The Sword and Laser discussion

I live in Harris County just outside Houston and my local county library offers audio book downloads(which I transfer to my iPod). They use Overdrive Media, which I've heard mention of on the SFF Audio podcast. It's a great service, before I buy a book on Audible I'll see if my library offers it for free. I figure I'd get the word out to you guys to check if your local library has the same service. I just warn you that you'll kick yourself every time you see an audio book you already purchased available through your library!

I have that too. What drives me crazy is you have to put the iphone in a mode where you 'manually manage music'. Then you lose your place in audiobooks whenever it syncs with itunes.

That's weird, I manually manage music on my iPod and don't have that issue. There's a setting somewhere on my iPod that picks up where I left off on audio books and it works with Overdrive Media. I dunno about iPhones?

Is it the touchscreen ipod? My older video ipod works fine too.

My local library offers these as well. But they are DRM'd all to heck and wont work with an iPod. They are available in WMA files only. It was such a let down when I found out.

Some of the books are in mp3 and can be directly copied to the ipod. You can transfer the wma's to the ipod too, but you need the Overdrive program in Windows to convert it to aac.

Tamahome wrote: "Some of the books are in mp3 and can be directly copied to the ipod. You can transfer the wma's to the ipod too, but you need the Overdrive program in Windows to convert it to aac."

I have tried to Overdrive program. Unfortunately the DRM on these particular files prohibits any conversion tool that I have tried. They are fairly locked down. The DRM is there to delete the book after a certain amt of time on your harddrive. and also will not let you make a copy of the file. I dont know what type of DRM is on them but it sure is draconian.
I personally would have converted them and then deleted them after I was thorough. But the DRM just made me give up all hope unless i got a new .mp3 player that could play WMA files.
I had thought about doing an audio out recording of the books but then I would lose all chapter info and it would take forever! Not really worth my time :).

Try Overdrive again. They now have lots of mp3 versions of audiobooks that are drm free. For the protected wma books, I bought a refurb Sansa clip for $15.

Tamahome wrote: "Is it the touchscreen ipod? My older video ipod works fine too."

It's a Nano 5G, I really need the small size for portability at work.

Micah wrote: "My local library offers these as well. But they are DRM'd all to heck and wont work with an iPod. They are available in WMA files only. It was such a let down when I found out."

Check back with their site periodically. At first my library didn't have jack for the iPod, now they have lots of titles available. The DRM is definitely hardcore, but tolerable for me. As time passed, it all got more user friendly.

Philip wrote: "Check back with their site periodically. At first my library didn't have jack for the iPod, now they have lots of titles available. The DRM is definitely hardcore, but tolerable for me. As time passed, it all got more user friendly. ."

Will do! I have not checked on these in a yr or two probably. Maybe they have partnered with a new site since then? one can hope.....

Thanks for the tip

Micah wrote: "Tamahome wrote: "Some of the books are in mp3 and can be directly copied to the ipod. You can transfer the wma's to the ipod too, but you need the Overdrive program in Windows to convert it to aac..."

Once Overdrive for windows puts the book on your ipod, you can keep it there as long as you want. I don't think that's a bad deal for a free audiobook.

Los Angeles Public Library has a great selection of media for download, but Overdrive is a PITA - it only runs on Windows and as mentioned earlier is draconian DRM. However I've found a converter that will remove the drm so I don't have to use an 'approved' list of devices or OS. It costs, but with the number of audio books I go thru is worth every penny.

http://www.daniusoft.com/digital-musi...

We have one, but last time I checked, the books could not be sent to an iPod -- wrong media file.

Fortunately, the library system has a ton of books on CD.