I just tried changing the Audiobook agent to “audible.co.uk”, then manually Matching a new book I imported, and it found it.
There was still metadata that the unmatched book had, that wasn’t replaced by what was scraped…
…but then I realized that I put “Local Media Assets” at the top of the list of agents for audiobooks (which I did intentionally). I personally want locally tagged metadata to override anything scraped for audio. If I had put “Audiobooks” above “Local Media Assets”, any metadata scraped from Audible would have superceded my custom id3 tags.
How is everyone accomplishing the final parts of the book? When you reach 90% and come back and it marks it as completed? Are you splitting the book up into multiple files to avoid such a large chunk of time lost? If so, does it store the last track you were on like it does for TV episodes and allow you to pick up on the next track?
By reading this, I imagine the best approach would be to have the whole book converted into a large MP3, so that it stores the entire track (book) progress as you go, instead of losing progress because the track was “completed”. But at the same time, it would be most susceptible to the 90% rule which so far un unable to be turned off.
It looks like everybody is using MP3 (generally, file-per-chapter) or M4A / M4B (possibly de-DRM’d from Audible) for their audio books. I have a lot of books in MP3 (from CD, file-per-track) that I’d really like to be able to move around in a single convenient container. I just discovered that mkvtoolnix (a frontend for mkvmerge) can do this conveniently, saving the tracks in a Matroska (MKA) container, with the ability to enter chapter names for each track, attach cover art, etc. It seems really neat and since it’s building a command line under the hood, it seems like I could script it pretty easily to convert my whole collection.
The only problem is, I’m not totally clear on how MKA handles metadata (since it seems to exist both per-file and per-track), or which of those fields Plex is exposing to the agent. Is anybody else packaging audiobooks as MKAs? How are you specifying metadata? Alternately, is there a simple(ish), free Windows tool that would let me convert my directory-of-MP3s into a single container file, preserving common metadata (author, title, narrator) such that Plex picks it up automatically?
Well, maybe this has something to do with my problem…I don’t get an Audiobooks tab when I am looking at my agents, but I do have the agents select as “Audiobook” in my library settings. All is set as outlined in the guide that was posted.
inAudible can convert a directory full of mp3s into a single m4b and preserve the metadata as well as create chapter markers where each included file starts.
Thanks for your sharing. Here I want to recommend some other audiobook guides. As an audiobook fan, I have collected a great number of my favor audiobooks from Audible. But when I sync them to my Android, it can’t playable on my phone. If you met the similar problem, I think this tool is helpful for you - AudFree Audible Audiobook Converter, which can help you batch convert all your audiobooks from .AA files to MP3 losslessly, and then you can playback them on common devices freely.
General question regarding play back on iOS. Will the audiobook continue to play when the phone / ipad screen is turned off? I use iTunes to download the books to iBooks to listen to on my phone. It would be very nice to not have to remember to download books. However, Plex, usually stops playing content when the screen is turned off. I don’t want to have my phone screen on for hours on end while I am listening to a book - how are you all handling this?
To convert iTunes DRM protected M4B to MP3, the program to me is Tuneskit Audiobook converter mac. It is best audiobook DRM removal solution for Windows to remove DRM from iTunes and Audible audibooks while converting DRM-ed M4B, M4A, AA, AAX audibooks to unprotected MP3. It works at faster speed with quality lossless. We have to get rip of DRM protection at first, then we can enjoy these audiobook freely. Wish this point is helpful to you.
It can truly losslessly decrypt Audible books (meaning simply decrypting a book from .aax to m4b takes a few seconds);
It can directly download files from Audible instead of using the Audible Download Manager or iTunes;
It has a GUI-based chapter mark editor where you can see and precisely adjust on a waveform exactly where individual chapter marks are placed, then preview the audio and confirm placement before committing changes;
It can create both single-file and multi-file audiobooks by either embedding chapter marks or splitting files at their locations
It can automate iTunes operation if using iTunes is desired, but it also does not require iTunes at all to handle files;
I finally got my chapter markers – I found fre:ac, an open source conversion GUI. You can feed it a bunch of m4a files and it will glue them into a single m4b with chapter markers in either QuickTime or Nero format, or both. It seems to work great, and the file shows chapters in both VLC (desktop) and MediaInfo on desktop, but Plex doesn’t seem to notice.
I’m going to do some more digging, I just want to have single-file audiobooks and some Android player that supports the chapter markers I fought so hard to get.
I’m new to plex, but I just got this all set up and it’s pretty good. Just needs a sleep timer mode.
One problem I’m having though, is that the tags don’t line up properly (from the publisher!). So I get 10 authors because only the “Contributing artists” is filled out, or similar.
What’s the best way to manage this? Really, I would prefer to just say “You know what this media is, so don’t believe the tag for the details, look them up”.
A workaround that would be usable although not pleasant I suppose is to use a tool to standardize all my tags. Could somebody recommend software and a system to do that? (Should I just be looking to populat “Album Artist”?)
Finally, I understand some kind of “Plex Dance” is necessary to get Plex to notice changes. Can someone give me the definitive easiest way of doing that? If I could just rename the directory, scan library, and then rename back that would be ideal. What’s the least effort method?
For my part, I would say the best way is to edit the files’ tags in something like mp3tag or TagScanner, so that the files are tagged to your liking. Then you can tell the Agent to prioritize your own tags (when present) over Audible’s.
Plex Dance involves moving the folder (or file) in question out of the space monitored by Plex (that is move, not rename) ; scanning; emptying the trash; moving the media back again; and scanning again.
This forces Plex to recreate all of the metadata it has for those files from scratch, in the event that just a scan doesn’t pick up certain changes. If you only rename the folder or files and rescan, Plex may detect the move since the media’s hash doesn’t change.
What an amazing piece of info man. It really helpful for audiobook lovers. I would like to do only one more addition to it, I have found a new platform known as audiobookslab: https://audiobookslab.com/ this site is also really amazing and providing almost all of the popular books in audiobok format.
I have now discovered that if iTunes has a listing for an audiobook found on Audible, 1) the cover art on iTunes very commonly does not have the yellow ribbon that Audible puts on their covers, and 2) iTunes’ covers are frequently 2400x2400.
What you do is: Google an audiobook on iTunes, and right click the cover image to view just it.
