That would be awesome! Especially because it would probably mean, that I could read the comics I have on my NAS while I'm away from home, without putting everything on the device. Also I could finally read my comics on my big LED TV from my couch using the PS3, that's all I ever wanted. Although it better emulate some sort of guided view, like Comixology. Or even better, support linking to Comixology, so that I can read the comics I bought there. Because I would love to have Comixology on PS3. But as good as Comixology is, I still have no 100% satisfying solution for the cbz, cb7 and cbr files I have at home. Also a scanner to look up info from comicvine would be cool.
+1
I havenāt been able to find a solid media server for comics. If Iām away from home and want read something, I canāt, unless I plan ahead. Books/Comics are the last major form of media I can think of that we canāt serve in an all-in-one application with music, movies, photos, and TV Shows.
1 Like
While I don't think Plex needs a reader, because other apps already have this perfected, it would be nice if it were able to serve as a library for books and comics.Ā While Calibre is absolutely killer for books, it doesn't handle comics as well as it could.Ā ComicRack has some database stability issues that have caused me to abandon is as a management tool.Ā Being able to serve up both books and comics would be really great.
While Calibre is great for organizing my books it doesn't provide a mobile accessible server that tracks read states across multiple devices. I read alot on my phone while on the road and on my big tablet when i get home. The ability to have an "Amazon Kindle Style" sync is what Plex is all about with our TV and Movies, I would just love to see this in reguards to books as well.
While Calibre is great for organizing my books it doesn't provide a mobile accessible server that tracks read states across multiple devices. I read alot on my phone while on the road and on my big tablet when i get home. The ability to have an "Amazon Kindle Style" sync is what Plex is all about with our TV and Movies, I would just love to see this in reguards to books as well.
Until something better comes along, I use Calibre to manage my eBook library, and [Ubooquity](http://vaemendis.net/ubooquity/) to access that same library remotely when needed. Between the two, it works fairly well. At least until something like Plex integrates it all into a nice, user-friendly package. hehe... :)
Liked and +1ed
There's definitely a need for an audio-books portion to plex something that could recognize chapters, different audiobook file types, work with the screen off, speed control and some sort of scrubber to get meta data. Ā
I use Smart Audiobook player on my phone and would love to see its features in plex.
There's definitely a need for an audio-books portion to plex something that could recognize chapters, different audiobook file types, work with the screen off, speed control and some sort of scrubber to get meta data.
I use Smart Audiobook player on my phone and would love to see its features in plex.
Really, this is the only feature that I would like to see. Audiobooks are more like music audio and just need some curating automatically.
Really, this is the only feature that I would like to see. Audiobooks are more like music audio and just need some curating automatically.
Audiobooks and podcasts would probably be easier to implement than ebooks
Iād love to get podcasts added as an option please
Audiobooks and podcasts would probably be easier to implement than ebooks
For audiobooks all we really need is for there to be a "save where I left off" feature live they have with video... As far as comic books go CBR files are just rar'd images so I don't see why these would be difficult as images are already supported.
Either way, keep showing interest folks!!!
Let me preface this by saying again that i REALLY would like full audio book support in Plex.
I have mentioned this in other threads on this topic: Finding and seeking in an audio file seems more difficult, by a pretty good margin, than performing the same function in a video file. This is at least partly due to the difference in indexing between file types. Video files, by necessity, have good marks to find a particular place in the file but most, if not all, audio files have little or no such easy way to locate a position.
And it is platform dependent so mostly each client would have to be augmented to allow proper handling of audio files and that may not be as easy as it seems.
But there is a fairly easy workaround.
It was recently noted that changing the extension of many audio files to m4v or mp4 would allow them to be played on some platforms as a video file with no video track. That means that you have full pause/resume/FF/RW capabilities. This works but to use my devices and experience as an example:
The only audio format I have for my audiobooks is mp3.
I renamed a large test batch to m4v (I have no m4v video files and this makes identifying them easy)
All the files play in my Roku devices but only as "direct play" if the Roku client is set to "auto" all the test files fail.
All the files play on my Fire.TV without any modification to the playback settings.
All the files play on my computer using VLC.
All the files play on my Android devices in Plex
Only some of the files play on my computer in the Plex web interface.
That is all I have tested.
I am currently using a Roku using the old Plex channel set to direct play to play my audiobooks in my house and I have full resume etc control over the files.
NOTE: I made no other modification to the files other that to change their extension and the library type I used was "Home Videos"
This is NOT officially supported by Plex but it would be good if it were.
I think that Plex could implement basic audiobook handling pretty easy using some derivative of the above where audio files in a new library type "AudioBook" are treated as video with no video track. It would be inelegant but it could work.
The real problem as I see it is the metadata. Plex would need to come up with a naming method that would allow some data agent to get metadata from somewhere. Plex already reads embedded metadata (at least images) from the files but not all my files, many from Librivox, have metadata so some way should be found for Plex to get that data.
However, for me, I would be happy with a new library type as mentioned and the ability to display that library as a simple list by filename. For me fancy artwork and detailed metadata is not needed. The file names of my audiobooks have author, title and date in the file name and that is all I need to see. ex. "Dean Koontz (1995) - Strange Highways.m4v"
It looks like simple audiobook support may not be as hard as I though it would be but I am unsure if Plex has enough interested users to make it likely we will see even limited support beyond what we have by accident.
Let me preface this by saying again that i REALLY would like full audio book support in Plex.
I have mentioned this in other threads on this topic: Finding and seeking in an audio file seems more difficult, by a pretty good margin, than performing the same function in a video file. This is at least partly due to the difference in indexing between file types. Video files, by necessity, have good marks to find a particular place in the file but most, if not all, audio files have little or no such easy way to locate a position.
And it is platform dependent so mostly each client would have to be augmented to allow proper handling of audio files and that may not be as easy as it seems.
But there is a fairly easy workaround.
It was recently noted that changing the extension of many audio files to m4v or mp4 would allow them to be played on some platforms as a video file with no video track. That means that you have full pause/resume/FF/RW capabilities. This works but to use my devices and experience as an example:
The only audio format I have for my audiobooks is mp3.
I renamed a large test batch to m4v (I have no m4v video files and this makes identifying them easy)
All the files play in my Roku devices but only as "direct play" if the Roku client is set to "auto" all the test files fail.
All the files play on my Fire.TV without any modification to the playback settings.
All the files play on my computer using VLC.
All the files play on my Android devices in Plex
Only some of the files play on my computer in the Plex web interface.
That is all I have tested.
I am currently using a Roku using the old Plex channel set to direct play to play my audiobooks in my house and I have full resume etc control over the files.
NOTE: I made no other modification to the files other that to change their extension and the library type I used was "Home Videos"
This is NOT officially supported by Plex but it would be good if it were.
I think that Plex could implement basic audiobook handling pretty easy using some derivative of the above where audio files in a new library type "AudioBook" are treated as video with no video track. It would be inelegant but it could work.
The real problem as I see it is the metadata. Plex would need to come up with a naming method that would allow some data agent to get metadata from somewhere. Plex already reads embedded metadata (at least images) from the files but not all my files, many from Librivox, have metadata so some way should be found for Plex to get that data.
However, for me, I would be happy with a new library type as mentioned and the ability to display that library as a simple list by filename. For me fancy artwork and detailed metadata is not needed. The file names of my audiobooks have author, title and date in the file name and that is all I need to see. ex. "Dean Koontz (1995) - Strange Highways.m4v"
It looks like simple audiobook support may not be as hard as I though it would be but I am unsure if Plex has enough interested users to make it likely we will see even limited support beyond what we have by accident.
Wow, thanks a lot for this tip, I'm changing my library for this immediately! :)
EDIT: it didn't work for me, I couldn't play any of my files on my iPhone or in Plex Web using Chrome or Firefox... :s
Wow, thanks a lot for this tip, I'm changing my library for this immediately! :)
EDIT: it didn't work for me, I couldn't play any of my files on my iPhone or in Plex Web using Chrome or Firefox... :s
Sorry it did not work. I think it is very dependent on the the initial audio format as well as the client's abilities. As I said I have only very basic mp3 files.
I don't have an i anything so I have not tested that and only some of my files, half or less, work in the Plex web interface.
I appears that the Roku and the Fire and at least some of the Android devices are the ones with the best chance of working.
I understand that some/many clients cannot play videos that have only an audio track with no video track. I also understand that support for that kind of file may be more accidental than on purpose.
At least this works for some Plex users but Plex does need to step up and support at least the playing of audiobooks so that "tricks" and "workarounds: are not needed and everyone can play their book collection
EDIT: After further testing it seems that I over estimated the number of files that play in the web interface. I tested about 50 files at random, well as random as a human mind can get, and only 2 played in the web interface. So I guess the web interface is not to be counted on to play the renamed files. However all the failed files play fine on both the Roku and the Fire. As I said this workaround is VERY client dependent.
Sorry it did not work. I think it is very dependent on the the initial audio format as well as the client's abilities. As I said I have only very basic mp3 files.
I don't have an i anything so I have not tested that and only some of my files, half or less, work in the Plex web interface.
I appears that the Roku and the Fire and at least some of the Android devices are the ones with the best chance of working.
I understand that some/many clients cannot play videos that have only an audio track with no video track. I also understand that support for that kind of file may be more accidental than on purpose.
At least this works for some Plex users but Plex does need to step up and support at least the playing of audiobooks so that "tricks" and "workarounds: are not needed and everyone can play their book collection
EDIT: After further testing it seems that I over estimated the number of files that play in the web interface. I tested about 50 files at random, well as random as a human mind can get, and only 2 played in the web interface. So I guess the web interface is not to be counted on to play the renamed files. However all the failed files play fine on both the Roku and the Fire. As I said this workaround is VERY client dependent.
Yeah, I have tried to convert my mp3 files to mp4 files using Zamzar online conversion and those files now play in the web interface. But I can't play them on my iPhone using the native app. If I use Safari on my iPhone then I can play the files (I only tried the first file).
Now I'm trying something else: since Plex knows where you are in a movie and can resume later with that movie, there is no need to have several smaller files for one audiobook. So I added all files in order to a new movie file using Windows Movie Maker and added the cover of the book as an image for the entire movie. Now I'm saving that as a new mp4 movie. When it is finished, I'm going to add that to my Plex library and see how that works :)
+1 for a Comic section
+1 on ebooks!
For importing metadata, the GoodReads API seems to be a possibility?
And PubReader converts epub and the like into html5ā¦ seems to be a way to go to easily support multiple formats?
Donāt know how far the two above things are actually good tips, but a simple google search brought me in that direction.
Love using my Google Play Books for my ebooks, but would love it even more if I could integrate it in Plex. Iām so in need of some organizing skills. And Calibre just isnāt my thing, I find it way too unrefined.
+1 for comics.
Currently using Ubooquity but itās lacking āmark as readā and continue where you left off, etc.
+1 for comics
get comics ebooks and audiobooks and you become together with steam the only two programs i need on a server =)
+1 Comics !
