[Sweden] New audiobook player coming to Elib

[owly]

Just recieved a newsletter from Elib and they are completely revamping their streaming audiobook solutions from the 24th of October. New players with many more functions and better working solutions for tablets and mobiles. No more ancient flash players!

[HarryT]

Does "streaming" mean that it will only work if you have an Internet connection? That seems undesirable for an audiobook.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Does "streaming" mean that it will only work if you have an Internet connection? That seems undesirable for an audiobook.

Why? People constantly stream music so what is the problem. Remember that we have mobile coverage nearly everywhere.

[HarryT]

I was thinking more of data usage. If you have a data allowance of 1GB/month you'd quickly use that up listening to an audiobook.

[wawasteele]

Originally Posted by tompe

Why? People constantly stream music so what is the problem. Remember that we have mobile coverage nearly everywhere.

I dislike streaming for audiobooks. There are too many places where it will cut out.

[susan_cassidy]

Why does anyone need a new audio player that sounds proprietary?

[David Munch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I was thinking more of data usage. If you have a data allowance of 1GB/month you'd quickly use that up listening to an audiobook.

People that listen to music likely have the same problem. In any case, just buy more data if you want the service. And audiobooks are streamed at a much lower bitrate anyway, so you'll more playtime for the same data amount compared to music.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by David Munch

People that listen to music likely have the same problem. In any case, just buy more data if you want the service. And audiobooks are streamed at a much lower bitrate anyway, so you'll more playtime for the same data amount compared to music.

I guess it depends how you listen. Personally, I prefer to download audiobooks using my home broadband connection and then listen to them while I'm out and about on my phone, so downloading works better than streaming for me.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I guess it depends how you listen. Personally, I prefer to download audiobooks using my home broadband connection and then listen to them while I'm out and about on my phone, so downloading works better than streaming for me.

That's what I do also. I have a much bigger cap on my home broadband (300 G per month) than I have on my Cell phone (4 G per month) and I'm rarely near a wifi hotspot during the day.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

That's what I do also. I have a much bigger cap on my home broadband (300 G per month) than I have on my Cell phone (4 G per month) and I'm rarely near a wifi hotspot during the day.

I have no cap at all on my home broadband, but have a 1Gb allowance on mobile data, hence I download as much as I can at home. Normally I only use a small fraction of my 1G mobile data allowance; the only time I use a significant proportion of it is when I'm travelling and the places I'm staying at have either no WiFi, or (as is common in large chain hotels) very expensive WiFi.

[owly]

Elib is Swedens equivalent of Overdrive and the streaming service is how they lend out audiobooks.

[Tarana]

If the Elib device has a large enough buffer, the audiobook should play smoothly. My other Swedish online buddies have good wifi bandwidth, so probably not a problem unless you are in a rural area with very limited bandwidth. If it's anything like Hughesnet, streaming is pretty much undoable.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by wawasteele

I dislike streaming for audiobooks. There are too many places where it will cut out.

Well, not in Sweden. There are very few places were mobile data is not working. When visiting other countries I notice how bad coverage can be so it kind of depend if it is a problem.

And what do you need for audio? 50 kbit/s? 3Mbit/min, 0.4MByte/min. Say 30 Mbyte per hour. 30 hours for 1Gbyte. And buffering will probably be done when you have wifi. And you can easily but 10Gbyte per month to a reasonable cost.

[owly]

The streaming part works fairly well in Sweden. Elib has had this service for many years. I was a bit hasty about the No flash part though, for more http://www2.elib.se/elibs-blogg/arkiv/2752

[owly]

The Android app is now working.