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[SGroth]

After searching for topics regarding "audiobook" and reading them I come to the conclusion, that this is not really in the focus of JRiver MC.

I really like the way all the supported madia content is handled by JRiver MC!

Just for audiobooks I'd like to have "native support" for this special kind of media.
In my case I handle all audiobooks as .M4B files. In best case, JRiver MC would simply provide a support for these media types like iTunes does.
The functionality I am looking for is:

1. Support for handling audiobooks as one media item in case of multiple parts.
2. Support for handling of the "current position" after I stopped listening the audiobook per audiobook. I typically do not hear an audiobook in one session. Multiple users will hear different audiobooks at a time.
3. Support for streaming in combination with 1. and 2.
4. If possible support for a sync between multiple libraries to continue at the same position (e. g. when leaving home and continue on my notebook or remote with JRemote).

I hope this is the correct area of the forum.

Thanks,
Stephan

[JimH]

You should be able to play m4b files in MC.  I believe it is a protected Apple format, but MC can use the Quicktime engine to play other protected Apple formats.

[SGroth]

Typically I create my M4B files with tools like AudiobookBuilder (Mac) or MarkAble 2 (Win). So there is no DRM in place.

My question is regarding the "handling" of this kind of media as described.

Without saving the last hearing position for a 22 hours audiobook, a simple player is not helpfull. Who can always remember the last position?

At the moment I have JRiver MC and iTunes on my dedicated Media Server. I use iTunes only for audiobooks, because the described functionality in JMC is missing. I would like to have only one single solution for all my media including audiobooks. All the suggestions with "media sub type" do not provide the described functionality. This is only helpful to separate different media types.

My question is, if there is any plan to extend JMC in future releases/version for audiobooks as mentioned?

Thanks,
Stephan

[glynor]

You should be able to play m4b files in MC.  I believe it is a protected Apple format, but MC can use the Quicktime engine to play other protected Apple formats.

They're generally not protected anymore (at least not any I've purchased recently).  That changed somewhere around the time when Apple removed FairPlay DRM from all the rest of their music.

M4B is just a MP4 with a different file extension.  Apple uses that to designate Audio books (as opposed to M4A for regular audio-only MP4s), so that it knows to (essentially) "Use Bookmarking".  As long as they're not encrypted, MC handles them fine.  You should set [Media Sub Type] on them to Audiobook so that MC uses bookmarking on them and resumes where they left off.

JRemote doesn't handle them well, just FYI.

[glynor]

At the moment I have JRiver MC and iTunes on my dedicated Media Server. I use iTunes only for audiobooks, because the described functionality in JMC is missing. I would like to have only one single solution for all my media including audiobooks. All the suggestions with "media sub type" do not provide the described functionality. This is only helpful to separate different media types

It isn't missing (well, not all of it anyway).  You aren't doing it right.

As I mentioned, though... JRemote doesn't handle Audiobooks well currently, and does not (ever) obey the bookmarks that MC sets.

For more information:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Bookmarking

There isn't a simple way to treat an audiobook broken up into "mini-tracks" into a single "file" in MC, so each file will be treated separately as far as bookmarking is concerned.  That's generally not a huge deal in my usage of Audiobooks, because I want "new" pieces to start at the beginning.  Is there a use-case where this isn't true?

[SGroth]

Thanks for the hint with bookmarking in MC!

My audiobooks typically have 1-3 parts (max. 12 hours per part) depending on their length.
Managing them as "one object" similar to "one album" is my simple idea. I think, that apple decided to give audiobook handling an own functionality, because it is simply not the same (regarding use-cases) as audio files or albums.

My expectation is not, that I can find this functionality (like it is available in iTunes) in the current version of MC.
I simply didn't find a section for "suggestions & feature requests" for further MC development. So I put it here. Sorry if this was the wrong place.

To be clear: I'm fully confident with the functionality of MC regarding Music and Video (I don't manage pics centrally)!
And I would highly appreciate if MC would in future also cover my audiobook collection with the same comfort as with the other media types.

Thanks,
Stephan

[glynor]

Thanks for the hint with bookmarking in MC!

Without that, and without setting the Media Sub Type appropriately, then you've never used MC's Audiobook handling.

I don't understand what you mean about "manage them together".  That's too vague.  MC operates with files as the "atom" of the database.  All tagging is done to the file level (though there are "relational type" fields).

What, specifically, are you looking for in that regard.  Because I can't think of anything (aside from auto-resuming position in an entire book, without knowing which particular "piece" you last used) that MC doesn't handle in this regard already.

[SGroth]

Let me try to explain my thoughts (perhaps my english is not precise enough).

I understand, that each file is the "atom" in your database. From my perspective an audiobook is a special case of an album (consisting of one or multiple files).

If the audio section had a subsection "audiobooks" like "albums" I could access all audiobooks as one item in the gallery. In the detail view I could see the files of this audiobook.

All tagging should be possible on the level of the "audiobook object" as with an album. From the user perspective there is no need to know if the audiobook is one file or split up in parts. I think no one wants to do tagging on a file level for audiobooks. In best case, the bookmarking would then work on the audiobook level for this media type instead of the file level.

Yes, you are right that I didn't use MC for my audiobooks until now. To handle 250+ audiobooks without the mentioned functionality simply kept me away from using MC for this media type. This is the reason why I use iTunes for audiobooks today.

As I mentioned, I would like to have only one tool (MC) for all media types and to get rid of the additional need of iTunes!

Thanks,
Stephan

[glynor]

If the audio section had a subsection "audiobooks" like "albums" I could access all audiobooks as one item in the gallery. In the detail view I could see the files of this audiobook.

I don't have a huge amount of time to respond to everything, but you can do this.  All Views in the Tree are fully customizable.


Click to embiggen.

[SGroth]

OK, let me shortly summarize what I understood.

1. Yes, MC is able to play non-DRM M4B files (like M4A, because it's only a different extension for the same audio format).
2. Yes, a support for audiobooks is possible in MC, but every user has to implement/customize it himself.
3. No, there isn't an out-of the-box support for audiobooks in MC like in iTunes (which comes with an own section and specific functionality).
4. No, there isn't a further support for audiobooks planned at the moment.

To be honest, I wasn't looking for a way to implement it myself. I was already aware of this possibility. I wonder to be the only user wishing this functionality from a media center product.
There was also no need for me to implement audio album support, so I was simply asking for anything comparable on your MC roadmap for audiobooks.
I even tried to limit the possible use cases to M4B files to reduce complexity, not asking for even more unstructured mp3 file collections for one audiobook.

So, this is now clarified for me.

Thanks,
Stephan

[glynor]

2. Yes, a support for audiobooks is possible in MC, but every user has to implement/customize it himself.
3. No, there isn't an out-of the-box support for audiobooks in MC like in iTunes (which comes with an own section and specific functionality).
4. No, there isn't a further support for audiobooks planned at the moment.

Well... To be completely honest, a big part of the entire point of Media Center is that you aren't locked into the dumb presets designed by someone else.

A view like I made a screenshot of above would take around 10 minutes to set up, and once done, could be used forever.  For an experienced user, it would take 10 seconds to set up.  If you want help, ask and I'll show you.

I don't disagree that they could probably use a few better presets.  They try to balance complexity (overwhelming the new user) within the presets.  I can't say one way or another if things will change (I don't work for JRiver).

[SGroth]

In this case I would suggest to have one page in your MC wiki telling me these steps to get it done.
I suppose for new users (like me) it might not be done in 10 minutes the try and error way.

If you provide this small how-to in the MC wiki tagged with the keyword "audiobook", everyone can look it up easily.

Thanks,
Stephan