Podcast but not audiobooks??

Let me get this straight…we now have podcasts that save my place but audiobooks that save their place is not here yet? Audiobooks which have been in the feature requests since the beginning is not a priority? I do like the podcast feature but…audiobooks was being requested way more often and for longer.

Dan

You can save the place of audio files. It’s a per library setting. From Plex Web, edit your library, go to the advanced tab, enable “Store track progress”.

Audiobook support is not here yet, because there isn’t a publicly available source to gather the info from. The best source I know is Audible, but they don’t offer a way to use their info.

@“MovieFan.Plex” said:
You can save the place of audio files. It’s a per library setting. From Plex Web, edit your library, go to the advanced tab, enable “Store track progress”.

Audiobook support is not here yet, because there isn’t a publicly available source to gather the info from. The best source I know is Audible, but they don’t offer a way to use their info.

There is a HUGE mistaken view of what audio books need to be supported and a source for metadata is NOT a requirement.

To start with would be the ability to simply order and sort by filenames would go a long way toward support of audio books.

Right now it is possible to use Plex for audio books but to be effective you either have to totally rename a reasonable setup that works pretty good and/or use Playlists for audio books. I am using the latter but it would be a LOT easier just to use my folder structure.

I detailed my problems here
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/321483/audio-folder-structure-problem-for-audiobooks
but no one from Plex ever decided to answer and my final solution does work but it is far from what I would really think is good audio book support.

Keep in mind that the point of Plex is to organize media in a nice graphical way. Listing files just by files/folders is not really the point of Plex. That would make Plex just another file manager, which is not the goal.

That being said, there is a work around, like you mentioned, which is just to treat them as albums. I do this personally. Except for being able to continue by just clicking on the album, I can listen to my audiobooks and have the metadata I’ve personally added.

This is similar to the workaround for videos that also don’t have metadata sources, like work-out videos, tutorials, etc.

To start with would be the ability to simply order and sort by filenames would go a long way toward support of audio books.

So you want the scanner to ignore any potential track info and just assume tracks are alphabetical?

@“MovieFan.Plex” said:
Keep in mind that the point of Plex is to organize media in a nice graphical way. Listing files just by files/folders is not really the point of Plex. That would make Plex just another file manager, which is not the goal.

That being said, there is a work around, like you mentioned, which is just to treat them as albums. I do this personally. Except for being able to continue by just clicking on the album, I can listen to my audiobooks and have the metadata I’ve personally added.

This is similar to the workaround for videos that also don’t have metadata sources, like work-out videos, tutorials, etc.

To start with would be the ability to simply order and sort by filenames would go a long way toward support of audio books.

But, for videos, Plex correctly plays the next video if requested BUT Plex does not play the next audio file. Maybe there needs to be a “Home audio” library like the “Home video” type where no attempt is made to artificially order the files and just accepts what the use has done.

So you want the scanner to ignore any potential track info and just assume tracks are alphabetical?
As an option, yes.

@Elijah_Baley said:
But, for videos, Plex correctly plays the next video if requested BUT Plex does not play the next audio file. Maybe there needs to be a “Home audio” library like the “Home video” type where no attempt is made to artificially order the files and just accepts what the use has done.

The next audio file plays for me. I’m listening to an audio book right now. I have each chapter as a file and it auto-continues to the next file/chapter.

So you want the scanner to ignore any potential track info and just assume tracks are alphabetical?
As an option, yes.

That’s a PMS issue, but might be possible.

@“MovieFan.Plex” said:

@Elijah_Baley said:
But, for videos, Plex correctly plays the next video if requested BUT Plex does not play the next audio file. Maybe there needs to be a “Home audio” library like the “Home video” type where no attempt is made to artificially order the files and just accepts what the use has done.

The next audio file plays for me. I’m listening to an audio book right now. I have each chapter as a file and it auto-continues to the next file/chapter.

So you want the scanner to ignore any potential track info and just assume tracks are alphabetical?
As an option, yes.

That’s a PMS issue, but might be possible.

Pleas actually read the link I provided. It was ignored when I posted it, maybe I can get an answer now.