It saddens me to see this topic is nearly a decade old.
Honestly, support for audiobooks is terrible. Third parties have tried to fix it… but projects pop up and then die.
I pay monthly for my plex-pass to continuously fund first party development. I’ve paid well past lifetime at this point and will continue to.
There should, without question or valid excuse, be a Audiobook Library Type. That library should track progress and allow continuation on a per book basis. It should support MP3’s at the least… but M4B’s should also be supported.
Honestly, plex staff. All of these random streaming services you keep integrating into plex pass is neat and all. I never touch them. Adding a library type like this should be quickly created.
Now… take a deep breath. We’ve seen all kinds of experimental features in screenshots that didn’t make it to production or (as you stated yourself)…
PS: keep in mind I have no idea if this is on Plex’ roadmap or not (though it seems unrealistic, somebody just added a new icon to fool everybody watching that video).
PPS: still hoping you’re right… this is indeed quite a popular feature suggestion
I’d go further and say this likely is an indication of audiobook support coming in the future, or I’m at least cautiously optimistic that it will. Digging around the web app javascript, the most interesting thing I saw was three new media types, author, audiobook, and chapter: https://i.imgur.com/AUeavvP.png.
I use Plexamp for listening to audiobooks. It has the feature for playback speeds and it has worked well at remembering where I left off (make sure remember playback position is checked for your library on the server).
I’m still of the belief that an official audiobook library type is on its way. With the current state of PlexAmp 4.5 recently released, it’s pretty clear that PlexAmp is trying to nail out an almost perfect audio listening experience and the only thing that’s truly missing to incorporate audiobooks is separate audiobook library type that would allow a database to include the typical and necessary organization of that media.
PlexAmp is pretty powerful and finally has the on and off switches to incorporate audiobooks.
I know podcasts were sunset but I am of the understanding that the launch of it was severely messy and the implementation of the backend and frontend was just absolutely miserable.
While still disappointed, I am also understanding that it was a much better choice to shut it down and comeback to it at a much later time.
Both podcasts and audiobooks are part of a BILLION dollar industry and they aren’t going away. Both industries are pretty mature and are stable.
Edit: I’ve hear more reports of record sales down but NEVER have I ever heard of both podcasts nor audiobooks as a medium that’s in decline.
Plex just has to come up with a massive plan to reincorporate those media types back into Plex.
Going back to the elements of PlexAmp for a listening experience, it does look like the app itself is becoming that swiss army knife for audio listening and I’m more optimistic than before about the future of audiobooks being added to Plex.
I can’t believe this doesn’t exist yet. 80-90% of the time I’m listening to my audiobook from my music library on android it restarts from the beginning of the book. I’ve started taking screenshots on my phone so I know where I left off in case it doesn’t resume correctly. If I don’t, I have to scrub through hours worth of audio to try and guess where I left off. It’s barely usable. I’m not sure if this could be an issue with my server or my android client, but it’s infuriating. I haven’t used Plexamp, yet. I’ll give it a go.
I have to say that I would only require that when remember listening position is checked, every track gets a checkmark when I already listened to it. Similar to tv shows. That would already be enough for me. With multidisc support I wouldn’t require anything else…
No. We shouldn’t be settling for bare minimum here. Audiobooks are a huge profitable medium that sells thousands of physical and digital products. It’s a pretty stable industry and after more than a decade, at bare minimum there should be an entire audio type library with the necessary database that can withstand the variables that’s required to catalog audiobooks properly.
The same can go for classical music within the music library. Just because classical music isn’t favorable doesn’t mean orchestra data should be nuked entirely or ever be considered for the music library. There’s still so many nuances that hinder the audio experience with Plex that to ask for just one thing to make Plex barely work for audiobooks is like asking for my car to just turn on with no brakes, no rear or side view mirrors, and no seatbelt.
They’ve had plenty of time, a decade+ to consider all the variables necessary for audiobooks. We should get everything out of the box.
I agree. But I’d rather get the minimum to make it usable then to get nothing. And just because they’ve had plenty of time, doesn’t mean they used it to implement this feature…
Sir, they launched their Discovery feature because of a contract and it was a rushed pet project in a matter of MONTHS, they gutted and killed off plugins, podcasts, gaming, VR, and Plex Cloud service in an entire decade. They most certainly had time to consider the aspect of audiobooks.
Of course. I am not disagreeing with that. I am just saying that just because they have had the time doesn’t mean they used the time for this. And I’d rather had a ■■■■■■, but usable experience at first than to wait another 5 years until the good solution is here.
But that’s what they been doing for a long while was bandaging stuff. I forgot to mention that they also discontinued the mobile upload sync feature for Photos as well not too many moons ago. It’s stuff like that, breaking so many other features that were added, but also bandages to make it look as though everything worked in unison, when in actuality it didn’t. That made things worse.
And let’s not kid yourself, as soon as you get that ONE thing that makes Plex usable for audiobooks, it would be a matter of time before a new set of app updates both with the server and or the clients, that screw it up from properly functioning.
Having one server to handle the common media formats would save me a lot trouble trying to teach and support my family and my gfs family on multiple apps for media, books and audio books.
