[kichi_kichi]

hmm. For some reason, it does not detect the local audiobooks for me. I transferred them to the blackberry using a USB cable, and copying the .aa file to music/audible directory.

Does the audiobook need to be downloaded through the client for it to be recognized?

[ree_mn]

I don't know what the designed behavior is. But I had downloaded content using the 1.0.1 and it did not treat these as local audio books. To complicate matters, it also wouldn't allow me to successfully redownload these books. I ended up removing the entire directory contents via USB and then downloaded the books I wanted to listen to and everything worked fine from then on.

[Grimlin]

Wirelessly posted

Does it show the local books as playable when you go to "my library"? Because of the inconsistency of the "local" screen, I typically do not use it. The "my library" showing local books has been very consistent though.

[Grimlin]

Wirelessly posted

Looks like M3 will have some UI tweaks. Bold version got a font bump today. I like it small, the way it was, but I believe the average user might find the new font size to be more readable.

[kichi_kichi]

Originally Posted by Grimlin

Wirelessly posted

Does it show the local books as playable when you go to "my library"? Because of the inconsistency of the "local" screen, I typically do not use it. The "my library" showing local books has been very consistent though.

It shows a play button next to it. But when I click on it, I get the option to download or stream. None of them work for me though (am on BES)

[Grimlin]

Originally Posted by kichi_kichi

It shows a play button next to it. But when I click on it, I get the option to download or stream. None of them work for me though (am on BES)

To be sure I understand, books that you know are in mediacard\music\audible do not have a trashcan icon next to the play icon in the "my library" screen?

As far as the BES issue, there is something you can try. If your BES admin has not actively blocked carrier service books, this should allow you to stream / download.

1. Go to option/ advanced options / service books. Delete Desktop [IPPP].
2. Go back to audible app.
3. When you are done, go back to service books.
4. Press menu
5. Choose undelete.

A few of the connections within the audible app have issues with the BES transport. The order of precedence on Blackberry transport layers is:

1. WiFi
2. BES
3. BIS

If you take BES out of the loop, it bounces to the next one and works. So far, it seems like the connections that have BES trouble are:

• Offline check
• Streaming
• Downloading

[Turbosteve]

Well I came back from vacation to find a new public beta and you can't imagine how excited this made me I've installed the program, logged in, can navigate through the screens (albeit slowly, the online feel of it seems a bit sluggish) and then I shoot right to the my subscriptions section only to find none listed... All my books appear in my library, am I missing something here? I can't see how to refresh the list and show my subscriptions namely the NYT.

Thanks for the help and dedication from all the beta participants here like Grimlin who have kept us informed and kept pushing Audible.

Steve

[Grimlin]

I don't have any subscriptions myself, so I can't test it. If any one else has any working or has already gotten an answer from audible on this, please post. In the meantime, I have asked my contact for the current status of subscriptions in this build.

[Grimlin]

non-free subscriptions should work. Free ones (WSJ/NYT) do not. It isn't a code issue, it is an issue with how they are listed on your audible account. Audible is working on it on their end.

[Turbosteve]

Originally Posted by Grimlin

non-free subscriptions should work. Free ones (WSJ/NYT) do not. It isn't a code issue, it is an issue with how they are listed on your audible account. Audible is working on it on their end.

OK sounds good to me, I'll keep my eye's open then and wait for a future version supporting these.

Thanks again Grimlin.

[Grimlin]

Originally Posted by Turbosteve

OK sounds good to me, I'll keep my eye's open then and wait for a future version supporting these.

Thanks again Grimlin.

If I understand them correctly, there won't need to be an updated version. Once they fix it on their side, it should just show up.

[jgreenacres]

Grimlin, any chance they will update the beta to save the user profile so you can read local books without having to login? Also, bookmarks would be nice! I love the new player as it works much more consistenly with my bold, but those two options make me want to reload the old 1.0.72. Thanks for your help!

[Grimlin]

Originally Posted by jgreenacres

Grimlin, any chance they will update the beta to save the user profile so you can read local books without having to login? Also, bookmarks would be nice! I love the new player as it works much more consistenly with my bold, but those two options make me want to reload the old 1.0.72. Thanks for your help!

For some reason, it seems like it was built as a fully online app and they are working the local stuff in. In my mind, it was built a little backwards. That is just my opinion.

I know the goal is to have the local books without "logging in" past the obvious, initial validation the first time you load the app. In a previous alpha build, this worked more consistently. It isn't a lost feature, just merely disoriented and wandering around aimlessly. It will find its way home.

As far as the bookmarks, I have been begging for them. That would make these little hiccups a lot easier to deal with. Sometimes when I reload another test build or my device resets (I run too many other beta apps) it loses my position in the book. On 72, I would periodically bookmark out of habit. I would love to be able to do the same on this one.

[Grimlin]

Updates: Another font bump yesterday. Some of the UI elements were moved around to enhance look-n-feel. Seems like the "local books" and playback are working slightly better now. That might be just coincidence though as release notes are not provided. The next beta is shaping up nicely, but no word yet on when it will be released. As soon as I know, I will let you know.

[ree_mn]

1.1.1M2 is way better than 1.0.1 about not skipping during playback, but not perfect...at least on my Curve. Are any of you experiencing any minor skips (e.g. .5-1 seconds) every once in a while?

Also for those who had the 1.0.1 beta, does it seem like 1.1.1M2 is slower about FFWD/RWND and Prev/Next Chapter, a lot slower? I had a single case this week where 1.1.1M2 didn't remember my playback position on a book I was 4+ hours into and it took me over 10 minutes to navigate forward to the place I was listening to the book last. Thankfully, this seemed to be a flukish case of not remembering the playback position. It's seemed to do that correctly for me some 10-15 times now and incorrectly only once. But when it happens, or when you simply want to zip back a minute or so to relisten to something, the slow navigation is painful.


As always, I've already reported these to the Audible blackberry team. I'm just wondering what others have observed.

[Grimlin]

I still get the skips periodically. It is worse when I am receiving an email at the same time it is swapping player instances.

I'll explain further from what I think I know. Bear in mind that this is mostly put together by me from bits and pieces I gleaned from conversations with Audible and from looking at log files on builds that had logging enabled. Audible is pretty closed lipped about the inner workings of their client, so I could be wrong.

The client has to convert chunks at a time since there isn't a way to build a native codec for the BlackBerry. (at least not that I am aware of). The "buffering" is actually converting small chunks of the book in memory to mp3 or amr. I don't know what format, but it is unencrypted into a BlackBerry mediaplayer compatible format. It isn't storing them on the filesystem though. I looked.

It creates two player instances at a time. When it is at the end of player0, it swaps to player1. Then it destroys player0 and converts the next chunk and sends to player0 while player1 is playing. It cycles back and forth. When one of the players isn't quite ready. processor busy, etc..., you get a gap or skip.

This methodology also makes navigation a bit difficult. Do you navigate within the converted chunk or do you destroy all players and start over every time the player time index is altered?

Previously, in the later audibleair players, the first chunk was 30seconds (my idea to reduce start up time. I am so proud) and subsequent chunks were 4min each. I don't know in this new one if they kept with that model or not. I haven't timed the skips.

Hopefully this helps explain things a bit. ...or maybe it just confuses matters and I should sit back and be quiet.

[ree_mn]

It makes perfect sense. And it explains a lot of my observations in how playback sometimes skips.

Perhaps they could speed things up by making it so that any explicit navigation does the same thing as the initial startup but be even more aggressive about it. Any time you touch a navigation control and move to outside the currently buffered chunk in memory, start by pre-converting a 5- or 10-second clip, something that can be done with minimal wait for the user. And then grow the clip length a little bit at a time so that if you're searching for a spot by seeking then listening, seeking then listening, etc you don't pay a steep penalty waiting for the second chunk to get decoded because it wouldn't be a 4-minute chunk it'd only be, say, 15 seconds or 20 seconds. Then sure, as the listener doesn't touch anything for a while, grow the chunk size to 4-minutes or whatever maximum you want to use for memory efficiency. Yes, it would be trickier to program, but it would make the user much happier.

As for the skipping, I assume it has to do with the inability to precisely time the conversion from one player to the next as the startup latency of the second player isn't entirely predictable. So is it clipping out a portion of a second because the later player is starting playback too early and it's audio is not heard while the earlier player is finishing up? Or is it because the decoder is not grabbing frames of data cleanly and is literally not decoding a few hundreths of a second leading to the skip? I know you likely don't know the answer, but you could suggest to them that if it's the former, I'd rather have an occasional gap in the flow of the reading than to have a second of audio effectively skipped over leaving me to figure out the exact word(s) that were spoken...i.e. measure the startup latency for a player, and start the later players no sooner than the minimum observed latency for starting any player from the end of the previous clip or something like that.

[Grimlin]

Wirelessly posted

I have a navigation "pseudo-code" flowchart I put together and submitted during the audibleair beta. I'll dig that up and see if this set of folks is more receptive to it. I'll see if I can fit the browsing microbuffer into it as well.

[Grimlin]

Update:
Another alpha build came out today. More UI tweaks. Possibly some behind the scenes stuff as this one was labeled QA-Only.

[gpc]

8800 at&t BES

Not having any good success with new download. May need to reload and start over.

If I put book on hold or pause to place a call, it locks up my bb when I try to actually connect call.

Book doesn't pause when I get incoming call and when I pause or hold, and finish call, my phone locks up and takes soft reboot.

I also have a chirp in background every 4 to 6 seconds.

Have only been able to listen to local books I have stored directly on card.

My library will open and show my books and when I get to stream or download, it fails to connect after showing it is trying and shows failed to download book.

Also a couple of times when I have closed book and then reopened, it starts over at beginning and always when it locks and I have to reboot.

Also very slow loading audible now, 30 to 60 seconds when I hit icon.

Positive, love controlling volume from phone control.

The fast forward and the skip to next section seem to work faster and better than older version.

Overall menu is much clearer and I like it better.

If I want to go back to previous version, what are your suggestions or do I just need to go back to ipod and keep reading till improved upon?