Samsung WMA Compatibility and Overdrive

[jacobbrowne]

Samsung is advertising some of their smart phones as WMA compatible. The salespeople for Verizon even claimed that they will play WMA files, including the Overdrive WMA files.

After three hours with their tech support, I discovered they only work with Unprotected WMA files, not Protected WMA files. Which means, at least with my Samsung Stratosphere, I cannot play Overdrive WMA Audiobooks (the majority of audiobooks on Overdrive).

I can play the MP3 audiobooks from Overdrive and from One Click with no issue.
As far as I know there is no work around without hacking the files and removing the DRM coding.

Sharing this for patrons who bring in a Samsung phone complaining it won't work with Overdrive AUdio.

[Sharon WestKreutzer]

I think that issue has been fixed with the Samsung Galaxy. A patron was able to download from overdrive app. Don't know how it worked out yet. If I hear of any issues I will post

[seaneads]

Hi Sharon, any update from your patron about this? At the moment, no version of Android (or iOS for that matter) is supposed to handle protected WMA files. If that's changed, it would be a huge deal, and I would expect almost every Droid device out there to quickly follow suit.