Audible Manager
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I have started listening to audiobooks lately. It'd be nice if I could download them to listen on my Kodi setup. So I try to figure out if I can do that.
This looks promising:
Download to my compute:
Uh what?
It downloads an installer called ActiveSetupN that looks like... well, honestly, like vaporware from Windows 98:
For some reason, it requires me to exit Chrome. ALL of Chrome. Including the background processes. Which it tells me by popping up a normal-looking white alert... under the green progress bar. I forgot to take a screenshot of that though.
And then... it's gone. No "You installed! Do you want to launch?" screen, nothing. Just delivers its load and leaves without so much as a cuddle.
I find the following in my start menu:
Uh... download manager? Well, maybe not:
Can this just not run while Chrome is open? WTF? Oh, hitting cancel gets me the app:
Oh, podcasts, I know those, I'll click Audible Podcast-- wait, shit, no, that's not what I'm doing, I'm doing books. And anyway that takes me to a login screen. Downloads? (That same Chrome popup appears again.)
Kay, this is the wrong place. Let's try Audible Manager:
whaaaaattttt...... Okay, there's nothing here, I haven't downloaded anything yet. Library? Maybe "My Library Online", by analogy with Amazon MP3's ability to toggle between cloud and local libraries?
WHY AM I IN INTERNET EXPLORER. My default browser is Edge, and I have Chrome open. Why the FUCK...
I go back to my library, to make sure, what, am I not in the right account, are there no books? There are books. And then I see it:
Well fuck me sideways. I can just download from here? I try clicking it.
This is going to be an adventure isn't it?
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First thing that appears:
By now I'm trained. I hit cancel.
oh yay, DRM:
which takes me to... what the fuck is this?
Incompatible with LastPass, is what it is.
Oh good, now it's in my library:
God, everything about this thing sucks:
No file extensions:
I closed the download manager and it made an amusing error so I went to open it again to close it again and... uh...
it's gone?!
Anyway, I guess I can listen on my computer now, but only if I can find where I left off in this giant undifferentiated audio file. The app on my phone gives me chapter by chapter, but phone speakers are kind of shit, so I can only listen in the car. So I guess the car it is, forever.
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@Yamikuronue it's going to be an adventure..... good luck getting it to work in kodi..... last i checked it downloads encrypted files that only the desktop app can play....
audible is good on IOS and android, but on PC..... not so good
though if you get it working do let me know. caus i'm totally cribbing your notes on this one.
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@accalia said in Audible Manager:
only the desktop app can play....
It seems to be able to play in WMP as well, but this whole thing is seeming like a nonstarter.
I'd be cool with downloading a plugin or app for Kodi or for the Roku, or even for a game console, but there isn't any :(
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@Yamikuronue said in Audible Manager:
It seems to be able to play in WMP as well,
hmm.... then maybe kodi might play it
/me recommends creating a VM of XP if you have the install media and license code and do the audible downloading in there then transfer to your media PC from there.... it will probably work better.
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Yeah, but see my last post: it's all in one file, I can't find the chapter markers. And it's 11 hours long. So.....
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@Yamikuronue said in Audible Manager:
Yeah, but see my last post: it's all in one file, I can't find the chapter markers. And it's 11 hours long. So.....
oh. that.
hmm.....
well then......
TO SCIENCE!
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Really, what I want is the ability to play arbitrary files from my android on my Kodi system. iOS has Airplay for this, right? Maybe I could add a bluetooth receiver?
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@Yamikuronue said in Audible Manager:
Really, what I want is the ability to play arbitrary files from my android on my Kodi system. iOS has Airplay for this, right? Maybe I could add a bluetooth receiver?
bluetooth receiver.... yes you could do that. probably your best bet.
there's chromecast that would do what airplay does on ios, but it looks like the audible app doesn't support it
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I only use Audible on Android. It is pretty seamless and nice. I use headphones.
You can also listen from the web itself. Oh and fuck DRM, it is only to annoy the paying customers, break it and listen as you wish. I have many books (60) and it is growing, so prefer not to have them all downloaded on the phone. But one of these days will download all of them to PC and make sure they are DRM free. I want my books to be my possessions, in case Audible goes out of business, also if my heir one day is to inherit them like many dead-tree books me and my wife have.
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So if I were to add a bluetooth receiver to the linux machine running Kodi, how do i configure that? It's running Raspian, and pretty much always fullscreening Kodi
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@dse said in Audible Manager:
It is pretty seamless and nice. I use headphones.
I agree, I quite like it. My husband and I have started listening to audiobooks on road trips and while commuting together, though, and I'd like to be able to put on the book we were listening to and cuddle while we're at home, which is what started this whole thing.
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@Yamikuronue said in Audible Manager:
@dse said in Audible Manager:
It is pretty seamless and nice. I use headphones.
I agree, I quite like it. My husband and I have started listening to audiobooks on road trips and while commuting together, though, and I'd like to be able to put on the book we were listening to and cuddle while we're at home, which is what started this whole thing.
You can play them from web, the interface is not as nice though. On another thought get the app in an emulator, it will be synced because my Android devices are synced.
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We can only hope that someday, digital media distribution services will discover the magic of
<a href="the_thing_i_gave_you_money_for.mp3">
. Fuck DRM
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@Yamikuronue said in Audible Manager:
So if I were to add a bluetooth receiver to the linux machine running Kodi, how do i configure that? It's running Raspian, and pretty much always fullscreening Kodi
hmm... easiest way would be to plug it into audio in and then configure kodi to "listen to" audio in (play the input on the putput)
not entirely sure how to do that in kodi, but assiming you get the receiver with a 3.5mm headphone jack on, plug it into line in or microphone and google "Kodi line in" or something like that and someone will have a nice gude for setting it up i am sure.
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@Yamikuronue Already been down this route.
It's definitely an unsupported side project that they left up there and might have even forgot about.
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@bb36e said in Audible Manager:
We can only hope that someday, digital media distribution services will discover the magic of
<a href="the_thing_i_gave_you_money_for.mp3">
. Fuck DRMHopefully we'll have a wider audience to this complaint, when 3D printing gets to the point where it offers realistic freedom from merchandise to people, and all of the sudden DRM for the patterns becomes a really oppressive thing.
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Amazon's Audible software team has long needed to be hanged at sunrise.
The Windows application hasn't changed since literally before they were acquired by Amazon.
The Android app has a nasty tendency to become wildly unstable every few versions.
There is in fact, however, a Win10 app. It's basically the mobile app. Let me poke it and see what kind of files come out.
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C:\Users\antho\AppData\Local\Packages\AudibleInc.AudibleforWindowsPhone_xns73kv1ymhp2\AC\INetCache\WZL4Z7B3\MastersofDoomHowTwoGuysCreatedanEmpireandTransformedPopCultureUnabridged_ep5[1].aax
If you can play AAX files, this is where they hide them in the Win10 app.
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@Weng said in Audible Manager:
C:\Users\antho\
so it does that to you too?
that's annoying. unless i manually change it my user folder is
C:\Users\accal
why truncate at 5 characters?! this is Windows 10 not a NES ROM!
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@accalia It only does that for Live accounts or whatever the hell they're called now. If you're using a proper Local account or an ActiveDirectory account, it doesn't.
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@accalia I got
C:\Users\yamik
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@Weng said in Audible Manager:
@accalia It only does that for Live accounts or whatever the hell they're called now. If you're using a proper Local account or an ActiveDirectory account, it doesn't.
okay, but why does it do that?
i'd understand if my name was 500 characters! but to truncate to 5 characters, that's not even old school 8.3!
GAH!
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@accalia said in Audible Manager:
why truncate at 5 characters?! this is Windows 10 not a NES ROM!
With this kind of path I wouldn't be surprised if it was running afoul the path length limit... So of course the best thing to truncate is the username.
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@accalia At a WAG: Less chance of colliding with local and domain accounts. While Windows itself has mechanisms for deconflicting, naively written apps would break on those.
Of course, the same naively written apps would break on these shortened names. Maybe they're trying to break naively written apps.
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@Yamikuronue said in Audible Manager:
Well fuck me sideways. I can just download from here?
That's a newish feature, you used to be required to use the download apps.
@dse said in Audible Manager:
Oh and fuck DRM, it is only to annoy the paying customers, break it and listen as you wish. I have many books (60) and it is growing, so prefer not to have them all downloaded on the phone. But one of these days will download all of them to PC and make sure they are DRM free. I want my books to be my possessions, in case Audible goes out of business, also if my heir one day is to inherit them like many dead-tree books me and my wife have.
May I recommend Downpour.com instead? Smaller selection but they sell downloads as DRM-free M4As and MP3s.
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@dse To be fair, that's a long range problem. If Audible goes, Amazon has gone.
And if Amazon goes, we have much bigger fucking problems than audiobooks.
I am fairly certain that the modern internet literally would cease to function without Amazon.
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@Weng said in Audible Manager:
we have much bigger fucking problems
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@Weng said in Audible Manager:
I am fairly certain that the modern internet literally would cease to function without Amazon.
Maybe in the US. In the market of (audio)books in Poland we have a wide choice of shops, offering low prices and no-DRM files.
But when I look for international books most results are unfortunately on Amazon which does not even give you what you pay for - as demonstrated in this thread.
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@Adynathos said in Audible Manager:
In the market of (audio)books in Poland
Yeah, but if Amazon goes so does AWS, which powers just about everything these days
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@Yamikuronue said in Audible Manager:
I have started listening to audiobooks lately. It'd be nice if I could download them to listen on my Kodi setup.
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@Yamikuronue said in Audible Manager:
So if I were to add a bluetooth receiver to the linux machine running Kodi, how do i configure that? It's running Raspian, and pretty much always fullscreening Kodi
If you want to add a Bluetooth adapter to a Pi, it's probably only a few dollars more to just buy a Pi 3 instead (it has onboard Bluetooth). I'm planning on doing that for my console emulators in the near future.
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@dse Don't worry about the botnets and stuff, that's just for criminal rights management.
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@flabdablet I used to pirate audiobooks.
And then I literally ran out of them. I had actually listened to every god damned available title of any interest to me, and the release tempo is GLACIAL. Also, quality tends to be in the toilet. A lot of it is captured books-on-tape, even when a CD or digital version exists.
So I subscribed to Audible.
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@Weng said in Audible Manager:
@flabdablet I used to pirate audiobooks.
And then I literally ran out of them. I had actually listened to every god damned available title of any interest to me, and the release tempo is GLACIAL. Also, quality tends to be in the toilet. A lot of it is captured books-on-tape, even when a CD or digital version exists.
So I subscribed to Audible.Me too.
Then I forgot I subscribed, and they sucked my credit card for a year and a half, until it expired.
Then I got pissed off and closed the account. There's no way I'm dealing with Audible's DRM shit and nasty business practices.
So I no longer listen to audio books, basically.
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@cartman82 said in Audible Manager:
Then I forgot I subscribed, and they sucked my credit card for a year and a half, until it expired.
That's... not their fault really?
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@Yamikuronue said in Audible Manager:
That's... not their fault really?
They sneak subscribed me for an auto-renewing subscription, then kept draining the card without sending any kind of email notice or bill. I consider that a dirty business practice.
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@cartman82 Every single service of any description that has a time-limited trial automatically subscribes you for an auto-renewing subscription.
And NOREPRO on the lack of email notices.
The monthly renewal looks like this:
Mind you, you could well have missed them because they are a bit talkative:
Also, for fuck's sake, read your credit card bill like a fucking adult.
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@Weng said in Audible Manager:
Also, for fuck's sake, read your credit card bill like a fucking adult.
credit card...... bill?
you have to PAY your credit card back?!
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@Weng said in Audible Manager:
And NOREPRO on the lack of email notices.
The monthly renewal looks like this:From the bottom up:
- 1 mail when I joined in for a free book deal. The leeching starts here.
- 2 mails when my card finally expired, and they were asking me for a new card, so they can keep leeching
- 6 emails when I bought 6 audiobooks I was allowed, out of like 15 I paid for.
- 1 mail when I cancelled my subscription.
Never again, audible, you fucking wankers.
@Weng said in Audible Manager:
Also, for fuck's sake, read your credit card bill like a fucking adult.
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@Adynathos said in Audible Manager:
the market of (audio)books in Poland
Think we need @area_pol by now...
Polish stores don't really seem to carry books in English, though, so Amazon is the go-to place for me. That, or the great uTorrent warehouse - because honestly, some e-books have ridiculous prices that could maybe be justifable for a paperback with a small print run, but there's little to no excuse for electronic books.
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I downloaded something from Audible once and I couldn't figure out how to play it. Of course, they don't have any clients for Linux and whatever format they were using was weird and I couldn't find anything that would play it.
I can't imagine ever downloading anything from them ever again.
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@boomzilla said in Audible Manager:
they don't have any clients for Linux
Is there an equivalent of Wine but for Android instead of Windows?
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@ben_lubar said in Audible Manager:
Is there an equivalent of Wine but for Android instead of Windows?
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@Maciejasjmj said in Audible Manager:
Think we need @area_pol by now...
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@Weng said in Audible Manager:
Mind you, you could well have missed them because they are a bit talkative:
Also, for fuck's sake, read your credit card bill like a fucking adult.
I didn't know we shared names!
Edit: INB4 are you my alt?
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@ben_lubar said in Audible Manager:
Is there an equivalent of Wine but for Android instead of Windows?
Remix OS Player http://www.jide.com/remixos
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@Tsaukpaetra no, you're my alt.
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@Weng said in Audible Manager:
@Tsaukpaetra no, you're my alt.
NO! I am Tsaukpaetra Prime, I can't be a duplicate!!!!