FREE/BARGAIN - Audiobooks - 2016

[skinmaan]

Originally Posted by ApK

I'd probably make MP3 CDs, just because I have several stacks in the closet and little else to do with them.
700MB is still a lot of mp3 audibook content.

I do the same for listening in the car sometimes, particularly for shorter fare. There is a convenience of not having to connect my phone/media player/tablet, call up the app, and start the book. The CD will just pick up right where I left off when I killed the engine. I actually keep some CD-RWs rotating regularly for this since I no longer use them for backups.

[Catlady]

I always make mp3 CDs. I have cases with 24 sleeves, and alphabetize the CDs by author and publication date. I keep to one book per CD even if more will fit on the disc; occasional lengthy books will require two or three CDs. I use printable CDs and list author, title, series, narrator, and pub date.

I do this basically for archival purposes, but I like that I can easily find a disc and play it on my home stereo. I don't see much point to using a DVD instead; it would be harder to organize books. I also back up to an external hard drive.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ApK

Double layer DVDs are the standard for commercial movies.
Less popular for home-recording, but they do have (or had) a following among home video buffs.

As for Blurays discs (25 GB per layer), they were eclipsed by other forms of storage and streaming for everything but commercial movie distribution (mostly, anyway).
I am surprised there even is a 4K Bluray standard being sold, and that discs will be coming in higher capacities.
I'd have bet that Bluray was going to be the last form of physical distribution we were going to see at any mass market scale, to be totally replaced by streaming and solid state storage.

ApK

By commercial movies, I suppose that you mean those produced for public viewing, such as in movie theaters? I'm not much of a movie-watcher, but all of the movie DVDs that I've played will play in my computer's DVD drive. However, come to think of it, all of the computers (laptops, all--I wear them out like crazy) that I've purchased in the last 5 or 10 years may have/have had double-layer capability.

I tend to shy away from blu-ray movies. For one thing, none of the computers that I have bought have/have had software pre-installed that will play them. Too, I have to plug a standalone blu-ray player into my computer every time that I want to watch a blu-ray movie. I do have a 1080p-capable laptop now, but frankly I haven't been able to see much difference between the visual quality of the dvd and blu-ray movies, either. And the sound quality of one of the blu-ray movies was crummy--worse than any dvd that I ever remember playing.

Yeah, I'm sure that the days of physical discs of every kind are numbered, including the CD.

The "purple thingie" that I spoke of, I now remember, is actually violet something. Seems like Sony is the one who created it. But I think that that may not require a new kind of disc, but is just a different way of encoding or something.

[tubemonkey]

Audiobooks.com -- $5 Kids Book Sale -- exp 08 Jun


Thu: $5 Kids Book Sale (13 titles) --> details --> members only

• Adventures of Bella & Harry #1
• Amelia Bedelia and the Baby
• Berenstain Bear's Stories
• The Magician's Nephew (CoN 1/7)
• Fancy Nancy: Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth
• Green Eggs and Ham
• I Survived #1
• Junie B Jones Is (Almost) a Flower Girl
• Magic Tree House #1
• Muggie Maggie
• Peppa Pig: Once Upon a Time
• Pout-Pout Fish
• A Series of Unfortunate Events #1

[GtrsRGr8]

Even this confirmed non-fictionist (me) recognizes the name "Arthur C. Clarke."

Title: Rendezvous with Rama.
Genre: Fiction (Science Fiction).
Author(s): Arthur C. Clarke.
Price: $3.98 ($1.99 ebook (marked down) + $1.99 Whispersync audio).
Regular Price of Audio, by Itself, at Audible: $20.95.
Ebook Rating/Number of Reviews: 4.3 stars/970 reviews (Amazon).
Audio Rating/Number of Ratings: 4.2/3308 ratings.
Pages/Audio Length: 256/9 hours and 4 minutes.
Narrator(s): Peter Ganim; Robert J. Sawyer.
Audible URL: http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fan...ok/B002UZLF2U/.
Amazon URL (you can get the whole Whispersync deal here): https://www.amazon.com/Rendezvous-Ra.../dp/B00AHIP8ZM.
Comments: The book is the winner of the Campbell, Hugo, Jupiter, and Nebula Awards.
Book Description (Amazon):
An enormous cylindrical object appears in Earth's solar system, hurtling toward the sun. A ship is sent to explore the mysterious craft-which the denizens of the solar system name Rama-and what they find is intriguing evidence of a civilization far more advanced than ours. They find an interior stretching over 50 kilometers; a forbidding cylindrical sea; mysterious and inaccessible buildings; and strange machine-animal hybrids, or "biots," that inhabit the ship. But what they don't find is an alien presence. So who-and where-are the Ramans?

Often listed as one of Clarke's finest novels, Rendezvous With Rama has won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards. A fast-paced and compelling story of an enigmatic encounter with alien technology, Rendezvous With Rama offers both answers and unsolved mysteries that continue to fascinate readers decades after its first publication.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

By commercial movies, I suppose that you mean those produced for public viewing, such as in movie theaters?

There is no such thing as far as I know.
No, I mean if you walk into a store and buy a movie on dvd, unless it's very short or extremely cut-rate, it's probably dual layers. All standard players play dual layers, it's only dual layer recorders and recordable media that's less common.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ApK

There is no such thing as far as I know.
No, I mean if you walk into a store and buy a movie on dvd, unless it's very short or extremely cut-rate, it's probably dual layers. All standard players play dual layers, it's only dual layer recorders and recordable media that's less common.

Then the DVD player that I bought 10 or more years ago (and not even new--refurbished or reconditioned or something like that) probably doesn't play them. I bought a few new DVD movies around the time that I bought the player, and they worked in the player. I've only bought a few new movies on disc since then, but I think that I've only tried to play them on a laptop computer.

Thanks.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Then the DVD player that I bought 10 or more years ago (and not even new--refurbished or reconditioned or something like that) probably doesn't play them. I bought a few new DVD movies around the time that I bought the player, and they worked in the player. I've only bought a few new movies on disc since then, but I think that I've only tried to play them on a laptop computer.

Thanks.

I don't think there has ever been a dvd player that couldn't play commercially manufactured dual layer disks. Pretty sure it's part of the dvd standard. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
Some may have problems playing back recordable dual layer discs, though. That's likely part of he reason that dual layer burners aren't more common.

[GtrsRGr8]

I do believe that I may have scooped the 'monkey--I didn't see this one just now on the O.P. . . . .

Living Social Audible deal. $9 for 3 months. https://www.livingsocial.com/deals/1...s-3-audiobooks.

I know, there have been better Audible trial deals. But I so rarely scoop tubemonkey that I had to post it. ha

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ApK

I don't think there has ever been a dvd player that couldn't play commercially manufactured dual layer disks. Pretty sure it's part of the dvd standard. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
Some may have problems playing back recordable dual layer discs, though. That's likely part of he reason that dual layer burners aren't more common.

That would be nice, if that is the case.

Again, I assumed something that I shouldn't have. I am pretty sure that home computers had dvd drives that only supported single-layer. Then, they began to make them double-layer compatible. I assumed that that would have been the case with standalone home dvd players, but that looks like where I messed up.

Thanks.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I do have a 1080p-capable laptop now, but frankly I haven't been able to see much difference between the visual quality of the dvd and blu-ray movies, either. And the sound quality of one of the blu-ray movies was crummy--worse than any dvd that I ever remember playing

The visual quality difference is generally huge although some progressive scan DVD players can do a very good job it's not as good as a properly mastered 1080p image. However depending on screen size and viewing distance the difference may not be very apparent. As for sound it seems odd that a BR would sound bad unless perhaps there was a decoding problem with the players software.

Originally Posted by ApK

I don't think there has ever been a dvd player that couldn't play commercially manufactured dual layer disks. Pretty sure it's part of the dvd standard. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
Some may have problems playing back recordable dual layer discs, though. That's likely part of he reason that dual layer burners aren't more common.

All DVD players and drives have always supported commercially produced dual layer movie DVDs (even the early ones I bought in the 90s). What they haven't always supported would be playback (& burning) of dual layer recordable DVDs.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I am pretty sure that home computers had dvd drives that only supported single-layer. Then, they began to make them double-layer compatible.

For recordable disks, maybe, but not for commercially produced disks. If it was a dvd drive, it could read a commercial dual layer disk. Assuming it wasn't broken, of course.

[GtrsRGr8]

ADDENDUM: I just noticed that By Darkness Hid is currently free as a Kindle mobi at Amazon. The URL for it is at the bottom of this post. G.

Fiction author Jill Williamson is apparently a very popular author. And, almost without exception, her many books garner very high ratings. You might want to take a look at her Amazon webpage here, to see what I mean.

On top of those things, she is an extremely prolific writer, which is all the more amazing because, if the photos of her on her Amazon webpage are any indication, she is pretty young.

Well, I found out that she offers, on her personal website, free audiobooks of the first and second books of her Blood of Kings trilogy. Let me quote her:
For a few years, I recorded a serial podcast of the Blood of Kings trilogy that anyone could listen to free online for subscribe via email, podcasts, or iTunes. I posted one chapter a week on Friday afternoons, just in time for the weekend.

It was a fun way to reach new readers (listeners) and to post content on my blog.

It became too time consuming to keep up with, though so I stopped after book two. But you can still listen to all of book one or book two . . . .

This is a great offer, if for no other reason, because of the fact that none of her books are commercially available as audiobooks. At least, I could find none of them at Audible.

I have listened to a portion of one of the books. Keep in mind that Ms. Williamson is not a professional narrator. But we are not talking about LibriVox recordings here, either. Her narration is adequate and the audio has evidently been recorded in a recording studio or, at least, in a room with very good acoustic qualities for audio recording.

Anyway, here are links to the two audiobooks that are available. The default is streaming audio. To save the file, right click on the progress/volume bar, and click on "save" or something to that effect (the procedure and wordings will differ slightly, depending on the web browser that you use). For your convenience, I am putting the URLs for the corresponding webpages for the ebooks at Amazon beside those links:
By Darkness Hid. https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Hid-.../dp/B00266Q078.
To Darkness Fled. https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Fled.../dp/B003EYVZF8.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Even this confirmed non-fictionist (me) recognizes the name "Arthur C. Clarke."

Title: Rendezvous with Rama.
Genre: Fiction (Science Fiction).
Author(s): Arthur C. Clarke.
Price: $3.98 ($1.99 ebook (marked down) + $1.99 Whispersync audio)....

Super! I've been wanting to read that one for a very long time, hoping that it would get picked by the MRBC during one of it's Sci-Fi months, but no dice, even though I've nominated it more than once.

Ohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy!

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I do believe that I may have scooped the 'monkey--I didn't see this one just now on the O.P. . . . .

Living Social Audible deal. $9 for 3 months. https://www.livingsocial.com/deals/1...s-3-audiobooks.

I know, there have been better Audible trial deals. But I so rarely scoop tubemonkey that I had to post it. ha

...still, it's a pretty good offer for a full credit.

Anyway, thanks - added to Audible Membership Plans: here | here