Managing Big Finish/ audiobooks reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the-forty-second · 2023-11-26 16:32 I have a large collection of Big Finish programs and other audiobooks I am trying to manage. I am trying to figure out a way to - centralize them - make it easy to download and play on my phone (iOS) - keep track of what I have listened to My current attempt is navidrome and play:sub on my phone. This almost works, but I am having organizational issues. For the Big Finish stories, there are multiple collections, and within the collection, there is an ordering. I have a folder hierarchy that reflects this, but navidrome flattens it into alphabetical order (and throws out any numbering in the folder names). I also can’t do things like show unplayed stories only. For contrast, the Big Finish app does sort by collection and shows things in order, but only keeps track of what you have played for downloaded stories. Does anyone have any suggestions of better approaches (bonus points if it doesn’t require per file metadata editing)? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jccpalmer · 2023-11-26 16:34 Not sure if it would work for you, but have you looked into Audiobookshelf? If you haven't, might be worth looking into. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the-forty-second · 2023-11-26 16:39 That looks worth trying, though running a beta app through TestFlight for the phone side is a little kludgy. Have you had good experience with it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jccpalmer · 2023-11-26 16:44 The iOS app is pretty good in my experience. Only trouble I had was with downloading books where it got stuck downloading a massive one (a Brandon Sanderson novel; if you know, you know), crashed, then I had to restart the download. But other than that, it's not been a bad experience. The streaming performance works great, even outside of my network. It gets less frequent updates nowadays, so I wonder if it's close to a final App Store release -- I wish it was, because it's basically the last TestFlight app I have that I really need. It's a great service overall and one I highly recommend for audiobook lovers, just not sure how it would work for your Big Finish use case since I have no idea what it is. But it works wonderfully for my big library. Great for modifying things like covers, it picks up data pretty well and you can tweak things if it doesn't do so hot on the scraping. The project's documentation leaves something to be desired in my opinion, but that could be the technical writer in me talking. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _--__-___--_ · 2023-11-26 17:14 Plex + the audible data provider and then the Proloque app on iOS Also the audiobookshelf service and apps are pretty good! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PuckSR · 2023-11-26 18:38 It has a web interface, so you can just do it in browser, however you sometimes get background operation errors. Worst case, you can just use a browser. I'd add that it also supports RSS, so worst case you can just create an RSS for your book and play it in any podcast app. I use this to get books on my watch easily. However, the MP3 can get a bit messy and not all podcast apps support m4b ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the-forty-second · 2023-11-26 19:29 Ideally, I want to be able to listen offline, so a web interface isn’t as desirable. I’ll have to experiment ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PuckSR · 2023-11-26 19:31 You can download offline on a podcast player ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluffer_Wuffer · 2023-11-26 20:30 I've been using ABS for about 2 years.. its pretty solid and stable and features complete, including the ability to download and play offline (at least using the android app)... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- operator207 · 2023-11-27 00:19 Beta is full. Though there was a post the other day in its github discussions pointing to here: [https://www.audiobookshelf.org/faq/#when-will-the-apps-be-out-of- beta](https://www.audiobookshelf.org/faq/#when-will-the-apps-be-out- of-beta) I grabbed the docker the other day, moved everything over, and am loving it so far! Though I am using the Android app. Rest of the family is waiting for the beta to open on IOS so they can use it too. I'm the only "green bubble" in the family. Apparently that is a bad thing. Though I seem to be the one with the cool ABS app at the moment. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the-forty-second · 2023-11-27 02:06 The server side looks quite promising, but the beta is full so I can’t try the iOS side. I’ve had no luck with any podcast apps recognizing the RSS feed. Any recommendations on one that works? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the-forty-second · 2023-11-27 02:09 I’ve seen Plex and prologue recommended before. I’ve just made the transition from Plex to Jellyfin for video recently, so I’m hesitant to go back. I’ve also not experimented with jellyfin’s support yet either, so that is something to contemplate as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PuckSR · 2023-11-27 02:17 Apple podcasts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PuckSR · 2023-11-27 02:20 Word of warning, the rss option has to be turned on per book. The first screen that pops up is just allowing you to enter a title for the podcast and develop the URL. If you don't click "open feed" in the popup, nothing will happen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MeudA67 · 2023-11-27 03:11 I hope you have a car with Android Auto so that you can rub it in their face a little further!! 😜 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- zoredache · 2023-11-27 03:46 It takes a bit of work, but what I did with my collection of audiobooks that were a bunch of files was first to merge them into a large m4b using [m4b-tool](https://github.com/sandreas/m4b-tool). It isn't obvious, but you can put in album, and song numbering into the ID3 tags. Many audio players will sort on this over other options. Not sure what tool you are using, but this is potentially the best option. Audiobookshelf is a nice iOS app, but right now the beta is full. You can export a book as an RSS feed and download and play that feed in a podcast player. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Xenkath · 2023-11-27 04:17 I’m working on moving to jellyfin for video, but I plan to keep Plex for music and audiobooks because Plexamp and Prologue are just that good. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the-forty-second · 2023-11-27 04:48 When I tried Apple’s offering, it didn’t work though it was the only one to admit that the rss feed had a “podcast” linked. It just wouldn’t play it. After you suggested it, I tried again with a different story. That one works fine. The difference is that the first was a m4b file and the second was a directory of mp3 files. The large collection of mp3s is a bit of a hassle, but dealable enough for some further testing. Hopefully I will be able to see the iOS app soon. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the-forty-second · 2023-11-27 13:59 I came up with a better solution than the RSS/podcast route. I found [BookPlayer](https://bookplayer.app), which can load files locally. So I use the web interface to download the file and then load it into BookPlayer. BookPlayer can cope with the downloaded zip file, can play mp3 directories or m4b files and will even condense the mass of mp3 files into a single volume. It isn’t as convenient as an integrated app, and will have to keep track of plays manually, but so far I am cautiously optimistic that this will work for me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PuckSR · 2023-11-27 19:33 Yep, thats what I use. It is also worth noting that audiobookshelf has vocally said they will allow other apps access. I think that is one reason we haven't seen a ton of energy behind their own app. Prologue, which uses plex as a media server, has actively discussed adding in audiobookshelf support in the future. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the-forty-second · 2023-11-27 22:01 Yes, I just found the API docs. Definitely promising. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- operator207 · 2023-12-03 00:47 I kinda do. Tab S7 connected to a hotspot attached to the dash being used as an info center. Must of the heavy lifting is Tasker though. I did use AA, but it stopped working in my setup, and honestly my setup with AA was a waste of space to have a nice big map available to see while driving.