Yeah, I was just thinking Overdrive as they may have more stuff about
technology, and the rest of a couple of series that I only got to listen to
one or two books from and never found the rest.
----- Original Message -----
From: "erik burggraaf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: My Wife Has a Question
You don't want it anyway, smiles. I wasn't seriously suggesting it as an
alternative. I put it out there in regards to some one questioning
whether Ebay wasn't the only one of it's kind. Which it flat isn't.
No, if you're going to start out with a download service,
1 check it to make sure it has the selection you want. Audible is a safe
bet in this regard.
2, look for something that has the audio quality you like. Audible falls
over here unless you have leaf letis for ears. The bass is missing from
many of the audio files, and the trebbel is boosted through the roof.
That means you can hear every swish in the 32 kb encoding.
3, make sure it's compadible with your player of choice. The safest way
to do it is to use a service that sells raw mp3. Right now the best one
of these is emusic, though since it's only been around for 8 months or
so, the selection is a bit peekid.
Before you decide, check out audible and at least emusic, if not pay per
listen as well. Do some searches. listen to some demos. Don't forget
about kitabe as well. You can't get brilliance titles from audible as
far as I know. Brilliance likes exclusivity agreements, and so all their
stuff's gone to overdrive. But if you're a brilliance feand, you can
sign up for kitabe and get mp3's on cd through the mail. Now, mp3 cd
quality is vast and stunning overkill for mp3 listening, but the quality
will never be matched by any download. Kitabe also has bbc audiobooks
america mp3 cd's. BBC titles are recorded and marketed only for
libraries and are farely exclusive. I usually like to buy my mp3 cd's
and keep them, but I've seriously considered kitabe just to get the bbc
stuff.
best,
Erik
erik burggraaf
Certified Technician
Assistive Computing LTD Support and training
Sales department: 888-828-2445
Support and Training: 888-255-5194
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website coming soon
On 21-May-08, at 1:45 PM, Brent Harding wrote:
The thing with Overdrive is signing up for it, or finding someone at the
regional library for the blind who knows what it is so I could get my
login for it.
----- Original Message ----- From: "erik burggraaf"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X
by theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 8:50 AM
Subject: Re: My Wife Has a Question
True, although that is no great loss from a quality or ownership
standpoint. It is a bit of a loss if you want to download brilliance
audio titles, but if you buy them on mp3 cd or rent them on mp3 cd you
get absolutely magnificent mp3 quality on any player of your choice.
So, I think I will not morn overdrive. I only wanted to mention it to
round out the list of major download providers. I believe net library
is also not mac os compadible. Toronto Public Library is an overdrive
provider I do believe. I've never checked it out, but I'm pretty sure
we don't have access to netlibrary anyway.
Best,
Erik
erik burggraaf
Certified Technician
Assistive Computing LTD Support and training
Sales department: 888-828-2445
Support and Training: 888-255-5194
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website coming soon
On 20-May-08, at 7:21 PM, Richie Gardenhire wrote:
Overdrive only works on Windows, I was informed. Richie Gardenhire,
Anchorage, Alaska.
On May 20, 2008, at 3:32 PM, erik burggraaf wrote:
Oh my goodness no.
The two services I really like are emusic download service and
kitabe.com audiobook rentals on mp3 cd.
There is also pay per listen, which is a service of audiobooks.com.
Then there is overdrive which sells and loans downloads. Then there
is netlibrary, which is a competater to overdrive that just serves
library markets. Books in motion just released it's own direct to
customer download service which is kind'a nice since they just happen
to have a pile of stuff I want, and their files are non-drm. I
haven't bought one yet though. I just found out about it yesterday,
so I can't say what the quality is like.
Randomhouse is also supposed to have it's own download service I got
a big press release about it from a couple of sources but that was
before the great imap disaster that tossed a thick stack of email out
the window. I just googled it and got the audiobook download faq,
but it just sends you off to emusic, audible, and overdrive. .
So, of the mainstays of download, audible, overdrive pay per listen,
and emusic, the only non-drm provider is emusic. That might in fact,
probably will change now that amazon owns both Brilliance Corporation
and Audible.com. Just how it will change is going to be interesting,
since all of briliance's titles are right now licenced exclusively to
overdrive, which is the direct competater of audible, which is the
download service owned by the same company that owns the publisher.
It's a nice little conflict of interest that has people speculating
that the entire world of mainstream audiobooks will go fully non-DRM
driven by Amazon which already has a major label non-drm mp3 music
service and a streaming ebook service.
You can wake up now, smiles. So to answer your question, audible's
not the only one.
Best,
Erik
erik burggraaf
Certified Technician
Assistive Computing LTD Support and training
Sales department: 888-828-2445
Support and Training: 888-255-5194
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website coming soon
On 20-May-08, at 1:04 PM, Brent Harding wrote:
Isn't Audible about the only one out there?
----- Original Message ----- From: "Richie Gardenhire"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS
X by theblind" <[email protected]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 10:37 PM
Subject: My Wife Has a Question
For Father's Day, my wife wants to get a subscription for me to get
audiobooks. Of the services out there, which one gives the
overall, best service for the money? Richie Gardenhire, Anchorage,
Alaska.
