PhilWhite 64 Posted September 10, 2017 Share Posted September 10, 2017 Will the Alexa skill search through all types of content? I have several lectures from The Teaching Company that I initially placed in a library as unset media. I destroyed that library and just recreated it as books. I could not access the lectures when they were unset media, and Alexa seems to default to audible and gives me samples of the same lectures from audible when I ask it to tell Emby to play a particular lecture course. Is there a better setup or better command? I used "Alexa ask Emby to play book <lecture course title>" I would like to keep the lectures separate from my music collection so that random play of music does not result in a lecture being chosen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted September 11, 2017 Share Posted September 11, 2017 Book support is not added yet, so that would be why it's not working at this time. So your library content in Emby is books, not audiobooks right? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted September 11, 2017 Author Share Posted September 11, 2017 Correct. I didn't see audiobooks as an option, just books. There is no rush. If you could add it at some point that would be great. I enjoyed listening to my music on the Echo all day today. So, thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted September 11, 2017 Share Posted September 11, 2017 Try saying audiobook instead of book. That should work. I have a few audiobooks and that's how I get them to play: Play the audiobook {title}. That should pull up your books library and search in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted September 12, 2017 Author Share Posted September 12, 2017 (edited) Thanks. Unfortunately, it still defaults to Audible for Teaching Company lectures and does not seem to recognize others. I suspect that is because there is some other coding involved with audiobooks to identify them as books? These are actually lectures that I either ripped from CDs or directly downloaded (from iTunes and The Teaching Company). Do you know if it searches for a mp3 tag that I could change? I do not have any of these lectures tagged as books or audiobooks; I think they are all tagged as Spoken word or something similar. Or should I wait for another solution? ETA: I just changed a few mp3 tags to audiobook and rescanned the Library but got the same effect -- it still went to Audible. Edited September 12, 2017 by PhilWhite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted September 13, 2017 Share Posted September 13, 2017 I'm not sure what you are talking about. What kind of content are you trying to play? Are they pdf or audio files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest asrequested Posted September 13, 2017 Share Posted September 13, 2017 If you ask alexa/emby skill to play something it doesn't support, shouldn't the emby skill just not play it? As opposed to Alexa switching to a different skill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted September 14, 2017 Share Posted September 14, 2017 No, that's not how Alexa works. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted September 14, 2017 Author Share Posted September 14, 2017 I'm not sure what you are talking about. What kind of content are you trying to play? Are they pdf or audio files? They are audio files. Specifically, all are mp3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted September 14, 2017 Share Posted September 14, 2017 (edited) But if they are audio files, in a book library, that makes them audio books as far as emby is concerned. Maybe it's the title that throws it off? Let me know what the title is. See if using: Play the audiobook {shortened title}. Does it search within emby? Edited September 14, 2017 by Angelblue05 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted September 14, 2017 Author Share Posted September 14, 2017 (edited) That doesn't seem to work either. How far down the 'tree' will it search? Just wondering if my file structure is an issue (likely not, but you never know)? I have all these files in a master directory named Lectures. They are then divided into sections -- like Literature, Philosophy, etc. Those are then subdivided into a folder for each lecture and then the lectures themselves. Does it search by mp3 tags or by the name of the folder that contains the mp3 files or by some other means? Oh, wait, It strikes me that I may be searching in the wrong way. The files themselves are named by the specific lecture title and not the overarching title of the lecture series. I thought I had tried calling them up by specific lecture title, but I'm not sure I did that after switching from 'unset' to 'book' as the content type. I'll give that a try. Seems like that is probably the problem since Emby should only see the mp3 file itself? Sorry, I have been thinking like a human and not like a search program. Hmm, that didn't work either. I'm going to try moving some files and see if I can access them from another folder. ETA: No go. It still tries to default to audible. Let me see if there is an Alexa setting I can change ETA: If it matters, the files are named by the number of the lecture in the series -- for instance a lecture series "Great American Bestsellers" starts with "01. Why Do Bestsellers Matter.mp3" Edited September 14, 2017 by PhilWhite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted September 14, 2017 Author Share Posted September 14, 2017 (edited) Well, I have something else wrong, which may explain it. Alexa is not playing my content from Emby after all. I had to try several different examples to make sure. There seems to be some sort of connection issue that I will have to figure out first. Turns out it was just pulling from prime music and the library I have on amazon. Will work on it. Edited September 14, 2017 by PhilWhite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted September 14, 2017 Author Share Posted September 14, 2017 (edited) OK, found and solved a few issues. I can clearly communicate with Alexa on the Echo, but I don't seem to have the Echo as one of my devices. How can I add it as a device in Emby? As far as I can tell, when I use the Echo it reports the device as Alexa. But I cannot change the device to Alexa ETA: OK, relinked the account and now it cannot find an available player. So, I guess my problem is in liking the Echo as a player that Emby can use? Edited September 14, 2017 by PhilWhite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelblue05 4130 Posted September 15, 2017 Share Posted September 15, 2017 Wait a minute, you are playing directly on your Echo? Or is that what you are looking to do? Because that has no been implemented yet. Alexa searches your content using the server search api (like in the webclient, the same search feature). But for types that are not videos, you need to specify what it is. I think this might be where the issue lies. I haven't had the internet for the past few days which made it impossible for me to check the logs and help you out. Right now, for devices, it will only use Emby devices. Playback on Alexa directly has no been implemented in the Emby skill. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilWhite 64 Posted September 18, 2017 Author Share Posted September 18, 2017 Wait a minute, you are playing directly on your Echo? Or is that what you are looking to do? Because that has no been implemented yet. Alexa searches your content using the server search api (like in the webclient, the same search feature). But for types that are not videos, you need to specify what it is. I think this might be where the issue lies. I haven't had the internet for the past few days which made it impossible for me to check the logs and help you out. Right now, for devices, it will only use Emby devices. Playback on Alexa directly has no been implemented in the Emby skill. That would explain it. I can play on my Fire TVs, though it doesn't deal with the lectures very well. I haven't tried with the Shield TV yet. Yes, I would like to play directly on the Echo if that is possible in future. I am very willing to wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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