Books on Tape on Your iPod

May 16th, 2006

The concept of being read aloud to starts when we are children. Then, the responsibility of adulthood forces us to read to ourselves. However, there are times when reading a book is simply not appropriate. It is hard to walk through city streets or jog through the neighborhood whilst reading. It is also unsafe, and evidently illegal, to read while driving.

The concept of recording someone reading books is probably as old as recording technology. Books on Tape is actually a popular brand for this service, but who still uses cassette tapes? They are also available on CDs, but even abridged versions of most popular novels are over eight hours long, and that’s a lot of CDs to be shuffling around.

The MP3 format has proven to be a great format for spoken word recordings. Since the frequency range is much narrower than music, voice recordings are very compression friendly, allowing to pack a long program is a small space. Not that it is a problem anymore with things like 60 Gigabyte iPods.

Another benefit of the digital format for audio books is that you can immediately download and transfer to your portable audio device for your listening pleasure. Immediate gratification always seems to be a big bonus.

Where do you get these audio books? There are many services out there, but personally, I use Audible. I have been a member for years and have an account in which I pay a monthly fee which allows me to download any two books per month.

Browse their offerings by category, search, view best seller lists, read user reviews, and listen to excerpts. Add the selection to your shopping cart, purchase, and you are ready to download in varying level of fidelity. They provide the software to transfer the audio to your favorite MP3 device. I used to listen to these on my Treo 600 smart phone until I got an iPod. The file format is not a simple MP3. A form of digital rights management (DRM) is imposed so that you cannot share these files with others. In fact, you seem to only be able to listen to the programs on your computer and one other device.

I find that novels are suited best for listening. Any instructional or informational type texts tend to need review and often include important graphics. An audio recording is not the best for reference material as it is also hard to navigate to a specific “page” as desired.

Another challenge I have with reading, is that it does require a dedication to that as one task. Although some might argue that is important, that type of focus is hard to find in our busy schedules. Reading before bed only aids me in falling asleep quickly. If your day has a long drive, commute, workout, or other chunks of time that could be filled by listening to books, you should try it.

Audio programming is available from Audible.

Entry Filed under: iPod, Digital Living, Technology

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