Audiobooks
 

I received a DVD from Amazon which came with a slip of paper saying
Download 1 FREE AUDIOBOOK
I went to the site, signed up for 30 days free membership, selected a
book and downloaded two files of type .aa. I noticed that the only
software available was for Windoze or MacOS. So is there a package which

will play an audiobook. A search with apt-cache gives yatm, but, after
installing it, I tried it one of the files and it merely produced
horrible sounds. Certainly nothing intelligible.


So are audiobooks only for Windoze or MacOS? Has anybody any suggestions?
--
Sian Mountbatten
Algol 68 specialist


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Audiobooks
 

Hi Sian!
I don't know, which codec .aa will be exactly, but you might want to try
mplayer, esepcially with the codecs pakc, which is available from their site
at:

http://mplayerhq.hu
You won't probably find it in Debian, because there are some non-opensource
codecs in that. It's legal, but I'm not sure about all the licences.

Mplayer or one of these big beasts should be your best bet.
Have you tried the command file on one of your .aa files?
And a short note, which has nothing to do with the technical site of things:
Audiobooks, are just books read by someone. They have been around - as far as
I know - since tapes have been around. they are NOT bound to any format. If
you are looking for a nice collection of free and copyleft ones have a look at

http://librivox.org
Nice project.
Warm regards
Julien

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Such Is Life: Very Intensely Adorable;
Free And Jubilating Amazement Revels, Dancing On - FLOWERS!

====== Find my music at ======
http://juliencoder.de/nama/music.html
.....................................
"If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day,
so I never have to live without you." (Winnie the Pooh)


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Audiobooks
 

On Tuesday 28 February 2012 23:14:28 Sian Mountbatten wrote:
> So are audiobooks only for Windoze or MacOS?

Audiobooks come in many different formats, including MP3, CD and tape. aa is
somewhat problematic and I don't kno wwhat can read it.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/audible-com-aa-sound-format-on-linux-350452/

I think that my Daisy Player can, but at £250 before VAT, those with sight
might prefer another format/means of playback.

audible.com is very Linux unfriendly. When I tried to download my free aa
file, 2 or 3 years ago, it wouldn't even download onto Linux!!

I am sure that there are sites for the fully sighted to download audio books,
but I'm afraid that I don't know of any. I get my audio books variously from
the local library, two audiobook readers groups to which I belong, and 2
excellent charitable sites for the blind and partially sighted. I get them
on 'normal' CDs and tape, MP3 CDs and Daisy CDs. I could download them, but
don't because there are always problems with Linux and DRM or similar and I
Iike an easy life.

Lisi


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Audiobooks
 

Sian Mountbatten wrote:
> I received a DVD from Amazon which came with a slip of paper saying
> Download 1 FREE AUDIOBOOK
> I went to the site, signed up for 30 days free membership, selected
> a book and downloaded two files of type .aa. I noticed that the only
> software available was for Windoze or MacOS.

To paraphrase Rule 59 "Free advice is seldom cheap." here would be to
say "Free downloads are seldom cheap." Or perhaps the slip of paper
and a free download is worth the recycle value of the slip of paper.
Fortunately it didn't cost you any money to find out that it wasn't
really free.

> So is there a package which will play an audiobook. A search with
> apt-cache gives yatm, but, after installing it, I tried it one of
> the files and it merely produced horrible sounds. Certainly nothing
> intelligible.

The "free" download file format you have is not a generic audiobook
and is not a free format. It is a nonfree format file. It is an
AudibleAir proprietary file format.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audible.com

Specifically this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audible.com#Device_support

And this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audible.com#Digital_rights_management

As far as I know there are no free(dom) programs available to play the
audible aa file format. And also annoying is that the format won't
play on a lot of digital audio players. (I can't say most since
Android and iPhones both apparently will play aa files and together
they now have the majority of all players in existence.) It won't
play on any DAP that I own for example. There are many proprietary
programs available to play and transcode them to something that may be
played. But at that point you are throwing good money after bad.
Better to stop while you are ahead and go elsewhere.

> So are audiobooks only for Windoze or MacOS? Has anybody any suggestions?

There are many audiobooks from other sources. However Audible.com has
been reported to have a 95% share of the audiobook market. That is
huge, a near monopoly, and all of it is using the nonfree proprietary
format that is inaccessible to free(dom) software users.

Bob

Audiobooks
 

Hi bob!
Hm, audible might have 95% of the downloadable audiobook market, but you can
still get more than enough CDs and tapes, which is mostly allright. In any
case: I always found audible's quality inferior, to put it mildly. I haven't
listened to anything very recent though, because of their change in format. I
just didn't remember it being the infamous .aa . :-)
I think a few of the other big companies might do some online sales as in
Random house and co and of course the BBC, they've recently opened a download
portal. I know, that for Germany there are a few others, who do the same, yet
I suspect, that German audiobooks and radioplays are less interesting. :-)

Kind regards
Julien

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Such Is Life: Very Intensely Adorable;
Free And Jubilating Amazement Revels, Dancing On - FLOWERS!

====== Find my music at ======
http://juliencoder.de/nama/music.html
.....................................
"If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day,
so I never have to live without you." (Winnie the Pooh)


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Audiobooks
 

<snip>

You may try upload it into the youtube and then download back in other format.


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Audiobooks
 

Lina!
Does youtube support upload in aa-format?
This would be cool, since you might use youtube-dl (a python script) to
download it again and then you can use mplayer to transcode it:
mplayer -vo null -vc null -ao pcm:file=my_name.wav
youtube.whatever_video_format

then you could easily convert it to mp3 or ogg.
Warm regards
Julien

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Such Is Life: Very Intensely Adorable;
Free And Jubilating Amazement Revels, Dancing On - FLOWERS!

====== Find my music at ======
http://juliencoder.de/nama/music.html
.....................................
"If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day,
so I never have to live without you." (Winnie the Pooh)


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Audiobooks
 

Meanwhile I added explicitly Linux incompatibility, which seems to be
widely reported, to the Wikipedia page, in case people hit it searching
for the format ;)


Lorenzo.

On 29/02/12 11:07, Julien Claassen wrote:

Lina!
Does youtube support upload in aa-format?
This would be cool, since you might use youtube-dl (a python script)
to download it again and then you can use mplayer to transcode it:
mplayer -vo null -vc null -ao pcm:file=my_name.wav
youtube.whatever_video_format

then you could easily convert it to mp3 or ogg.
Warm regards
Julien

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Such Is Life: Very Intensely Adorable;
Free And Jubilating Amazement Revels, Dancing On - FLOWERS!

====== Find my music at ======
http://juliencoder.de/nama/music.html
.....................................
"If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day,
so I never have to live without you." (Winnie the Pooh)





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Audiobooks
 

On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Julien Claassen <julien@mail.upb.de> wrote:
> Lina!
> *Does youtube support upload in aa-format?

Here I need apologize. I have never met the aa-format.

Last time I saw this post, just that thought came to my mind. so I
just posted it and thought the OP can get another options to try.

> *This would be cool, since you might use youtube-dl (a python script) to
> download it again and then you can use mplayer to transcode it:
> mplayer -vo null -vc null -ao pcm:file=my_name.wav
If I remember correctly, you once told me this command on one of the
questions I asked months ago,
> youtube.whatever_video_format
> *then you could easily convert it to mp3 or ogg.
> *Warm regards
Thanks,
>
> * * * * * Julien
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> Such Is Life: Very Intensely Adorable;
> Free And Jubilating Amazement Revels, Dancing On - FLOWERS!
>
> ====== * * *Find my music at * * *======
> http://juliencoder.de/nama/music.html
> .....................................
> "If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day,
> so I never have to live without you." (Winnie the Pooh)


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Audiobooks
 

On Tuesday 28 February 2012 23:45:18 Julien Claassen wrote:
> If
> you are looking for a nice collection of free and copyleft ones have a look
> at http://librivox.org

Thanks, Julien. :-) I have added this to my audiobook bookmarks.

Lisi


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