I’ve recently been getting back into audiobooks (I worked at an audiobook rental store several years ago; I got so hooked on the books that after I got fired I continued to rent from them anyway). I’m interested in Audible.com, as the prices seem more than fair and there are far more titles than I could ever want.
However, I know they use a proprietary file format which appears to be a package for Audible’s DRM software. While discussing this with a friend of mine, he expressed significant wariness over the DRM. As I place a high value on his opinion, I’m left with doubts.
So I figured I’d ask those Dopers with experience with Audible for your experiences. Has the file format been inconvenient for you? Has it restricted you from doing something with the audio that should be reasonable or legal, such as burning the audio to CD or DVD for a backup? Has Audible’s software interfered with the operation of your computer in some way coughSonycough?
And while I’m at it, how do you find Audible overall? I just got an iPod and I’m dying to fill it up with books, but I’m wary of handling proprietary audio and software, particularly if it results in significant hassle or issues.
Obviously this is not a thread on DRM in general, I’m specifically interested in Audible’s practices.
Well my mom and her bf have been subscribers to the site for a few years. They download things to burn to CD or play in the ipod. I’ve never actually surfed around the site but I’ve never heard any complaints from them and they use it a lot. They get so many downloads a month with their subscription. I suppose to get more would cost extra.
If I recall they have another mp3 player that they also use occasionally.
I have no personal experience, just that they like it and have stuck with it.
I’ve been subscibing to Audible for years (since Opal mentioned it in a thread long ago). I haven’t noticed any problems with their software - it doesn’t seem to load unless I bring it up, and I don’t need to do that unless I want to download or burn something, or listen to a book on the computer. Also: I seem to recall that you can convert it directly from audible’s format to mp3 with Goldwave and LAME, but I didn’t have much luck with it.
They have burning functionality built into their download/player software that burns to standard audio format, so burning isn’t a problem (neither is converting these burned CDs to MP3 or any other format, which I’ve had to do since my RioCar isn’t one of their supported devices). I think some titles limit you to the number of times you can burn them from the original file, but that hasn’t been an issue for me.
I pay roughly $20/mo. for my subscription and that gets me two books a month, which is more than I’ve been able to get through since I moved close to work.