Podtrapper for Audiobook Listening-Suggestions

[sreid55]

I've found that Podtrapper makes an excellent app for listening to audiobooks (as it keeps track of location in each track,unlike Blackberry Media Player). A few enhancements would make it perfect:

1. The ability to 'bookmark' a folder containing an audiobook in the main screen (the screen which lists podcast feeds). Currently, there's a "File Playback" link there, but if I could add a shortcut that goes directly to a folder, I wouldn't need to navigate to the file location each time I want to listen to a particular book. I envision this process working like adding a podcast, except you'd add (browse to) a folder instead of pasting a URL.

2. In file playback mode, when one file is finished playing, automatically start playing the next file in the directory.

3. This may be a long shot, but particular to audiobooks, with the above two features, have the app keep track of what file (as well as what position in the file) within a folder was last played.

Thanks again!
Scott

[marwatk]

Hi Scott, thanks for the suggestions, they're very good ideas. I'm not sure when I'll have them in, but I'll put them on the list.

-Marcus

[FragU]

Scott -

Excellent ideas on audio books. I used to carry an 80gb Zune for audio books (which I listen to while walking / cleaning the house / doing yardwork), and with Marcus' constantly evolving and excellent product I now only have to carry my Berry (in fact, Marcus, the "Carry your Berry. Period." could become your slogan for the product). I would heavily suggest item #2 on Scott's list as I am constantly having to stop every hour to play the next CD saved.

Again, thanks for the hard work Marcus.

- Larry

[marwatk]

Hi guys,

I just pre-released 1.6.12, wanna check it out and let me know? It adds support for adding a folder to the playlist (automatically sorted), excluding any that have been completely played. I think that'll fix all of the issues (mostly). Once I get playlists to save across restarts it should get it all the way there.

Let me know...

-Marcus

[sreid55]

Marcus - Thanks for addressing this. It seems to work. Honestly, though, my listening habits are such that this would be wonderful if it could support multiple playlists. I may be listening to a book on one playlist, and take a break to listen to podcasts somewhere else.
Thanks
Scott

[snowmangoh]

Awesome Ideas Scott... I think what you're saying is add another selection to the main menu for a folder you've added (so it looks like another podcast), right? If so, I totally agree... I listen to audioboooks non-stop. In fact all my podcasts are short stories (pseudopod/escapepod/etc.) or things I've nabbed from podiobooks.com, and that sort of feature would be extremely useful! Not only that, but I've said before I like the playback functions of podtrapper better anyhow, so there are a few music albums I would add to my homescreen as well if this was implemented. Thanks!

[jack]

One bit that would be nice is an option to delete chapters after listening to them. This option exists for podcasts but not for file playback. I agree that this is my preferred player for audiobooks because it does such a nice automatic job of keeping track where I am. Good stuff!
jack

[chaz]

So I'm testing this software at the moment and will probably buy two licenses, but since thats all a big if I know my input might not be at the top of the list. Still.. I saw this after thinking much the same thing and couldn't resist.

Here is how I think you could implement this most effectively while also adding functionality for podcast listeners... Obviously since I don't have the source I could be way off on the ease of putting this in..

What about the ability to add a folder as a podcast? Simply speaking it would show the folder in the podcast list window, possibly with the assumption that the first picture it encounters is album artwork to be displayed as the picture, and if there isn't one.. either blank or a default (I'm not really sure how the software handles this situation with podcasts as it is).

After that, and this might sound simpler in my head than it is... save a playlist of each podcast group. I, and I would assume a lot of other people, tend to listen to one podcast at a time rather than doing a whole lot of jumping. So, save the file they were on last in this playlist. Give an option in the blackberry menu perhaps to just resume where we last left off with a particular podcast/audiobook.

This alone would be huge. The final touch would be allowing a per-podcast setting for whether the playlists should be ordered top to bottom or bottom to top. In a folder added an assumption could be made that lower number = bottom. This would also be useful for podcasts, as some I want to listen to newer to older and some I want to catch up on old episodes first.

Aside from all that.. Thank you for the software. I spent so long looking for something to take care of podcasts for me (I had been using Opera as an RSS reader and then manually downloading podcasts.. Slow and painful.)

[marwatk]

Hi chaz,

The folder as a podcast thing has been on my todo list for a while, just as a low priority. Same goes for multiple playlists, though they're a bit more difficult.

But, the way you're describing it sounds like a lot of it could be accomplished with the current features (mostly).

Right now you can highlight any folder and choose 'Add to playlist', and it will add all of the sub items that aren't finished in name order, so in the case of audiobooks, you should get a playlist starting where you left off with all the remaining episodes added.

For the playlist sorting, you can defined how you want it sorted, though it doesn't really work for files (not sure why I didn't think about that when creating it), but for podcasts you can sort on pretty much anything in whatever order you want. Though it doesn't save these settings per-podcast, only as a whole.

Hope this helps for now, until I get some additional features in.

Let me know if I missed anything.

-Marcus

[quixin]

I would like to vote for the feature to add a folder as a podcast but I cant find it on the feature request list.

I found PodTrapper after searching all over crackberry for an audiobook solution. Im pleased that finding PodTrapper has given me the ability to do that but it still feels like a "work around". I would really like to see my audio book on the main list with artwork and everything.

People on crackberry seem desperate to find audio book software for titles they already own on CD or mp3 or whatever. The only other solutions available require you to purchase your audiobooks from the authors service (audible).

Podcast and audiobooks seem to go hand in hand. I really believe you should make audiobooks a strong feature of PodTrapper and you will attract more users/customers.

[tamole]

I'm not alone! After giving up my Palm Centro for the new Blackberry Storm 2, I was beginning to despair that there were no solutions for listening to audiobooks on a BB. I tried this program a few weeks ago and it didn't work well, but then stumbled into a forum where it was discussed and decided to try again. The updates are much improved, but I would add my name to the suggestions listed above. I would also like a menu option that shows a list of bookmarks to return to if I want to go back to an earlier one. I found such a list by accident, but can't remember how I got there. In any case, kudos to the author for persevering in what looks like a very promising app!

[Care]

I have been using PodTrapper for almost a year now. I mainly use it for audiobooks, but lately I have been having to go back and use my Zen instead. I have run into a problem lately (seems to be while listening to some of my mp3 audiobooks instead of m4b files). While listening to a long audiobook in mp3 format, when I try to fast foward it automatically starts the file over from the beginning. This is the worst, and I can't seem to find a way around it besides converting the file to m4b, which takes entirely too long.

Also, to make me go back and use PT with my storm (which would be what I would prefer) there are a couple things that would make it a lot easier for me. First is to have a save playlist option. I hate that when I listen to a file it gets deleted automatically from the playlist. I listen to an audiobook every night as a go to sleep. Some of my books have hundreds of files, so you can see how having to go back and find which files I need to re-add to the list, and then add them individually, can be a pain. Because I fall asleep, I can sometimes have 50 files play that I actually didn't listen to. Also, it would be great to have a bookmark option that actually takes you to the place in the file instead of just showing it. Another thing that is kind of annoying is that you have to go all the way back to the main menu to get to the settings. It would be nice to be able to access the settings from anywhere in PT.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound like I'm coming down on PT. I can see how with a few additions or adjustments I would use it and my BB as my only media player. I heard rave reviews about PT before getting my BB and one of my reasons for getting it was so I would be able to carry around one device. I would love to see this become a possibility.

[marwatk]

I have been using PodTrapper for almost a year now. I mainly use it for audiobooks, but lately I have been having to go back and use my Zen instead. I have run into a problem lately (seems to be while listening to some of my mp3 audiobooks instead of m4b files). While listening to a long audiobook in mp3 format, when I try to fast foward it automatically starts the file over from the beginning. This is the worst, and I can't seem to find a way around it besides converting the file to m4b, which takes entirely too long.

Unfortunately the CDMA devices (Storm included) have issues with long VBR encoded MP3 files. RIM is aware, but no word on a solution yet...

I'm working on ways to make playlists work with the sleep timer, hopefully I'll have a solution there soon (though it would still require enabling the sleep timer to function properly).

I can definitely add the settings menu to all screens, I'll put it on my todo list.

Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see.

-Marcus

[Care]

Oh, I see. It's a RIM problem, I never tried playing them with the BB media player since I never use it.

I always enable the sleep timer, so any way to have the files stay in the playlist would be great.

Thanks for the fast reply!

[therealjoeblow]

One more suggestion/request for audiobooks's - can you implement a method to "hide" them from the BB Media Player?

All of my audiobooks in .mp3 format showup in the standard media player and get included in the auto-created playlist when I "play all", so when listening to music, I get randomly inserted audiobooks.

I took a quick look at the folder where podcasts are stored, and it looks like the .dat extension is added to file_xx.mp3 (so it's file_xx.mp3.dat) - I'm assuming that is your way of hiding the podcast .MP3's from the built in media player?

So I tried renaming my audiobooks to "File.mp3.dat" and unfortunately PodTrapper doesn't see them anymore when I do that.

Could you implement similar functionality so the audiobooks don't get picked up by media player but do by PodTrapper? That would be *great*

Cheers
The REAL Joe

[marwatk]

Can do...

-Marcus

[therealjoeblow]

Thank you!

You are about to sell another copy after only a couple of days trial use

Cheers
The REAL Joe

[meneelyt]

I would like to vote for the feature to add a folder as a podcast but I cant find it on the feature request list.

This sounds like something I was going to ask for: When I create an audiobook playlist, I'd like to be able to see it listed on the main screen along with my podcasts:

Prairie Home Companion
Car Talk
War and Peace
Men at Arms

(The first two are podcasts, the second two audiobooks).

With the current configuration I have to [n]View playlist [n]Switch to playlist - which works fine, but isn't exactly slick.

Is "make a playlist into a pseudo-podcast" available as a vote-able feature request?

Tim