Android support for m4b (or other audiobook/bookmarked file types)

[Joel]

Does anyone know:

1) Is there is any support in Android for any audio file types that
support bookmarking or saving of location in the audio file between
power cycles?

2) What would it take to support m4b in the platform? The audio codec
should be the same as the m4a codec which I believe is supported in
Android, so I wouldn't think this is too much work to add the m4b
support.

3) Does ogg vorbis support bookmarking?

I like to listen to audiobooks, but the current G1 audio player only
remembers my location in a single audio file. I'd like it to actually
place a bookmark in/with the audio files so that I can listen to
multiple audiobooks and so that it will remember my location in the
file between power cycles and not forget my location if I play another
audio file.

Joel

[brie987]

I would really like to see this also as I like to listen to audio
books too.

On Jun 19, 11:21 am, Joel <jkluss...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Does anyone know:
>
> 1) Is there is any support in Android for any audio file types that
> support bookmarking or saving of location in the audio file between
> power cycles?
>

> 2) What would it take to support m4b in the platform?  Theaudio codec

> should be the same as the m4a codec which I believe is supported in
> Android, so I wouldn't think this is too much work to add the m4b
> support.
>

> 3) Doesoggvorbis support bookmarking?

[bbarker]

Same here.

[olifink]

I was looking to write an app for this myself, but actually looking at
the code, it turns out bookmarking is already supported, although no
one tells you how:

Bookmarks are saved automatically in the Media database, but only IF
they are a podcast - it seems that the only the you have to do to make
them a podcast however is to put your regular files (mp3, m4a) into a
directory called "podcasts" (lowercase!) on (the root of) your SD
card. With the next media scan, these files are all collected into a
special "Podcasts" playlist and also nicely excluded from your music
collection :)

for me it works like a charm on the Dream, Magic and ADP1 - but the
new Hero (where HTC has re-written the music app), although it shows
the Podcasts playlist, crashes when I try to access it. Hopefully they
can fix it soon...

O

[brie987]

Thanks Olifink but I am not rooted. :(

[Joel]

olifink, this a great find. Thanks for looking into it. I'd be
surprised if HTC fixes the issue with the Hero. This (sadly) seems
like an unadvertised feature, so they might not know they broke it or
not care unless enough people complain.

brie987, you don't have to be rooted. This should work by just
creating the /podcasts directory on your SD card.

Joel

[olifink]

no need to be rooted - I just meant you copy the mp3 files to an
directory at the base of your sdcard when you are connected to your PC/
Mac.

O

[Jean-Baptiste Queru]

Unless you're planning to contribute changes to the Android
Open-Source Project to make it easier (possible?) to specifically
handle arbitrary audio files as audiobooks based on other information
than their filesystem location, it would probably make sense to move
this discussion to android-discuss (both to avoid being off-topic and
to give it more visibility with users).

Thanks,
JBQ

--
Jean-Baptiste M. "JBQ" Queru
Software Engineer, Android Open-Source Project, Google.

Questions sent directly to me that have no reason for being private
will likely get ignored or forwarded to a public forum with no further
warning.

[Joel]

Originally, I thought this would be a change to the core platform to
support mp4 because I didn't know about the existing, broader
functionality of the podcasts directory. Since it appears some
bookmarking functionality does exist, I am fine with this topic moving
to android-discuss. How does one make that happen?

Joel

On Aug 17, 6:04 am, Jean-Baptiste Queru <j...@android.com> wrote:
> Unless you're planning to contribute changes to the Android
> Open-Source Project to make it easier (possible?) to specifically
> handle arbitrary audio files as audiobooks based on other information
> than their filesystem location, it would probably make sense to move
> this discussion to android-discuss (both to avoid being off-topic and
> to give it more visibility with users).
>
> Thanks,
> JBQ
>

[Jean-Baptiste Queru]

You have to manually start a new thread there if you'd like to
continue the discussion (sorry, the notion of "moving the discussion
to android-discuss" is a misnomer as it doesn't literally happen that
way).

JBQ