Overdrive moves to MP3 for audiobooks - drops DRM

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by wawasteele

At my libraries, if you search for only DRM free, it eliminates a lot of books. Any of the current books that I have found have DRM, but they transfer fine to the Clip Zip. It's just not as convenient as OD.

At my library, the only OneClick DRMed audio books are Pimsleur language learning programs.

[wawasteele]

Originally Posted by Catlady

At my library, the only OneClick DRMed audio books are Pimsleur language learning programs.

Oh, the Los Angeles County's OCD has many others. I just went to the featured tab and came up with this partial list of authors from there.

Stuart Woods
Patricia Cornwell
Alexander McCall Smith
Charlaine Harris
Laurie R. King
Rita May Brown
Jeff Kinney
Joanne Fluke
James Patterson
Jonathan Safran Foer
Stephen King
Janet Evanovich

Anyway, the list goes on and on, but that gives you an idea. I guess, like OD, all the libraries are different.

[tubemonkey]

I just looked at the OneClick collections at two of my libraries and I have some questions:

• where do you find a complete listing of all titles?
• where do you find the total number of audiobooks in the collection?

[silverraven]

The only way I have figured out how to see all the books is from the home page right next to Quick Search I click Target Audience and All. The library I am on says 1 of 66 pages, so I guess I could count the number of books on a page and multiply it by 66. You can also click on the right for protected/unprotected available/unavailable and Genres. I personally think it is harder to navigate than Overdrive library pages.
Hope this helps!
S

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by silverraven

The only way I have figured out how to see all the books is from the home page right next to Quick Search I click Target Audience and All. The library I am on says 1 of 66 pages, so I guess I could count the number of books on a page and multiply it by 66. You can also click on the right for protected/unprotected available/unavailable and Genres. I personally think it is harder to navigate than Overdrive library pages.
Hope this helps!
S

It helps quite a bit. I get 66 and 71 pages. Each page has 100 audiobooks, so that equates to approximately 6600 and 7100 audiobooks. That's small compared to the collections I can get on OverDrive.

This doesn't look promising. It's harder to navigate and some of my favorite authors are missing. I'll still give it a shot. Who knows; if OverDrive loses some titles due to WMA, I may find some on OneClick.

[wawasteele]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

This doesn't look promising. It's harder to navigate and some of my favorite authors are missing. I'll still give it a shot. Who knows; if OverDrive loses some titles due to WMA, I may find some on OneClick.

It's not anywhere as good as OD. It can, however, fill in the occasional book that I can't find in any of my OD libraries.

[KentE]

One of our local library systems uses OneClickDigital, one uses Overdrive. I do have some experience with both systems. Generally speaking, Overdrive's catalog system is easier to use, but OCD is OK after you get used to it. I don't know if every publisher makes their books available to both systems, but availability on stuff I've looked for seems pretty similar with some authors missing entirely on OCD-- but this may simply be a factor of what the library has bought, since that library hasn't used OCD for that long.
There are some functional differences between the 2 systems. Most notably, if I get an MP3 title (drm free) from OCD, NO external software is required on my computer. I just download an MP3 file directly, store it anywhere I want on my PC, and drag & drop into my Sansa Clip Zip. This is a particularly nice solution for those with older computers, or non-typical OS choices. (i.e., as long as your computer will handle the log-in information required by the catalog browser/library, and you have some local storage, you should be able to get MP3 titles from OCD and transfer to the player of your choice.) Downloading titles in WMA/DRM format does require the OCD software to be installed (similar to Overdrive Media Console). (There are OCD apps for Android and Apple to skip the intermediate download stage, but I haven't tried them.)
In my library's catalog, titles run about 65%/35% in WMA/MP3 format.
Some oddities: I've only downloaded a few titles-- all required fixing MP3 tags with MP3Tag to properly work with the Sansa Clip, which is typically very forgiving about tagging requirements. The problem is that the multiple tracks are not tagged as being part of an 'album', which seems to be a pretty basic oversight error in OCD formatting. The books will play fine as long as you only have a single title loaded: but with 2 titles loaded, the tracks become intermixed as a result of the improper tagging.
If you use the OCD media manager software (required for WMA/DRM titles), it seems to insist on transferring titles into the players music folder instead of to the Audiobook folder. I found this unacceptable, especially combined with the tagging flaws, but did find that instead of using the manager to transfer books, I can drag-and-drop the folder from within the media manager program directly into the Sansa. (Apparently the drm handling authorizes the file during creation of the file on my PC, not during transfer?)
I have a very high speed internet connection (gigabit fiber), and have noticed that the files take a loooong time to download-- although this may not be any longer than Overdrive would take on a slower connection. It also seems to take longer to transfer books to my player through the OCD manager than through the Overdrive manager.

KentE

[tubemonkey]

Update -- browsing through OverDrive's Library Blog, I ran across this update from May 2014 that I had previously missed. It shows some movement toward MP3 only content. Since then, nothing else has been posted.


1,000+ Macmillan audiobooks now available as MP3

Today, OverDrive Marketplace has been updated to offer more than 1,000 Macmillan audiobook titles previously only available in WMA format, now available in MP3 format. This means your readers can borrow, download, and enjoy all of these MP3 titles on every PC, tablet, smartphone and audio player.

[tubemonkey]

Update -- OverDrive has finally jettisoned the WMA format. Audiobooks are now completely DRM-Free MP3 files. Don't know when they finally converted. I just noticed it the other day while scanning various libraries for format changes.

With this conversion, some libraries reduced their catalogs by several thousand audiobooks. More than likely due to publishers who refused to allow the switch from WMA to MP3.

[AnemicOak]

I noticed this last week. I was searching for a book at my library (I knew they had it) and couldn't find it. I then realized that they had no WMA books anymore.

Libraries that lost titles were supposed to get some kind of "solution" for lost titles, I wonder what it was.


EDIT: After some research it looks like the phase out started in November 2014 by dropping WMA for titles that also had MP3. Then on March 2, 2015 all lending of WMA titles was stopped.

[silverraven]

Just went to One Click Digital today. Got the message the basically since Microsoft is no longer supporting DRM they now have their own DRM. They can no longer be transferred over to Sansa devices. *sigh* Really? That is what I listen to my audio books on. They are as bad as Hoopla for me now.
S

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

EDIT: After some research it looks like the phase out started in November 2014 by dropping WMA for titles that also had MP3. Then on March 2, 2015 all lending of WMA titles was stopped.

Another source gives May 19, 2015 as the drop dead date where OD pulled all WMA books.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by silverraven

Just went to One Click Digital today. Got the message the basically since Microsoft is no longer supporting DRM they now have their own DRM. They can no longer be transferred over to Sansa devices. *sigh* Really? That is what I listen to my audio books on. They are as bad as Hoopla for me now.
S

For those interested, here's the full text of that message:

Notice to our customers:

Due to Microsoft's decision to no longer support DRM encryption, protected OneClickdigital titles can no longer be transferred from the OneClickdigital Media Manager. This affects WMA devices such as Sansa, Zen, and Sony Walkman.

You can still listen to protected titles in the OneClickdigital Media Manager, stream the titles from your library’s OneClickdigital website, or listen to the title with one of the OneClickdigital mobile apps on Apple, Android, or Kindle Fire devices.

Thank you for using our software!

[silverraven]

Thanks! It wouldn't give me the message again, and I didn't think to copy it. I did call One Click and they have their developers looking into putting some kind of indication on the web page before you check out so you will know if it will come down as an emp3 or a regular mp3 which has no drm. That will at least save checking out an item and not being able to use it the way I want.
S

[Mike 01Hawk]

Ran into this crap too and found this thread via googling "oneclickdigital protected offline"

Here's the blurb:


And it's BS cause Microsoft supports DRM thru PlayReady since 2008. OneClick is just being lazy and trying to pass the buck since WMDRM went the way of the dodo with Microsoft Server 2003 support ending July 14th 2015.

You can filter out protected vs non-protected books on OneClick and can still DL non-protected books. I found this PDF guide helpful
http://gowyld.net/econtent/OneClick/ManualDownload.pdf

But alas, this still blows as we need a way to be able to play audiobooks in offline mode when we're away from the house. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell OneClick supports. What a crapily ran software product.

-edit, last time I visited this site was 4-12-2011 @ 4:53pm :lol: And boy is my Device profile out of date. I'm rockin a Voyage now :lol:

-edit 2 Serious? ":lol:" isn't coded on this forum?