Audiobook support would make PLEX even greater 
Does anyone know if that is on it´s way ?
1 Like
+1 Audiobooks
+1 Audiobooks
+1 Audiobook
There have been several requests, for at least 2 years asking for support, but this actually might be harder than one would expect.
I know there is a few issues on getting the support.
- Will it require a standardized format (m4b/1 mp3/4 etc)
- Where to get a scrubber? Who will maintain it?
- Different versions of the same audiobook. Example:Graphic Audio does James Axler’s Deathlands, but before they picked it up, another publisher did the audiobooks. This would be more a matter of the individual manually scrubbing in these cases
- Ability to pause/bookmark a listening session to come back to again.
- Playlist vs Single file support (multi part support vs 1 big file)
- Work with Amazon/Audible for a Plex tie in? Work with iTunes for an Audiobook m4b tie in?
- Then there is “lent” audiobooks like from OverDrive
- Lyrics support - I know a few people who use audiobooks to help them learn a different language, as they can hear native speaking. The ability to add lyrics, so one can read along regardless of spoken vs written.
- How do you search your own database for audiobooks? might be easy for smaller, but again, let’s say you have James Axler’s Deathlands series, with over 120+ books, all of them are multipart. How do you search for a specific track from a book?
- iTunes and OverDrive both use a DRM technology.
While Audiobooks are technically supported via creating a Audio Library of just Audiobooks, and then sorting out via folder, this method doesnt’ really work on all platforms. Example, on iOS it displays as one would expect, but on Android 4.2 you only see a BIG folder icon, with no naming, so you have no idea.
Another way is to create a new TV library, and manually scrub everything, will be a big task at the start, but as you add things, it doesn’t take make time. Broken
I don’t see this becoming available for a spell, as there is a lot that needs to be worked on, figured out, and I’m sure there is more issues than what I may have brought up above.
my two cents.
Lynx
+1 Audiobooks
+1 Podcasts
In my opinion, I don’t see enough difference between Podcasts and Audiobooks that there would need to be a different library type.
- Both are primarily audio (yes video podcasts, blah, separate issue for now)
- Both are generally longer than music and require bookmarking
- Both are episodic in nature (may contain more than one file, specific sequence). For audio books these may be available all at once, for podcasts these are spread out over time.
I don’t know if the demand is there for this but this could solve two problems at once. I also listen to language learning tutorials which are similar in nature but am forced to use a music library which does not track progress (listened, not listened).
db
+1 Audiobooks
+1 Podcasts
The primary reason I use Plex is for listening to various podcasts and it works wonderfully, but… Not having the ability to bookmark is problematic and at times a pain. I, like many others, like to listen to various podcasts and audio books and not having this functionality makes using Plex less enjoyable.
Elan; you must be Jamaican, because Jamaican me crazy.
+1 Please add Audiobook support. At the very least let us add our collections similar to home videos.
Since Plex cannot even be bothered to implement even the simplest part of audiobook support, resume/FF/RW for the basic audio formats, I strongly doubt that true audiobook support will be forthcoming.
Plex is more interested in making everything look and feel exactly the same than they are in truly expanding functionality.
I wish audiobook support would be added but I do not think it will ever happen. It is just not glamorous enough to fit in with the fluff and finery that Plex has mostly added recently and has pretty clearly become their focus.
+1 for audiobooks!
as Lynx pointed out in December. it’s a big thing to make a FULL implementation with this.
BUT I think that the community will find the feature (allow bookmarking in this library) added to audio libraries enough to stop looking for an alternative while they work on the full implementation.
I mean the standard music library has enough support for everything except the bookmarks.
This does look like a partial solution but by choosing a music library my books get sometimes named correctly and sometimes they get a generic name that has nothing to do with the file name.
I turned off all scraping and all external matching just hoping that the file name would be used like it is when I make my audiobooks into video types and use a home video type library. But that is not what happens Plex does not seem to have an audio library that is equivalent to “Home Video” for video.
All I want now is to have my books displayed as a list with their name the file names that I already have them in and grouped by folders. That is how my books are organized and, for my books, I don’t need or want any more information than the file name.
Does anyone know how to do this. I do not want any music features or any artwork or anything else just a list of file name for my books.
Edit: I have discovered that browsing by folder produces much of what I want. However the folder view does not allow resuming on the Roku, yet. I have talked to the Roku developer and he said that he will look into it and fix it if possible.
The resume does seem to work well on the Shield however.
