N900, Panucci and Audible.com

[bgrigor]

Greetings!

I have installed Panucci the audiobook player on my N900 and my N900 is connected via USB cable in PC Suite Mode. Hooray! Audible Manager has detected the N900. However, all my audiobooks are in Format 4. When I try to drag them to the device, Audible Manager says:

Audio programs in Format 4 are not supported by N900 (PC-Suite Mode). Those programs were not added to your transfer list. N900 (PC-Suite Mode) supports audio only in Format 2 and Format 3.

Is this info provided by Panucci? Does Panucci support Format 4? Is there another way to get the audio books onto the N900 so I can try them out in Panucci?

Any tips on getting the N900 with Panucci to work with Audible Manager from Audible.com would be appreciated.

Thanks so much and Happy New Year!

[DojwqIO]

Did you try using Format 3? Do the files play in the N900?
You can re-download your audiobooks from your Audible library in multiple formats and multiple times. It would be great if Format 3 actually works.

[bgrigor]

Did you try using Format 3? Do the files play in the N900?
You can re-download your audiobooks from your Audible library in multiple formats and multiple times. It would be great if Format 3 actually works.

First I tried copying all the .aa files in Format 4 to the N900 using USB Mass Storage Mode. Panucci would not play them (just did nothing). Media Player would say "unsupported media type" or words to that effect.

Then I re-downloaded one of the files in Format 3. Audible Manager was happy now to transfer it to the N900 in PC-Suite Mode. It put the file in:

/N900/Data/Audible

But Panucci still does nothing when it tries to open the file.d Media Player now says "Playback error" which I suppose is an improvement. Now I'm thinking there is a DRM issue and I need to "activate" the N900 with Audible.com. Audible Manager says I need to go online with the phone to do it, so that's what I'm going to do next.

[bgrigor]

Going online with the phone didn't help. Audible.com doesn't list the N900. How the Audible Manager on my laptop seemed to recognize the N900 and its capabilities in PC-Suite Mode is a mjystery.

[DojwqIO]

Yeah, it looks like it's a DRM issue. Too bad.
I haven't been able to ever play Audible files in Ubuntu either.

[geneven]

Who ever said Audible worked with Panucci? That would be news to me, and I care!

On the N810, Audible works fine with the Garnet Palm emulator, and they are saying that the Garnet thing works with the N900, so I have hopes for it. It works in format 2 or 3, as I recall.

If you look around at the Alternative area, you will find a discussion of Audible over there.

You supposedly can play Audible Manager using Wine, so that might solve the Ubuntu problem, but the Palm emulator seems to be the best hope for N900 users.

Edit: here's that Audible thread (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=35326) I mentioned.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=35326

[bgrigor]

Who ever said Audible worked with Panucci? That would be news to me, and I care!

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Audible works with Panucci...just thought I'd try it to see (hoping). It appears it doesn't.

Edit: here's that Audible thread (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=35326) I mentioned.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=35326

Thanks, I checked it out. I do have the Garnet VM installed, so it's a tempting option.

[thp]

Panucci uses GStreamer for playback and therefore does not support any more DRM than the "stock" media player does.

You can still play non-DRM'ed audiobooks by buying them on CD and ripping them into MP3s or by getting them from another source like http://librivox.org/ :)

[geneven]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Audible works with Panucci...just thought I'd try it to see (hoping). It appears it doesn't.



Thanks, I checked it out. I do have the Garnet VM installed, so it's a tempting option.

Unfortunately, I tried a zillion things and couldn't get it to work. I will keep my N800 handy; it works perfectly on that!

I hope that someone can figure out how to fix it. There are a few of us with big Audible collections and I'm one.

[go1dfish]

DRM screws legitimate customers once again. Big surprise here.

[bgrigor]

Unfortunately, I tried a zillion things and couldn't get it to work. I will keep my N800 handy; it works perfectly on that!

I hope that someone can figure out how to fix it. There are a few of us with big Audible collections and I'm one.

Agreed. I have a small but growing Audible collection. My Sansa Fuze included 2 months free at Audible.com which is how I got started. Now that I have the N900 with 32GB, I'm hoping to retire the 8GB+8GB Fuze. I already have 17GB of audio on the N900 and looking to expand that.

[40love]

I called Audible.com about N900...nothing yet from them, but getting requests.
Did anyone figure out something for N900 and Audible.com files?

[hcancelik]

They have lots of weird phones/devices support but N900. :(

[torsen]

I listen to a lot of audible books on my N900. The only way I have managed to do this is by downloading the files to my pc via audible manager and then strip the drm out of them with a program called sound taxi and load the converted mp3 on to the N900, doesn't take too long.

Never had to do this with my old symbian os phones as the audible app available for symbian works very well. Agreed we really need something like this for maemo right now.

[jalladin]

I listen to a lot of audible books on my N900. The only way I have managed to do this is by downloading the files to my pc via audible manager and then strip the drm out of them with a program called sound taxi and load the converted mp3 on to the N900, doesn't take too long.

Never had to do this with my old symbian os phones as the audible app available for symbian works very well. Agreed we really need something like this for maemo right now.

i just found this thread the hard way... i feel the same as the rest of you guys.. i just tried all that i could to get my audible books on my N900, but with no luck. I looked up this sound taxi business and the Cnet message board on it, says its good, but i thought it was free. I still wish Audible.com would give throw us a bone here I mean come on..

[torsen]

I looked up this sound taxi business and the Cnet message board on it, says its good, but i thought it was free.

Apologies, I should have stated in my post that you do have to pay for sound taxi.

There may be other options available that are free, but ST is the best I could find. Plus what with recent developments/news [Meego] it is doubtful we will get anything from audible for maemo now. At least we have Panucci for playing the converted books :)

[amoult]

Apologies, I should have stated in my post that you do have to pay for sound taxi.

There may be other options available that are free, but ST is the best I could find. Plus what with recent developments/news [Meego] it is doubtful we will get anything from audible for maemo now. At least we have Panucci for playing the converted books :)

Do you know any freeware software which would remove drm from audible.com files? I have a three month subscription to audible.com, but I'll doubt I'll continue that if I don't find any freeware software for drm removal..

[geneven]

There is a teensy bit of hope, at least in my brain, that with the next update of Flash support will come support of Adobe Air, which might help with Audible books.

One of the things that has surprised me about the N900 is how Nokia happily dropped things it supported in earlier tablets, namely the Garnet/Palm/Audible stuff, as well as Rhapsody.

[shadowjk]

Nokia never did any garnet, palm, and never had any support for DRM audio files on the previous tablets.

[LloydB]

Hi I found an app called micremulator which is supposed to emulate a java based phone. Audible have a beta java player, anyone know how to get the two to work together?

[luh3418]

I asked audible if there were any plans to support N900 and they said, "unfortunately, we are not compatible with this device at this time and do not know when or even if we will be supported by this device anytime soon." :-(