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[lalittle]

There are still some Audible issues:

1) I still experience annoying delays when navigating Audible files -- i.e. when starting a track, it starts playing the beginning of the track for several seconds before finally jumping to the bookmark.  Also, when changing to a different part of a track, it continues to play the previous location for several seconds before it playing at the new location.  This makes navigating a book quite difficult since it's not entirely clear when the "new" location finally starts playing.  This was never an issue with MC10, which always navigates very quickly.

On top of this, I am now seeing some occasional oddities in MC10 Audible playback that never existed before installing MC11.  When double clicking some Audible titles, they sometimes don't start playing until I manually move the navigation slider a bit.   I don't see any pattern as to why this happens sometimes and not others, but I never saw this happen before MC11 was on the system.  I uninstalled MC11 and reinstalled MC10, but this did not solve the issue.

2) Also, there is still no way I can see of adding existing Audible content to MC11's "Downloaded Titles" Audible smartlist.  This is apparently due to the fact that this smartlist uses the "content distributor" tag, which is a read only tag that cannot be edited on existing content.  Since this field is blank on all my existing aa content, this branch of the tree is completely useless to me -- it only contains "new" Audible content downloaded from within MC11.  There needs to be a way of adding existing titles to this list in order to make it useful to people who already have lots of Audible content.

Thanks,

Larry

[John Gateley]

Hi Larry,

Check your playback settings, try switching the "Switch Tracks" and "Seek" settings. "Seek: standard" works nicely.

I've never seen the double-click-not-starting behavior, any further info would be great.

I'll check on #2.

j

[John Gateley]

Hi Larry,

Just create a new smartlist, "Audible Content", that looks for file type AA. That should solve the problem.

j

[lalittle]

Check your playback settings, try switching the "Switch Tracks" and "Seek" settings. "Seek: standard" works nicely.

I don't really notice any difference between "gapless" and "standard."  I do notice that if I wait a little while in between changing positions, the problem is not as bad, but it is still there, and I will sometimes hear an "interim" piece of audio before the new location starts playing -- i.e. I change positions, the audio from the previous position keeps playing a bit, then I hear a piece of audio from somewhere BETWEEN the two positions, THEN I'll hear the new position.  As I said before, this is greatly reduced if I let it play a little while before changing positions.  Once again, this is simply not an issue with MC10, which changes positions immediately just like mp3s.

This is a Pentium4 2.5 with 1Gig memory, and the fact that MC10 does not have this problem on the same system with the same titles means that this is not a system issue, but an MC11 issue.

Just create a new smartlist, "Audible Content", that looks for file type AA. That should solve the problem.

I already tried editing the "Downloaded Titles" smartlist in the "Audible Store" branch to use "File Type: aa" instead of "Content Distributor: Audible."  This works until I close and open MC11 again, at which time the smartlist automatically reverts to the original state -- i.e. my change to the smartlist is erased.  I also tried adding a smartlist under the "Audible Store" branch, but this cannot be done.  I can of course add a smartlist to the "Playlists" branch of the tree, but this is a kludge at best.  The smartlist directly under the "Audible Store" branch -- the one that MC11 is desinged to use -- should WORK with my previous content.  We shouldn't have to ignore this smartlist and remember to look at a different smartlist in a different part of the tree.  The smartlist under the "Audible Store" branch should be able to display ALL Audible content, INCLUDING the hundereds of titles that we already have from the last few years.  At the moment, this does not work, and there is apparently no way of editing the existing smartlist or even adding a new smartlist to this location in the tree.

I'm curious why MC11 works this way -- i.e. Why does the "Downloaded Titles" smartlist utilize a tag that is blank in previously downloaded content, and that cannot be edited in these previous titles?  Why is this smartlist made to erase any changes made to it so that we cannot get the list to show previously downloaded content?  I just don't understand the design approach to this -- I don't see the purpose of having it work the way it does, which is to "discriminate" against previously downloaded content.  Why are we locked out of getting the smartlist to work with our previous content without having to revert to a "second-smartlist-in-a-different-part-of-the-tree" workaround?  It just seems totally limiting and unfriendly, which is the opposite of what I normally expect from Media Center.

Thanks again for any help with this,

Larry

[lalittle]

Just to put this all in one thread, another "issue" with the current "Audible Store" implementation is the fact that I cannot choose a default location for Audible downloads.  For the past few years, I've been treating Audible content just like all my other content -- i.e. I sort it into my "Audio Library" folder using an "Artist/Album" structure where the "Artist" is the auther and the "Album" is the "book" title.  Books that are split into more than one file get placed into the same "album" as different tracks.  This way, the titles are organized exactly like all the music in the library, which seems to make a lot more sense to me than having a completely seperate folder just for "Audible" content.

I understand that Audible titles don't typically use an "Album" field, but I should at least be able to alter the "base path" for audible titles.  I don't use the "My Documents\My Music" path since there are way too many charaters wasted in this path, resulting in some songs with too many characters in the entire path.  Is there  a way to change the base path for Audible downloads that I may have missed?

As a long time Audible customer, I can say that MC11's Audible content implementation is rather limiting, which is an odd departure from the power and flexability of what we've come to expect from Media Center.  The end result is a lot of "manual" manipulation of these files.  Given that this manual manipulation can in fact be done, it seems like it should be possible for MC to offer to do some of this work automatically -- i.e. to offer a "base path" for storing the files, for example.

Larry

[John Gateley]

I found a big difference in the Seek settings, but I'm seeing that strange "content" from the middle behavior. I'll look into it.

The "Downloaded Titles" means what it says: titles that Media Center is sure were downloaded from Audible. If you have previously downloaded content, Media Center doesn't know where it came from. I'll see about getting a new smartlist added, but I'm not sure. Anyone else feel strongly about this?

j

[lalittle]

I found a big difference in the Seek settings, but I'm seeing that strange "content" from the middle behavior. I'll look into it.

Thanks.

The "Downloaded Titles" means what it says: titles that Media Center is sure were downloaded from Audible. If you have previously downloaded content, Media Center doesn't know where it came from.

But why would you ever NOT want to include previously downloaded content in this list?  In other words, why "limit" the list to only titles that were downloaded from within MC?  ALL Audible content was downloaded from Audible regardless of whether it was downloaded with Audible Manager, iTunes, or MC, so what is the purpose of "Only MC downloads" list?  I don't think anyone else uses the "aa" file type, but even they did, it STILL makes sense to allow people to "tell" MC that other content came from Audible.  It just makes organizational sense to allow people to see ALL their Audible content in this one conveniently placed list.

A list that is limited to only MC based aa downloads only serves to limit the usability of the list.  A list that has the ability to show ALL Audible content regardless of which app was used to get it will be far more usable.

I'll see about getting a new smartlist added, but I'm not sure. Anyone else feel strongly about this?

Thanks.  I asked the other person here that uses MC for Audible content and they greately preferred the idea of the list including ALL Audible content.  I didn't try to talk them into anything -- I simply ased them which way they would rather have it work, and they honestly felt that an "MC only" Audible list wouldn't be of much use.  I don't see why anyone would object to changing the list to include ALL Audible content even if it wasn't important enough to them to actually read this thread.

That said, MC has always been about flexibility, so if we were at least able to CHOOSE which way we want the list to work, it would allow people to have it work the way they preferred -- although I STILL don't see ANY point in limiting the list to only downloads that originated from within MC.  I'd think that the MC engineers would want to change it so the list showed all Audible content by default.

Thanks for looking into this -- please keep us informed on what is happening in this regard.

Larry

[justin@fathoms.org]

just put MC 11.1.94 on my computer (win xp)

when clicking on the audible store i get the following error from audible.com: 

"
Error


We're sorry. You are not eligible for this offer.
It may be because you:
- Are a current Audible customer who has taken advantage of a past offer.
- You are already a member of our AudibleListener program.
- Or that this offer is no longer a valid offer.
"

I looked into the plug-in and it is trying to access:


http://www.audible.com/jriver

it will not allow me to change that....

I've contacted audible to see if there was something in my account settings they/I need to change...waiting on a response from them. 

am i missing something? shouldn't it just be pointing to "www.audible.com"??

[justin@fathoms.org]

audible.com podcasts

been trying to get my periodical subscriptions from audible.com running as podcasts

the new podcast module btw is excellent....very impressed with it and its working great for other podcasts...

but not for the audible.com podcasts.


the list of filel is correct and is updating appropriately.  the status on each file is showing as "on disk"

but when i try to play it....i get an error:


"playback engine failure"


the filename is showing as (one example):
http://cdl.prod.audible.com/cgi-bin/aw_assemble_title_dynamic.aa/NYT01-06-2006AudioDigest_acelp16_username_rss.aa?user_id=username&product_id=NB_NYTS_060106&codec=acelp16

(i deleted my correct username from the url)

it's almost as if it is not repointing the file from the url to the disk after it downloads the file  (but i'll reiterate...the other podcasts seem to be working fine)

any ideas?

[justin@fathoms.org]

more on my audible.com podcast issue

I went back and looked closer...and the files are NOT actually on the disk.  i tried resetting the list in the library...cleared it....it then repopulated the (updated) list of files and started attempting to download them again.

got several "retry" errors but no luck downloading the files.

then apparently after the requisite retry attempts it has just flagged the status field as "on disk" without ever successfully downloading the file.

went back and double checked the podcast feed url and it is correct (at least it is what audible.com is giving me)