Audiobook questions

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Audiobook questions

New postby grey on Sun Mar 15, 2009 6:25 pm

I'm new to PodTrapper and want to use it for listening to AudioBooks on my Storm. I've downloaded the trial and will buy it if I can figure out how to make it do what I think it does. I've figured out how to navigate to my book files. Some book cd's get burned into 99 small tracks. Adding these one at a time to the playlist would be very time consuming. Is there a way to have them get on my playlist automatically, or even a way to "add all" at one time? The trial version I'm playing with is 1.7.2. Also, the trial installed 2 icons...one called PodTrapper and the other called PodTrapper Play/Pause. Which one of these am I supposed to use for listening to mp3's?

Thanks,

Grey
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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby marwatk on Sun Mar 15, 2009 6:59 pm

Hi there, you should be able to highlight the containing folder and choose 'add to playlist' from the menu. This should add them all to the playlist in order, which will then manage them. (Version 1.8.x makes this better, since it stores your playlist after podtrapper closes, but it won't be released until tomorrow).

The extra icon is for assigning to a convenience key if you want to. It will tell podtrapper to play or pause without having to have podtrapper in the foreground. If you don't need that, though, you can safely hide it.

Hope this helps...

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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby grey on Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:02 pm

Thanks for the tips. That worked fine. One other question...I understand that the Pause/Play icon can be assigned to a button, but my Storm headset has pause, RW, FW buttons that let me control audio without having to pull out the phone. It doesn't seem to work while in PodTrapper. Is that because of something I'm not doing right, or it just doesn't work this way at this time?

Thanks,

Grey
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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby grey on Mon Mar 16, 2009 7:43 am

From reading around on the forum, I'm guessing that your having problems tying PodTrapper into the controls on a headset. For me (and I would think others), this is a pretty big deal. You know...your walking around the house or at work and someone walks up...you want to be able to easily stop play, without having to un-holster or un-pocket your device. If you can't recognize the pause button on a headset, is it possible to tie either the lock or the silence ringer buttons to a pause function. On the Storm (can't speak for other phones), both of these buttons are on the top of the phone, therefore easy to press without un-holstering or un-pocketing. Just an idea.

Thanks,

Grey
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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby marwatk on Mon Mar 16, 2009 2:42 pm

Hi Grey,

Unfortunately RIM doesn't allow third party developers (like me) to access any of those buttons when the phone is holstered, locked, or the application is in the background (which includes when the screen is dark). I'd love to add support for all the various buttons just like the internal media player but they don't allow it.

Wish I had a better answer...

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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby grey on Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:27 am

One other thought/question...In the latest version, if you create your playlist in PodTrapper, but then use the Play in BBMP feature, do you know if the headset pause control would then work while PodTrapper keeps track of where your are in the book?

Thanks,

Grey
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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby marwatk on Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:05 pm

PodTrapper can't see anything in the BBMP actually (there's no way any third party dev can, sadly). And, the initial testing I've done there doesn't seem to be a way to send a playlist over either.

So, while the "Play in BBMP" option is useful in certain situations, it pretty much removes a major function (the bookmarkability).

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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby rkoffler on Sat Jun 06, 2009 8:40 am

"I've figured out how to navigate to my book files."

How do I do this? I just figured out how to convert Audible aa to mp3, making them ready for Podtrapper. I can't figure out how to play the mp3s in Podtrapper.
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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby marwatk on Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:30 am

rkoffler wrote:I just figured out how to convert Audible aa to mp3, making them ready for Podtrapper. I can't figure out how to play the mp3s in Podtrapper.


Hi rkoffler,

At the bottom of the PodTrapper main screen there's a 'File playback' item that lets you browse and play (or add to playlists) any media files on the device. Give that a try and let me know if you run into any issues.

-Marcus
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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby rkoffler on Sat Jun 06, 2009 4:13 pm

Perfect!

BTW, you should advertise how to use PT as the Audible player. There is no way Audible will ever ever make something as feature-rich and good as PT.

All you need is a file-conversion program -- of which there are plenty. In fact, you can throw in a bundled product that includes the file converter and PT.

There are countless BB users who can't play Audible on their BB's because Audible's software is horrendous. Scratch that, it's beyond horrendous.
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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby marwatk on Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:10 am

Unfortunately Audible files use DRM (the conversion utilities for .aa files hook into the audible libraries on your computer and extract the DRM information out of them). While it's technically possible its legality is shaky (and I can't really afford to be sued, heh). I'd love to get official audible support in PodTrapper but so far they've been unresponsive (they do have a program for third party devices).

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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby CommuterBob on Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:36 am

marwatk wrote:Unfortunately Audible files use DRM (the conversion utilities for .aa files hook into the audible libraries on your computer and extract the DRM information out of them). While it's technically possible its legality is shaky (and I can't really afford to be sued, heh). I'd love to get official audible support in PodTrapper but so far they've been unresponsive (they do have a program for third party devices).

-Marcus


Audible has this wierd thing going on - like a Jekyll and Hyde split personality. Really awesome stuff they do: Create a market for publishers of spoken-word audio pieces; broad sponsorship of podcasts that get to their target audience - Slate Polical Gabfest (et al), EscapePod (et al), and now Crackberry.com!

Really dumb stuff they do: Restrict customers to use of either iTunes or their home-built app. Now that I'm blackberry only, I don't use iTunes, and I can't stomach their p.o.s. app.

What they should do: Take a cue from What Would Google Do?, and bend over backwards to offer a free platform Marcus (and anyone else) can use to incorporate their products. How much faster would adoption of Audible happen if every new Podtrapper user found a built-in link to Audible complete with a free book download? When sponsoring podcasts, how much more credible to offer a free download of a useful app (Podtrapper) than a "free book if you give us your credit card first" deal?

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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby marwatk on Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:19 pm

So what's hilarious is after writing my story (http://www.versatilemonkey.com/story.html) that questions why I can't get anyone from Audible to contact me, I *finally* get a contact from them on the 20th (making the front page of slashdot helped). They'd like to schedule a time this week to talk. Except I reply immediately (6 min after their email) saying I'm free every afternoon this week, just let me know what time, and it's now 10:30PM friday night with no response. Good times. <sigh>

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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby arkolbus on Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:01 pm

Audible has updated their app. Has anyone tried using yet (especially those with "older" devices like the 83xx series)? It's supposed to be faster, but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet (way behind on podcasts).

Unless Audible seriously improves their app, I'd still prefer being able to use PT, just to have the single interface. Hope Audible gets off their ass and works something out soon.
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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby ventzi on Tue Oct 20, 2009 8:55 am

has anyone been able to get the podtrapper to work with audible.com's podcasting with a blackberry curve 8310? i was thinking to use the podtrapper to download and save the daily podcast .aa files to the audible's local audiobooks folder so they can be than played with audble's app. the problem seems to be that podtrapper seems to rename the files when saving them giving them and .mp3 extension. can this be changed? thank you.
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Re: Audiobook questions

New postby marwatk on Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:23 pm

Hi ventzi,

PodTrapper can generally download them (but I think it messes up the extension, I'll have to fix that), but without Audible's help it will never be able to play them. They are protected with DRM encryption that makes it not possible for anything but the audible player to play them.

Sorry I don't have a better answer for you...

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