Database Develop

Audiobooks?

I listen to a lot of audiobooks during my work commute and used to use my iPod for this. Since I have a decent sized memory card in my X1, I'd rather use it instead so I only need one device with me. The problem is that all of my audiobooks are in .m4b format, so I need something that runs on WinMo that can:
1. Play this .m4b format (I think it's just AAC)
2. Bookmark where I am in each book so if I close and re-open the player, the book continues from where I left off
3. Allows fine tuned rewind/fast forward as I often rewind 5-30 seconds to hear some part of a book a second time
I've found tcpmp/core player can play .m4b's, but it's not great at bookmarking. That is, if I'm listening to a book, close the player and re-open it, the bookmark works fine and it continues to play where I left off. However, if I open any other file in between, the bookmark is lost. This is made worse by the inability to do any fine tuned rewind/fast forward. The only option is to use the progress slider, which tends to jump in VERY large increments.
Any suggestions? Is there another audiobook format I should try which would work better?

Convert to MP3 then use something like:
http://motorola-windows-mobile.hand...id=1093&for=Motorola+Windows+Mobile audiobook
Unfortunately m4b is a gash Apple format and so needs to be converted...

You could also try Kinoma (www.kinoma.com). Not sure if it plays .mb4, I use it for books from audible.

I personally just use the standard windows media player, I also listen to alot of audiobooks usually a few hours a day and when I get to and from work I use the notes program to make a note of where I am. This isn't necessery all the time because I can just minimize windows media player and then start it back up when I want to carry on listening (the program doesn't fully close when pressing x)
I have never used an audiobook on an ipod so im not sure what type of support it has though it would be nice to have the feature but it isn't something I really need, it's easy to do without.

bump for more opinions.

I use CorePalayer for my audio books.
http://www.coreplayer.com/

Resco Audio Recorder allows you to bookmark MP3 files at specific points (Store lots of bookmarks for various MP3's), it's also got a finger friendly fast forward/rewind.
According to the website it plays the following files
MP3 — The most popular audio format ever. Widely supported by all platforms. Ideal trade off between quality and hardware requirements.
Ogg Vorbis — Alternative to MP3 with higher quality, but requires faster PDA.
Speex — Outstanding speech compression ratio, but also needs fast device.
WAV — Lossless quality, low hardware requirements, but huge memory consumption.
RAF — Minimal hardware requirements, minimal energy consumption, compresstion ratio 4:1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It also can do standard voice recording and phone call recording
Edit: Just looked on their site. They have a Codec pack addon that allows recording/playing of AAC files
Second Edit: They also have a seven day demo (I'm assuming you can add the demo of the codec pack as well) So that you can test it to see if you like the software

THJahar said:
Resco Audio Recorder allows you to bookmark MP3 files at specific points (Store lots of bookmarks for various MP3's), it's also got a finger friendly fast forward/rewind.
According to the website it plays the following files
It also can do standard voice recording and phone call recording
Edit: Just looked on their site. They have a Codec pack addon that allows recording/playing of AAC files
Second Edit: They also have a seven day demo (I'm assuming you can add the demo of the codec pack as well) So that you can test it to see if you like the software
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooooh, now this is what I was looking for. The bookmarking feature works very well for my audiobooks and the touch friendly controls are exactly what I was looking for. It doesn't seem to like the m4b files, even with the AAC codec, but I can easily convert my m4b's to mp3's and everything works wonderfully.
Thanks!

Or have a look at MortPlayer.
With favorites (easy navigation through your music/audiobook folders), special audio book support (auto bookmarks for audio book files/folders, auto rewind when continuing, ...), bookmarks, finger friendly since the first beta (somewhere in 2004, iirc), skin support (including WVGA since 3.31b73), ...
However, the AAC/MP4 plugin from GSPlayer (included in beta installers) doesn't work properly on all devices, and I'm not sure whether m4b is included...

Hey, I found out, that Audiooboks in the m4B Format can't be handled by the Mort Player.
BUT
If you rename the file from m4b to m4a the player can handle them.
Cheers
Jens

I was very excited to try this as I have a number of .m4b audiobooks I would like to listen to on the Android. But I just tried renaming an .m4b file to an .m4a file on my Android G1 and it still did not play I have been using the Ambling BookPlayer which works well with mp3, oog, or m4a files, but renaming the m4b to m4a didn't work.
The Ambling BookPlayer has worked very well for playing audiobooks even those that have a lot of individual audio files, and it has a bookmarking history with undo and redo so you can jump right back to each place you started or stopped listening. The Ambling BookPlayer Lite is free on the Android Market and it supports automatically downloading the free LibriVox audiobooks directly to the Android.
I would be interested in knowing if anyone else been able to successfully play an m4b file after renaming it to an m4a? and if so which Android phone does it work on?

I found that there is a request for Google to add support for the m4b format to the Android at http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3923 You can boost the priority of this request by going to the page and clicking on the star to cast your vote in favor of adding this feature.

Audiobooks from iTunes in M4B are encrypted. Simply renaming the files from .m4b to .m4a will not help. You need to decrypt the files first. Google for Requiem.

The m4b format does support encryption. Some m4b audio files are encrypted but others are not.
If you get one of the conversion programs (there are many available) that will convert mp3 files into m4b files, the resulting m4b files are not encrypted. Other m4b files, such as those sold by some stores, are encrypted.
If you purchase an audiobook on CD, rip it to mp3s, combine them and convert them to an m4b (just for the purpose of getting bookmarking to keep track of your place in the audiobook), the resulting m4b file is not encrypted.

new player app
Here is a new Android app Akimbo Audiobook Player that has m4b support with chapters and artwork. Finally I have got back to where I was years ago on the ipod

Best Music Player?

Recently, my iPod Video got stolen so now all I have to listen to music is my AT&T Tilt. I bought an 8GB Micro SD card and I don't really like the default media player that I'm using.
What media player do you recommend? I'd love to be able to create playlists easily and to browse music quickly and efficiently.
Thanks alot.

Hmm... it doesn't do playlists yet, but I haven't found anything that's as nice and easy to use as S2P

Try Nytrogen, i like it.

I pref coreplayer

Yep coreplayer for me or if freeware mortplayer is very good.

Me, I liked Pocket Player so much I paid for it
I'm an Itunes user, so I like the AAC support and the nifty browsing.

PocketPlayer 4.1 for music as it's got awesome sound a great interface & CorePlayer v1.3.5 Build 7340 for videos

I have PocketPlayer V4.0. It is very good & sounds good with a 3.5mm adaptor & good headphones.

i've gone through quite a few audio players. yesterday, i revisted the latest version of pocket player and i was BLOWN AWAY!
so i remembered reading this thread...dug it up...and decided to
1. give my props to pocket player (i am considering purchasing it!!!)
2. provide brief reviews of pocket player as well as other audio players i've tinkered with over the last 2 years.
HTC Audio Manager (most recent versions are similar with minor differences)
1. FREE!
2. has shipped with nearly all HTC official ROMs...integrates nicely with HTC Home and Manila2d/3d.
3. good audio quality but no built in equalizer. if headphones are plugged in, you can get equalizer functionality with the HTC audio booster.
4. now playing view is quick and to-the-point.
5. library is easy to use and straight forward.
6. auto detects music files across the entire device (i consider this to be a bit more "poky" than necessary).
7. bit sensitive to bad/corrupt mp3 files. often crashes even if a single mp3 file is indexed into your library.
8. finger scrolling is NOT kinetic and relies COMPLETELY on touchflo scrolling. this means that if you are like me (i.e. you use WM6.5 and you have completely disabled touchflo scrolling to allow WM6.5 native thumb scrolling to work properly), you will have to use the d-pad or scroll wheel or the scroll bar on the side to navigate the album
9. some versions on some ROMs are unable to play music through the loud speaker if the device is put to standby (playback through head set ALWAYS works with nearly every player in this list when device is on standby)
10. seems to support playlists but thats it! i don't think you can "manage" playlists more than just picking an existing one to play.
S2P (0.73beta)
1. FREE!
2. good alternative if you want something that looks a bit like the ipod/iphone music player. similarities are mostly cosmetic though.
3. library view is good! uses its own native kinetic thumb scrolling.
4. i think it supports playlists but i didn't see good support for building a playlist.
5. library navigation with the d-pad felt a bit unintuitive.
6. proper access to the library requires ordering your files in a certain heirarchy of folders.
7. good but not as clean to use (e.g. in the car) as nitrogen and not nearly as good as pocket player
Nitrogen
1. FREE!
2. skinnable. however, i found that most skins are made EITHER for portrait OR landscape but NOT both. that means rotating your screen and bringing up nitrogen meant manually switching to a landscape theme before you could see the rest of nitrogen's GUI.
3. tries to provide its own kinetic thumb scrolling but falls flat on its feet on my kaiser with WM6.5. i just couldn't make the scrolling usable enough to be able to navigate my music folders with ease.
4. the now playing view is easy and straight forward to use and most of the skins make the now playing view almost FUN to use.
5. like S2P, nitrogen requires the library to be arranged in proper files and folders for your own good. this is because nitrogen's library is really not a library! its just a glorified file/folder browser. however, nitrogen supported some nice features such as enqueue, enqueue and play, etc, suggesting that its internal playback is indeed building up some sort of a playlist that can be managed/saved.
6. does NOT continue to play through the loudspeaker if you put your device to standby (works fine through headset when put on standby). stutters on WM6.5 if the WM6.5 lockscreen comes up.
7. equalizer felt good but i didn't test scientifically.
Pocket Player v4.1
1. NOT FREE! (BUT WORTH IT, READ ON!)
preamble: on the desktop, i swear by WinAmp. once properly configured, WinAmp is the best experience for music playback on the desktop IMHO so i always sought something similar on the mobile (similar in functionality and power, not necessarily in looks). pocket player turned out to be shoe-in!
2. extremely customizable, lots and lots of options
3. only player in this list of AUDIO players that provides VISUALIZATIONS
4. only player in this list of AUDIO players that can play VIDEOS too
5. skinnable (supports native skins, winamp skins, and also auto detects available windows media player skins)
6. now playing view revolves around an explicit editable/managable/savable playlist. what this means is that in other players, the playlist is implicit. when you choose to playback an album, the tracks in the album are the ONLY tracks maintained in this implicit/hidden playlist. when you choose another album, the old playlist is cleared and the new album listing is loaded as the new playlist. this works but it is limited. with pocket player, you can dynamically BUILD a playlist. its a powerful concept that brings a level of experience similar to winamp on the desktop.
7. EXCELLENT library view. behaves like htc audio manager (because it does not require a special reorganization of your files and folders). looks for files to add to the library only in folders explicitly chosen by the user (like S2P and nitrogen).
8. playlist in now playing view is fully thumb friendly with kinetic scrolling (smoothest i've experienced on the kaiser).
9. library is fully thumb friendly with kinetic scrolling and with alphabetic indexing strip on the right (smoothest i've experienced on the kaiser).
10. large menus (regardless if you have WM6.1 or WM6.5).
11. POWERFUL options in the popup menus of items in the library. what behavior or what menu pops up is controlled through simple gestures. the mappings are all up to you!
12. keeps playing with the device in standby, through loudspeaker as well as through headset. no stuttering experienced so far.
13. supports crossfading.
14. equalizer felt good (i was using the "fast" equalizer, perhaps the other equalizers can give even better quality).
15. i can't stress this enough...the library view is a DREAM!
Pocket Player...HIGHLY recommended!
cheers!

We need a better mp3 player for android

I use my phone as a mp3 player alot but the software that came with android is very limited and does not give you enought options to use our phone as a fully funcional mp3 player. Like for example creating playlist, search songs by name or artist with the keyboard. etc.
I hope some developer is working on a better player...

You can do all of that you mentioned already. To add to a playlist long-press on a song and choose add to playlist and you can make a new one or add to an existing one. To search just slide out the keyboard and type it will return all results for artist, song, album, everything. Hope this helps

Geniusdog254 said:
You can do all of that you mentioned already. To add to a playlist long-press on a song and choose add to playlist and you can make a new one or add to an existing one. To search just slide out the keyboard and type it will return all results for artist, song, album, everything. Hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks you right about everything. I just found something else I have every album in separate folders let say I would like to select just one folder to play that album only, is there any way to do that, because as far as I see the player looks for all the music files in the sd card and display them in the library together.
thanks

I don't think you can organize by folder but maybe try clicking album on the home page of the MP3 app? That will read all the ID3 tags of the MP3's and sort them by album to play. Unfortunately what sucks for me is a lot of my music files are .m4a from my iPhone which the G1 can play but I don't have album art or tags or anything and it blows because you can't add tags to them and I don't have the time to convert them to mp3. Oh well, hope this helps you!

i think we will see a lot more once paid apps come- coreplayer are working on an android version for one.

I just figure another issue, I create a folder with ringtones .mp3s and the player put them on the play list to This is crazy it should at least ask you if u want to add the new audio files to the play list. now I have 10sec ringtones playing on my playlist
I'll pay for a player with all the features that an audio player should have.

What folder are you putting your ringtones in?
I have my ringtones in a folder named 'ringtones', my notifications in a folder called 'notifications' and the media player doesn't pick any of them up.

One thing for sure, Shuffle blows for some odd reason. It's always the same damn order! The only way to get something different is to Shuffle -> Party Shuffle. This needs to be fixed.
Also, it would be nice if they added the fast search (like in contacts, dragging letters on the right) to the song list, as well as speed it up quite a bit.

I'm not impressed with the MP3 player. I'm hoping someone is working on one that is a little bit more iPhonish, as I like the looks/usability of that. S2P for WindowsMobile nailed it.

Is there something wrong with tunewiki? maybe that is more to your liking?

I like the double click headset to change tracks, single click to pause/resume. Although i'm not sure if this functionality would exist with A2DP? It could do with a few more features i'll admit, but it looks fine to me.

Need an Eqaulizer
nuff said.

Samsung Galaxy 4.0 Android MP3 Player.
Samsung calls this an MP3 player, but it is really a great Android phone -- without the phone. The form factor is great for carrying around. I find I'm using it much more than my iPad to access email, listen to podcasts, watch videos, and more. The Gingerbread Android OS is snappy and easy to use. With Skype and Wifi, you get voice/video connectivity.

Samsung Galaxy Player 50

Agreed. The stock app never allows me to view my playlist like the iPod does.
Sent from my Liberty using XDA

Check out MKZIplayer.
Great for video and music

If you use a custom rom you can download "PlayerPro". Best MP3 Player.
(Or try "Apollo", its included in Cyanogenmod from FreeXperia)

[Q] Making a Foobar2000 control app

Hi,
I am making a Foobar2000 control app by using the foo_httpcontrol add-on. I figured out how I can run certain commands, but I am completely blank on how to get information back from the server like playlists or current playing song. Does anyone have exprience with this on Android or knows how to do it on wp8?
Also: currently I am using a hidden browser for executing the commands, would it be better/possible to use webrequests or something for that?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tweekzor said:
Hi,
I am making a Foobar2000 control app by using the foo_httpcontrol add-on. I figured out how I can run certain commands, but I am completely blank on how to get information back from the server like playlists or current playing song. Does anyone have exprience with this on Android or knows how to do it on wp8?
Also: currently I am using a hidden browser for executing the commands, would it be better/possible to use webrequests or something for that?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't say I could help you with foo_httpcontrol. I haven't used it that much.
I'd recommend using the DLNA plugin instead. Using the DLNA app made either by Nokia or HTC (it was that way with wp7, not sure on wp8) would be a similar experience to playing music that's in the music+video tab. Most DLNA apps have the capability to play music from the phone to another device, play music from another device and share it to a third device, e.g. Phone Music -> foobar, foobar -> WP8 -> Bluray player.
Also the album art will display if its in the same folder as the music (the dlna plugin on foobar looks for the folder.jpg first.)

thals1992 said:
I can't say I could help you with foo_httpcontrol. I haven't used it that much.
I'd recommend using the DLNA plugin instead. Using the DLNA app made either by Nokia or HTC (it was that way with wp7, not sure on wp8) would be a similar experience to playing music that's in the music+video tab. Most DLNA apps have the capability to play music from the phone to another device, play music from another device and share it to a third device, e.g. Phone Music -> foobar, foobar -> WP8 -> Bluray player.
Also the album art will display if its in the same folder as the music (the dlna plugin on foobar looks for the folder.jpg first.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your answer, but I don't think that is what I am looking for. My desktop has a music collection that is far greater then the 32gb of my device, and the sound quality is a lot better as well. So I don't want to be streaming from or to my device. Also since my library has about 50.000+ songs I'd prefer to use my well known and set-up music player over searching through my windows folders.
I have seen a couple of android apps that control Foobar2000 by using the plugin I use as well, and they are able to get the song info etc. So it is possible, I just can't figure out how.
(I did download the Nokia Play To app, because streaming like that is also useful at other times )

Tweekzor said:
Thank you for your answer, but I don't think that is what I am looking for. My desktop has a music collection that is far greater then the 32gb of my device, and the sound quality is a lot better as well. So I don't want to be streaming from or to my device. Also since my library has about 50.000+ songs I'd prefer to use my well known and set-up music player over searching through my windows folders.
I have seen a couple of android apps that control Foobar2000 by using the plugin I use as well, and they are able to get the song info etc. So it is possible, I just can't figure out how.
(I did download the Nokia Play To app, because streaming like that is also useful at other times )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well most of my foobar collection are chiptunes, (vgm/sid/gbs) modules (mod, xm, it) and album in a single flac with cue files (flac doesn't always play, but mostly works) so I need it to stream WAV 48khz (its the highest I've tried) over wireless N using that dlna plugin. I have seen some foobar apps thats in the marketplace, but nothing that I'd seen work. Also somthing else that works, is the foo_touchremote plugin. It uses the boujour service (also in Apple's iTunes, but used in other things as well) and works simply with entering a pairing code.
If you still would like to use foo_httpcontrol, I'd ask over at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org.

thals1992 said:
Well most of my foobar collection are chiptunes, (vgm/sid/gbs) modules (mod, xm, it) and album in a single flac with cue files (flac doesn't always play, but mostly works) so I need it to stream WAV 48khz (its the highest I've tried) over wireless N using that dlna plugin. I have seen some foobar apps thats in the marketplace, but nothing that I'd seen work. Also somthing else that works, is the foo_touchremote plugin. It uses the boujour service (also in Apple's iTunes, but used in other things as well) and works simply with entering a pairing code.
If you still would like to use foo_httpcontrol, I'd ask over at .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That touchremote plugin sounds like it could be what I need, I will look into that when I have a bit more time. Thank you for the answers.:good:
*I couldn't commit my post because I quoted your hydrogenaudio link *

MP3 / Music player

Does anyone use a good MP3 player from play store?
I just dont like the default one on my Erisin unit, looking for something with no ads that looks good, any recommendations ?
Thank all

Poweramp paid version is the only music player I use now.
My music data base is too big to goof around with. Zero data base issues with Poweramp.
Settings and playlists can be completely backed up.
It has a step learning curve but it's interface is very flexible and has excellent sound quality.
The graphic equalizer is the best I've used and allows for unlimited profiles that can be assigned by song/album/playlist however not by listening device. The EQ profiles can be backed up as well though.
As long as it's music data base isn't altered it will completely restore playlists in about a minute or two after a reload.
Group/Album/Song structure interfaces perfectly with my database.
I use my SD card like a data drive so the 230+ gb music folder is preserved during a reload. It's also backed up on multiple isolated hdds. Most of the database consists of .wav files to preserve the HDCD subtext.
MP3 is a lousy format... at least use MP4.
Always use the highest resolution source available or once your ears learn the difference you'll be recreating your whole music collection!
Been there, done that; Tape>CD>HDCD
Of course 24 bit or higher resolution be best but is still a real pain to source.

All good points, especially MP3 > MP4, I'll ckeckout Poweramp, Thanks