OverDrive MP3 Digital Audio Book Format

OverDrive MP3 audio book loaded in iPod Touch

An image of an OverDrive MP3 audio book loaded in the OverDrive Media Console on the iPod Touch

Overview

Pros and Cons

Downloading

Compatible Devices

Software

Sound Quality and File Size

Bookmarking and Playback Features

Burn to CD

Common Issues

Overview

OverDrive MP3 audio book format is a common digital audio book format carried my a number of online retailers such as Barnesandnoble.com and Borders.com and some online public libraries. It is pretty much the same as any MP3 file but because it has DRM (digital rights management) includes a number of extra steps before you can listen to your audio book.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Good Prices for purchasing audio books one at a time.
Mobile Apps for popular devices.
Numerous vendors means you can shop around.

Cons

Downloading a book and getting it loaded onto a mobile device can be extremely frustrating/time intensive.
Poor DRM. If there are any issues in the download process your *.odm file (see below) will expire preventing you from completing your download and you will have to get in touch with OverDrive to have them unlock it.
OverDrive MP3 books can't be imported into the OverMedia Drive Console for iPod Touch or iPhone unless the book is downloaded directly to the device. This means your iPod Touch/iPhone must have a wireless connection to take advantage of advanced bookmarking features.
Online retailers such as Borders (see below) customer service branches can know very little about the technology so they can be less than helpful.
No membership plans means there is no way to save if you like to listen to audio books regularly.

Downloading

Downloading and listening to an OverDrive MP3 book generally requires these steps (check out the Common Issues section on why it's probably not this easy):

Download and install OverDrive Media Console to your Computer or portable listening device.
Download the *.odm file from the online retailer you purchased the book from to that device. The *.odm file is a digital rights file that says you have the right to download your audio book.
Open the *.odm file with OverDrive Media Console and begin downloading your book.
(Optional) Transfer the audio book to your portable listening device.

Compatible Devices

OverDrive is compatible with many devices from these manufacturers:

Apple
Blackberry
Coby
Creative
HTC
LG
Motorola
Nook
Samsung
SanDisk
SonyReader
Zune

Visit OverDrive's website for a complete list of OverDrive MP3 audio book compatible devices.

The book's publisher determines how many different devices you can transfer your book to typically it is just one.

Software

Find your device in the table below to determine what software you need:

Device	Required Software
PC/Mac	OverDrive Media Console
iPhone/iPod Touch	OverDrive Media Console for iPhone + iTunes
iPod	OverDrive Media Console + iTunes
Android	OverDrive Media Console for Android
BlackBerry	OverDrive Media Console for BlackBerry
Windows Phone 7	OverDrive Media Console for Windows Phone 7

For all othe devices please visit OverDrive's device Center for compatibility.

Sound Quality and File Size

OverDrive MP3 books are MP3 audio files and their sounds quality and file size are as follows:

Digital Format:	MP3
File size for 1 hr of audio	14.4MB
Download time per hour (high speed connection)	1m 19s
Download time per hour (56K modem)	35 mins

Bookmarking and Playback Features

As long as you can load your OverDrive MP3 book into the OverDrive Media Console for your chosen listening device (which there can be issues doing) OverDrive Media Console has some nice bookmarking features.

The screenshot below shows the bookmarking features for an OverDrive MP3 book loaded on an iPod Touch:

Rewind 15 seconds instantly
Sleep mode: the book will automatically turn off after your choice of 15-90 minutes
Create a bookmark that you can start the book from again later

Burn to CD

OverDrive Medial Console gives the ability to burn to CD though the amount of times a book can be burned is determined by the book's publisher. Typically it is one time.

Common Issues

In my experience there are a host of problems in downloading these books. Some of which are:

In Windows, your book won't download because OverDrive Media Console says Access to C:\Users\[YourName]\AppData\Roaming\OverDrive\MediaConsole\MFCBA0E.tmp was denied (see screen shot below):
$Access to C:\Users\[YourName]\AppData\Roaming\OverDrive\MediaConsole\MFCBA0E.tmp was denied$
This caused me a ton of trouble, basically I kept getting this error and my book wouldn't download, or it would download but kept rewriting over different parts of itself while it downloaded so I could never get the entire book! I solved this by going to the folder OverDrive Medial Console is installed in, normally C:\Program Files\OverDrive Media Console\ on Windows and right clicking on MediaConsole.exe and selecting "Run as administrator" (see screenshot below):
With OverDrive Media Console open I would open the *.odm file and select a folder to download my audio book to only to get this error message: Unable to acquire a license to play this selected title. Error 1003: The requested license is either invalid or already acquired (see below):

Basically this means your *.odm file has expired and you will need to download a new *.odm file from the retailer's website where you purchased the book. You will discover that you literally have a couple of minutes after you download your *.odm file to load it into OverDrive Media Console to begin downloading your book. If you don't you'll have to redownload your *.odm file which might be acceptable except...
You're only allowed to download your *.odm file three times. If you're like me and purchased it from Borders you might go back to see this:

So I did contact Borders who put me on hold for a half hour until abruptly dumping my call to OverDrive where one of their reps unexpired it. After that I did get the book onto my computer which would be OK except...
Once you get your book loaded into OverDrive Media Console on your computer you'll probably want to transfer it to your iPod (or whatever mobile device you have). I did manage to transfer it but when I loaded it on my iPod Touch I noticed it was just a collection of MP3 files in a folder, so basically twenty 1.5 hour songs lined up in a row. Now if you're like me you like to have your books loaded in a custom iPod App to handle bookmarking which (I thought) is why OverDrive developed an OverDrive Media Console iPhone App. I had my app all loaded on my iPhone but couldn't figure out how to load the audio book using the app. Let me save you some time and tell you what I discovered: There is no way to load an OverDrive MP3 book with the OverDrive Media Console for iPhone App unless you download the MP3 book directly to your iPod Touch/iPhone. But because I downloaded the book first to my PC I'm stuck just having it in my music folder (or music/audiobook folder). So I fired up my Safari web browser on my iPod Touch (making sure I had a wireless internet connection) went back to Borders.com, and tried to download the *.odm file again, this time directly to my iPod. Guess what? I got this error message:

So to get this title loaded into OverDrive Media Console I'm going to have to again contact someone at Borders or OverDrive to get my session unexpired. Do I really want to do this or do I just want to forget about OverDrive MP3 books altogether? Me? I think I'll just forget about them altogether...