Fast and seamless downloads of audiobook files makes this easy
Written: Dec 09 '03 (Updated Jun 01 '04)
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If you own a PDA, mp3 player, or various handheld players that are Audible capable, you are obviously aware of how convenient it is to be able to take your music, audio books with you.
Many people who own the current multimedia capabable type PDAs such as Palms, Sony Clies, Pocket PCs, as well as those who own portable mp3 players such as the iPod, Rios, etc may already know about this interesting ebook service known as Audible.com. The idea is nothing new. It's an online store that sells audio books and audio subscription to periodicals such as newspapers and magazines. But the main difference between going to your nearest bricks and mortar bookstore and Audible, is convenience.
Rather than going down to your nearest bookstore and picking out your selection of audio books on cassette, you can, in the comfort and privacy of your own home, do the selecting and check out by a few simple clicks of the mouse. And you can do it at a time you want, when you want. Especially in the winter time when it's cold and windy and snowy outside, who wants to take time to go shopping unless there's a need for it?
Audible is pretty much simply an online audio ebook store. You browse through the titles and categories online, select your choices of audio books, make your credit card payment online, and download your audio book onto your computer or have it stream to your computer's Media player. If you have it downloaded onto your computer, from there, you can easily transfer the file over to your portable handheld or portable mp3 player. And with the current software, configuring it to work with the download and transfer of files is a snap.
Audible, the company has been around since November 1997 and has slowly added features to its programs such as the Audible Listener monthly membership plans which offer savings to members who purchase audio books and subscriptions, ability to burn audio books to CD so that they can be played on any CD player, special promotions of free Audible Otis mp3 players with a yearly membership, compatibility with Apple iPod and Palm Zire and Tungsten lines. Comparatively, there is currently nothing close to the same service that competes with Audible.com. While, there are lots of ebook stores where you can download viewable ebooks such as Fictionwise, Mobipocket, etc there aren't any audio ebooks that rival Audible's service. Audiobookclub deals with cassette and CDs and with a physical format, that translates to shipping fees and a slight delay in accessing the audiobooks, rather than on demand, that Audible offers.
When you visit the main Audible.com's web site, you are first greeted with a welcome screen with current promotions for potential customers to join and try out Audible's services. As well, there are links to sample clips of new audiobooks, periodicals and radio and the image of the cover of best sellers of various categories. clicking on the images, or links will take you to the details of the audiobook or the sample clip. You have the choice of selecting either Real Audio or Windows Media if you wish to play the sample clip.
Currently, there are three promotions offered:
-(1) Save $100 on an Apple iPod, or hp, PalmOne, Sony & Toshiba handhelds with a one year (12 month) subscription to AudibleListener
-(2) Receive a free Audible Otis MP3 player with a one year subscription to AudibleListener ($14.95 for BasicListener which offers 1 audio book and 1 monthly subscription)($19.95 for 2 audio books). The Otis player is 64MB and can also play mp3s, wma. Expandable to 192MB using MMC or SD card. Includes earphone jack and stero headphone.
-(3) 50% off your first month of membership. Download any two audio programs for $7.49 when you join AudibleListener for a trial month.
If you do a search on the internet, you may be able to find affiliate sites which link to Audible with free offers for a trial month of the BasicListener ($14.95). Or, if you recently purchased an Audible capable handheld such as a Palm, the Audible software is already included in the installation CDs. And there's instructions on how to take advantage of a free trial month of Audible. Regardless of how you try out the service, it certainly doesn't cost you anything to try a free month's servcie for free. But be careful, you may be hooked since the service is so convenient and everything works so seamless. You may find that after a month of early morning downloads of audiobook and news subscriptions that you can't give it up. Who can complain about being able to take advantage of listening to your favorite audiobook or news on your commute to work or whenever?
Once you join, either for your trial month or on a monthly subscription, you can select through the various categories of audiobooks and pick your choices.
At the top of the page, once you've signed in, you will notice to the top right,there are the menu options of: My Wish List, Claim/Buy Gift, Shopping Cart, and Help Center. Underneath, you can select among the other menu options of: Shop, My account, my library, my audible, refer your friends, and About audible.
At the left, information about your subscription including the your membership, available book balance, subscription balance and renewal date.
You can browse through titles by categories, best seller lists, Award winners, Oprah's picks, Staff picks, etc. There are many categories. Among them are: Fiction, Nonfiction, Business, Technology, Science, Languages, Religion & Spirituality, Children and Young Adults, Comedy, History, Mystery, Great Speakers and Storytellers, Self Development, Drama and Poetry, Arts & Entertainment, Newsworthy, Biographies and Memoirs, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Travel and Adventure, Sports, Newspapers and Magazines, Radio and TV, Speeches and Lectures, Audible Originals. And if you don't have the time to go through the categories, you can go through their A-Z catalog. You can view the catalog sorted by Audiobook title, Unabridged Audiobook titles, Subscription titles and New Titles. Or you can easily download the html lists for viewing in your own time, or even download a tab delimited file to be imported into an Excel spreadsheet program so you can easily sort through them the way you want. The spreadsheet file contains the title, the author, the narrator, running time, price, details on abridgement or unabridged, book category, and the format available.
Audible audio files are under the Audible audio format of .aa. There are 5 formats in which to choose from, each format based on the quality of the sound recording and thus determines how much information is packed into the audio file. A lesser quality format will be smaller in size than a better quality format. Format 1 is telephone-like quality, and is the smallest file format. Supported players for format 1 includes all models of Pocket PC 2002 and later versions, SonicBlue Rio 500. Format 2 is AM radio quality. Format 3 and 5 are FM Radio quality. Supported players for both format 2 and 3 include most current multimedia playable Palms such as Tungsten T, C, E series, Zire 71, Sony Clies, Pocket PC handhelds, Apple iPod and most mp3 players. Format 4 is mp3 like quality. Supported players for this format include the Apple iPod, Gateway DMP-X20, Kenwood Music Keg, Phatnoise Phatbox, SonicBlue Rio 500-900, and Phillips Rush. Supported player for format 5 is the Sony IC Recorder. As you can note, Audible is quite compatible with a wide variety of portable multimedia players.
The only format that is offered on Audible is their own Audible audio file format, .aa, which uses security technology including encryption (DRM) to protect purchased programs. Due to licensed copyright protection of the content for their Content Providers and Authors, Audible is unable to provide the audio content in mp3 format. Such measures are taken by Audible to prevent a customer from passing a long a duplicate digital audio file to another listener. There is a workaround to this. You burn the audible file onto a CD and then rip the audio into whatever compressed audio format (mp3, ogg vorbis, wma, etc) you wish. This may seem to be the easiest way. And there are other ways in which you can have it in mp3 format, which I will not discuss. Do a search on the internet and you should find some forums that discuss this. Although Audible doesn't offer the mp3 format, you can opt to receive a real time stream of the audio file in either RealOne Player format or Windows Media Player format. But that means that you'll be sitting at your computer for the duration of the stream, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of the service, which is meant to allow portability of the audio to wherever you are.
If you have not downloaded and installed the necessary programs for your computer (Audible Manager) and handheld/mp3 player (Audible player), you should do so now so that you can get things to work.
So, once you decided and selected your audio book and subscription and added them to your cart, you go through the checkout process, in which you provide details of your credit card and go through the payment transaction. Once done, you can choose between downloading the file directly onto your computer or stream it and listen to it at your computer. Click on the "My library" tab and under the "New" tab, you should find your selected programs. Click on the "Get it Now" button that corresponds to the selection you want to download or listen, select the format (1-4) and the "Download" or "Stream" buttons and the process will begin.
If you selected "Download", the Audible Manager software program will open up. It will attempt to communicate with the Audible program on the handheld/mp3 player. If you haven't opened up the Audible player on the handheld/mp3 player, you should do so. Once the Audible Manager detects the Audible player on the handheld, the software will connect to the Audible server and download your specified program. If it doesn't seem to detect your handheld, you might want to click on the Audible program on your handheld and select the "Enable communication" from the Apps menu. Depending on your settings and preferences, you might not have to do anything or click on any buttons to transfer the downloaded file from your computer to your handheld. Or, you might have to either right click on the downloaded file in Audible Manager and select "Add to PalmOne handheld"(or whatever portable player) or click on the same titled button near the top of the window or you can click on the "Auto Sync" button and it will automatically synchronise the files and download between the computer and handheld. If you select "Auto Sync", once you finish listening to the audio file on your handheld, the file will automatically be deleted. If you didn't do an Auto Sync, you just have to manually do it. And, should you make the mistake of downloading the wrong format originally, say format 1 (which doesn't support most mp3 players), you can easily re-download the correct format to your computer. There is no limit to the number of times you download the file to your computer.
As I mentioned previously, you can easily burn your downloaded Audible audio files onto a CD. But, in order to do so, you have to download the CD burning plugin. That takes a few minutes to download and install the plugin. You just have to click on the "Go to CD Burn mode" button in Audible Manager and it will notify you that you'll need to download and install the plugin. Once you have it installed, it will be shown as the device currently connected to the Audible Manager. Just put in your CD and select burn. The software will display how many CDs will be required to burn the entire program so that you know before you start the process. The software will remember where you are in the burning process so that even if you forget which CD you are on in the burning of the program, you'll be able to start where you last left off. There is no limit to how many times you can burn the same program to CDs. Once you paid for the audio program, you can do whatever you want. You can even schedule the Audible Manager software to burn your daily subscriptions to newspapers or periodicals or radio programs to CDRWs at a specific time, as someone has mentioned. To change from the CD Burn mode to your handheld mode, just change it via the "Devices" menu.
Audible grows from cross advertising via its supporters and content providers, marketing via banner ads, affiliate website advertising but a lot of it comes from referrals of its members and subscribers. Audible frequently sends out emails to its members to encourage them to refer their friends and family. Currently, they provide a 10% dicount on gift subscriptions and gift purchases to encourage members give Audible gifts to new members. As well, they have ongoing referral programs with Amazon gift certificates and contests.
Although Audible isn't the ultimate online audio book website since its selection of audiobooks isn't the best, but it is slowly growing. There has been an increase of unabridged versions of audiobooks and new releases are always coming up. And they are always receptive to audiobook suggestions.
One of the aspects of the site that I like is that there are member ratings and reviews of audiobooks which I find are very helpful in determining my online purchase. Many of the ratings and especially the brief reviews are very helpful, as many fellow Epinions members can understand. As well, you can always listen to a brief sample clip of the book, which can really give you a good idea whether you can deal with the voice of the speaker (believe me, that's very important when listening to audiobooks). If you find the narrator's voice irritating or boring, you won't bother listening to the rest of it, and thus, have wasted your time and money.
Audible seems to provide an image that it is very much into customer service. They have indicated on their website that should you forget to download your audiobook before the expiry of your subscription, you would be given one chance to be allowed to use it after expiry. Sure, they only allow you to do it once, but at least you're allowed. Technically, like many companies, they can refuse to accept any credits after expiry. But, it seems that it does take them a few days to respond though. I recently inquired about my account and it took them two days to reply to my email. So, if you're in a hurry to get a response, better to call them at their toll free number (1-888-283-5051) during their hours of operation from Monday to Saturday. And, it's nice to know that Audible does support charity via their support of Trickleup.org, which helps people all over the world in poverty with support to help them set up a microenterprise and overcome their poverty. Audible has earned some notable acclaim throughout the years. They were named as one of the World's Best 50 Sites by PC Magazine in August 2002. In April 2003, they were named "Best Consumer Web Service" by editors of CNet.com. Not bad for a six year old company, which survived the Dot com bubble, which spelled death for many online webstores.
In summary, here are the features of the Audible service:
Features
-ability to download daily periodicals such as newspapers like New York Times (daily editions) and Wall Street Journal (daily editions as well as weekend edition) or magazines such as Forbes (bi-weekly), or on demand radio programs such as NPR (daily editions), or just audio books.
-seamless integration of the download from the internet to the handheld or mp3 player. Just open up the Audible manager software program on the Windows desktop, turn on your mp3 player or handheld and open up Audible. The software will detect the device, download the daily subscription or audiobook and then transfer to the handheld or mp3 player. No need for Hotsync because the software will do the transfer automatically. This is a new feature in the Audible Manager 2.0.
-can download the audio file onto your computer's hard drive or have it stream to your computer, so you can "listen" immediately.
-once downloaded, you can easily transfer the file to your mp3 player, or burn onto a CD.
-ability to burn the audiobooks or your audio subscriptions to a CD, so that you can listen to them in your home, car or portable CD player. When burning a large file, the CD burning plugin will determine where the start and end times of the audio file is so that you won't miss any important passages.
-reminder daily emails of your daily subscriptions to remind you to download the daily audio. Can opt to stop these email reminders if you wish.
-can do the download as often as you want and at whatever time you wish. Very flexible.
-if you download the wrong format onto your computer (1, 2, 3,or 4), you can re-download the file in another format.
-even if your subscription expires, you can still have access to your previously paid audiobook or files by logging into your account. There isn't a any restriction from allowing you access to your previously purchased files even if your account isn't active anymore.
-periodically have a 20% off special or Christmas gift savings sales or other sales.
-have special promotions such as a free Otis mp3 player if you sign up for a year of AudibleListener program ($14.95 a month for 1 audio book and 1 subscription). Apparently it was $12.95 and $15.95.
-can contact the company via emails or phone, although it may take a couple of days before they reply to your email.
-mp3 format is not available since Audible believes in protecting intellectual property of the authors and content providers.
-very easy to select and pay for your ebook choices. Once you pay, you can download the book asap.
-selection isn't great but it's okay. You might want to check out the selections in the categories before you decide to go for a monthly subscription in case you run out of choices. There is now a lot more unabridged books, compared to previously.
-has a rating and reviews section for every audio book or subscription by members. You can provide your rating and reviews of books you've purchased to help fellow members.
Using the Audible player software on the handheld is very easy. You either install the software if included in the handheld's installation CD via that CD, or could easily download the software by going to Audible's website and download the software and install it onto your computer, which also sets up the installation files ready for installation on the handheld when you do the HotSync.
http://www.audible.com/software
Once installed, it's very simple and straightforward to navigate around. The program has the well known symbols for the fast forward, rewind, pause and play buttons. You can use your handheld's navigation buttons to fast forward or rewind, increase or decrease volume. One nice feature, which is showing up in many portable media player software is the automatic turning off of the display after a specified period of time from 30 seconds to 3 mins. As well, Audible also allows the enabling of background playback, which allows you to still run other programs while the player is running. Although many players now have these features, it's still nice to have them in the Audible player program. And if you wish to have easier access to the player's buttons, you can easily toggle to the Large buttons screen, which allows you to use your fingers to tap the buttons, rather than pulling out your stylus or trying to use your fingernails.
If you wish to listen to Audible audio files on with your Windows Media player, after it's downloaded on your computer, you'll need to download and install the Windows Media Filter. Without the filter, you won't be unable to open the Audible audio file with Windows Media Player.
I am currently taking advantage of the trial month of Audible and I have to say that the convenience of being able to download and listen to my daily dose of Wall Street Journal is very nice. The seamless integration of the Audible Manager desktop software and the Audible player on the handheld makes the whole process very easy and quick. Within minutes, I could be listening to the program on my handheld while I commute to work. For a busy body, this is a great way to keep up to date on the latest news, or business news in the case of the Wall Street Journal, while not having it take up any more of your time. Once the trial subscription is over, I may decide to continue the service or find a way to retrieve other online streaming news to download and play on my handheld. At $14.95 a month, it may seem pricey, but if you compare it to regular newspaper subscriptions, it's not that much different. And with the Basic Listener service, you do get an audiobook download each month. Audible may seem pricey, but it sure is addictive. Once you sign up for the trial month, you might not want to cancel. As I mentioned before, it may take two days for customer service to respond back to your emails, so you might want to call them up directly if you have immediate concerns. Overall, I am very happy with the service and would recommend it. Going for the trial month is probably the best way to "test out" the service, rather than plunging into a 12 month subscription just so that you can take advantage of their promotion of a free Otis mp3 player or $100 off a portable handheld. Or, if you know of a friend who has the service, you can give them a hint that you might be interested in a gift subscription for Christmas.
Related review: Zire 71: http://www.epinions.com/content_116392562308
Thanks as always for taking the time to read and rate my lengthy review. As always, I try to fit as much details in my reviews to help a potential consumer of the product or service.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? BasicListener monthly service of 1 monthly subscription & 1 audiobook
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Epinions.com ID:
maceyr
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Location: Canada
Reviews written: 129
Trusted by: 150 members
About Me:
I hardly have time for Epinions anymore but do try to read and rate.
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