping a set of CD/DVD's and then re-encode them to whatever the fickle NIT is willing to support.

And I am not going to repurchase my content just for the NIT...it makes more sense to just use an MP3 player that already supports Audible as well as MP3 or other formats.
My preference remains ARM-WB (provided that its audio quality is good).

How large are all the files for a single big novel in Audible?

JoeF 2008-04-09 19:50
Re: Nokia Audiobooks: what we need to hear
 
Ken Follet "World Without End" 992 pages is 314 MB in Audible format.


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