Audiobook support?

[roberthleeii 61]

Is there anyway to do audiobooks on mediabrowser. I rely on iTunes for all my audiobook listening and am trying to move away from having an iDevice and I think that audiobooks (and synced content) are about the only things I am lacking to make MB my sole media provider.

 

Thanks,

[Spaceboy 2573]

At the moment you can only add them as music

Edited August 16, 2014 by Spaceboy

[roberthleeii 61]

At the moment you can only add them as music

Thanks for the reply.

 

Is there a way to save position?

[Guest]

Would be realy cool if Audiobooks can get their own section.

Me and my girlfriend have a lot of episodes from "Die drei Fragezeichen" (English: "The three investigators") and other Audiobooks which are clutter up my Music Libaray when I add them as Music 

Edited August 21, 2014 by CM000n

[Luke 42077]

@@Spaceboy

@@CM000n

 

You can try out audio book support in the latest beta release of Emby Server. Simply create a library using the Books content type. Once scanned in you can play and resume just like you would expect with audio books. Please try it out and give us your feedback, we're listening. Thanks !

[mediacowboy 438]

This is off topic but how is everyone managing audio books? What is the file structure and naming standards everyone is using? I noticed picard isn't that great at detecting audio books.

[Luke 42077]

At this juncture the server is detecting them with more or less similar structures to video libraries.

[jordy 284]

Hi,

 

Just added some Audio Books to my library. I believe that as a general rule, Audio Books come in MP3 format but split up into segments of about 1h 20mins each numbered in sequence. At least all the ones I have seen correspond to this format.

 

My file structure is this:

 

Author

   - book 1

       - pt01.mp3

       - pt02.mp3   etc

   - book 2

       - pt01.mp3

       - pt02.mp3   etc

   - book 3   etc

 

Comments:

• Emby sees pt01.mp3, pt02.mp3 etc as separate files and does not play them sequentially, rather you have to select each in order.
• There is no play icon visible until you drill down to the individual mp3 files
• stopping playback midway through a file sets up a resume point which seems to work fine in a small test

Idea:

On scanning books into the library, automatically create a playlist for each book containing all of the parts that make the book. Then just select play on the book icon to automatically start the playlist and go right through the book until stopped or finished. Not sure how resume would work in this scenario but I'm sure that you can figure out a way

 

Latest Dev server on Chrome.

Edited December 13, 2016 by jordy

[Luke 42077]

Thanks for the report.

[JoelAllen 0]

I concur with Jordy. linking individual files would make the experience seamless and similar to other audiobook apps.

[Ge0rge 1]

I first tried to use the Music media type for the Audio-books content, and the Artist/Album approach is quite good. Then I saw that there's support in the Books media type - so, what is the file/folder/tag structure for the audio chapters playback? Now they are played as a separate files.

[Luke 42077]

@@Ge0rge we need to better document this but right now it's more or less equivalent to movie libraries.

[Rumbaar 13]

@@Ge0rge we need to better document this but right now it's more or less equivalent to movie libraries.

I'm looking to add a whole lot of audio books, so I should follow the similar structure for a multi-part movie as the defined structure?

[jordy 284]

Hey @@Rumbaar, I've been playing a little with Audiobooks and have discovered the following:

 

It appears that you need to make sure that the MP3 Tags - in particular the "Title" tag is written according to the WIKI item on split video files. So, like this: BookName-pt1, pt2 etc

Then, you need to add the entire book to a Playlist (3 dot menu - Add to playlist), Emby will then automatically play the parts sequentially. However, if you stop playback midway through a part of the book, it will mark that part as fully played and will not resume from the stopped point. In fact there is no "Resume" function that applies to Playlists that I can see.

Playing any single part of the book will play that part and then stop, you will then need to start the next part manually and so on, again, there is no resume available.

 

IMHO, Audiobook management and playback has a long way to go

[Rumbaar 13]

Ah, darn.  I would hope the multi-part option with Movie (though I'm not sure that works too well from what I've experienced with custom multi-part videos), would allow for start, stop and resume feature.   Which is essentially the whole purpose of (audio)book management.

 

@@jordy why did you have to use a playlist?  I would have assumed it would work like a multi-part movie if that's the base design for the library functionality?  So would handle all the parts automatically without a m3u file?

[jordy 284]

Well, I must admit that when I first tried to play Audiobooks, the individual files would play but with no auto play next file happening... So, I checked out the Wiki and then renamed all of the files to comply with the rules for multi part videos and they still wouldn't play sequentially without intervention. Then I noticed that Emby uses the "Title" tag to refer to each of the parts of the book, so I renamed all of the "Title tags to reflect the multi-part rules and tried again, but still Emby will not auto start the next part of the book without intervention. So I thought what if I put them in a playlist - much like you do with music... Lo and behold they play auto sequentially, there is just no Resume function. However if you stop playback at the end of a part, you can manually resume from the next part FROM INSIDE THE PLAYLIST, and it will continue to play until stopped again or the end of book...

 

I did suggest to @@Luke earlier that Emby should automatically create a Playlist for each book on scanning them into the library but nothing yet...

[Luke 42077]

Yea we will get to that, but right now it should be fine for books that are single files.

[Rumbaar 13]

Yeah, in my previous dealings with multi-part files has been suggested to just combine them.   I'll see how that goes, with 100+ audio-books and all multi-part chapter based recordings, that's not a pleasant task to think of.

[mediacowboy 438]

Yeah, in my previous dealings with multi-part files has been suggested to just combine them. I'll see how that goes, with 100+ audio-books and all multi-part chapter based recordings, that's not a pleasant task to think of.

I downloaded a program that made it simple. I will look when I get home and let you know if you are interested.

[Elfman 1]

I downloaded a program that made it simple. I will look when I get home and let you know if you are interested.

Would be curious to know what joiner program you used.  Getting ready to do some offline syncing for a trip planned next week and want to make sure I can listen to more than one book while in the air.

[CharleyVarrick 283]

Audacity does the job pretty easily (google/youtube: join mp3 with Audacity), but for "comfort reasons" hopefully you're not working with 150 parts-book

Edited March 29, 2017 by jlr19

[mediacowboy 438]

Sorry for the delayed response. The program I used is called mergemp3. It's not very fancy but you can have it load all your tracks at once and merge them.

Edited March 29, 2017 by mediacowboy

[computerprep 148]

Anyone here have a method of merging multi-part mp3s into a single chaptered m4b?

 

I've got a few books that are m4b, but I haven't tested Emby's m4b playback. I use Emby strictly for organization where audiobooks are concerned. When I'm ready for another book, I make it available offline, and my audiobook app's library is pointing directly to the Emby sync folder.

 

If I could find software to merge mp3s into a chapterized m4b, that would solve several of these multi-part problems.

[SomeAwesomeDude 1]

Hi,

 

I am following the thread very attentively, since I am also thinking about to import my whole audiobooks into emby. Since the naming of my audiobooks doesn't follow any naming schema, I need to rename a lot of abooks and folders. I already read some suggestions from other users here, how to name them and how to structure them, but i still have some problems to represent the abooks in emby like i want:

 

1. Is there any metadata support for audiobooks atm?

2. (How) can i provide my own images and cover inside the folder, so that emby automatically choose them as Cover?

3. How should the name exactly be? Especially the folder structure. could someone give an concrete example? I am still struggeling with setting up the folder structure properly

 

I would appreciate if someone could help me.

[Haplo164 1]

Has anyone found a way to set library specific resuming settings? Most of my books are 40ish hours long so you have to get 2 hours into book before it will resume. Setting it lower messes up tv and movie view tracking.