Question Booksonic on Docker | Android client ?

[Rusty]

It's great to hear that Plex does support this.

 

[fredbert]

Downloaded the Plex app on Android. If you play the audiobook a bit and stop it then leave the player view (back to the book page) and scroll down passed the star ratings you'll see the tracks listing. If the app has saved the playback position you'll see the orange bar marking the latest point on the track ... tap the track and it should offer to play from the saved position.

This wasn't obvious and I think hitting the big play button will reset the saved point. Not very slick. And so far not sync'ed between devices.

 

[Telos]

If you play the audiobook a bit and stop it then leave the player view (back to the book page) and scroll down passed the star ratings you'll see the tracks listing. If the app has saved the playback position you'll see the orange bar marking the latest point on the track ... tap the track and it should offer to play from the saved position.

This wasn't obvious and I think hitting the big play button will reset the saved point. Not very slick. And so far not sync'ed between devices.

This is Plex Android.

In this shot, I've paused Red Sparrow and will switch to Being Mortal to resume where I left off. When clicking the bar, you have options to "Resume from ..." or "Play from beginning".

 

[fredbert]

Yes, the 'big' play button causes a restart from T0 but the track item row below the stars rating has the resume option.

 

[one-eyed-king]

"Resume from ..." and "Play from beginning" options are dispayed -> check
"Resume from ..." actualy resumes -> nope, still starts from the beginning.

Seems either the TV mode or the ATV implementation has a bug.

 

[Telos]

"Resume from ..." and "Play from beginning" options are dispayed -> check
"Resume from ..." actualy resumes -> nope, still starts from the beginning.

Seems either the TV mode or the ATV implementation has a bug.

You did this?

... and why would you listen to audiobooks on the TV? It seems like that would be awkward to carry around with you :p

 

[fredbert]

audiobooks on the TV? It seems like that would be awkward to carry around with you :p

The ultimate techie’s cargo pants [trousers]!!

 

[Telos]

My audiobook has extra large fonts!

 

[one-eyed-king]

Yep, it store track position is turned on. It works marvelous on PlexWeb an my Android phone.

Why the Telly? Because it sound better and I realy hate earplugs. Generally I am working in the homeoffice and got myself a decent mic and a soundbar to be able to speak freely into the room during skype/ms teams calls. I only use earplugs when I have to... e.g. in the (long distance) trains, to not disturb other travelers when i watch tv shows/movies.

 

[Telos]

Why the Telly? Because it sound better and I realy hate earplugs.

No worries mate... Just a little "poke" at ya... All in good spirit.

 

[fredbert]

Audiobooks are probably the only audio that, for me, are primarily an earphone-only listening experience, unless alone in the car. Generally at night: a TV would not have occurred to me at all and already 'that phone is too bright, I want to sleep' precludes one

I'll have a look at audiobook playback on tvOS Plex later.

 

[Telos]

I finished my Booksonic evaluation. Overall, I'm content. There are some quirks with bookmarks when connectivity is weak/changing (wifi to data for example). Today, when I went to resume my current book, only one bookmark appeared initially (I have 3 stored, for 3 different books). When I selected the bookmark, my book began at the start. Next, I selected the bookmark menu, and the 3 bookmarks were present. Again, selecting the bookmark for the book I wanted to resume, it brought me to the correct place. I'm not sure what happened initially when only one bookmark appeared.

Now I'm off to try Plex. What I don't like immediately, is that there is no bookmarking feature. I have to trust that Plex will remember my most recent position. Further... since Plex "remembers" my last position, if I accidentally move the progress indicator, Plex "forgets" where I was last listening. On a 20-hour book, trying to guess my position is quite painful. So far my "nod" goes to Booksonic.

 

[Telos]

After listening to audiobooks for a few days on Plex, I'm back to Booksonic. Plex has a polished interface, a capability to scrape audiobook meta from Audible (unofficial source), and since I'm already running a Plex server, audiobooks add no overhead to my NAS.

However, for reasons I don't understand, Plex randomly quits after 30 minutes or so, and I have to restart the app to continue listening. This has happened daily. I don't know if this is a Plex feature (I'm listening to a single 8-hr track), or some peculiarity with Android 10 battery optimization (not seen using Booksonic). But what killed Plex for me, was resuming the book after a refueling stop today, and discovering that my last read position was gone, leaving me at the beginning of the book. Since I listen while driving, it was impossible to recover my reading place without pulling off the road, to play with the app. Admittedly the phone was on very low battery at this point (8%), but still, I expected the last play point to remain. Maybe if I had broken up the book into 15-minute tracks, this would have been less onerous.

So back to a deeper check of Booksonic. Overall I'm good with this app other than some odd bookmarking behavior I experienced without a data connection. I hope this helps someone.

 

[Telos]

Even with Android Booksonic, bookmarks are beyond frustration. Interestingly my Booksonic bookmark vaporized at the same place, in a similar manner as my Plex experience a week ago.

It seems that bookmarks aren't stored/cached on the device, but only on the server. Today I was listening to an audiobook previously downloaded when I entered a grocery and connected with their wifi access point. Apparently the port I use with Booksonic (Plex too) is disallowed within the store. That's fine since the book was on my phone. In the checkout lane, I closed the app and then reopened it when I was back in the car (presumably still on the store wifi).

When I restarted the book, it began all over. No problem I thought. I paused play brought up bookmarks and saw that my bookmark place was now at 14 seconds ?!?

Thinking wifi was the problem I killed the app, shut off wifi, leaving only data. Reopening Booksonic my bookmark was still at 14 seconds.

Ten minutes later, I managed to get close to where I last listened. What a PITA

This sucks. I'm thinking I might need to use port 80/443 to access the Booksonic server to avoid bookmark loss when my phone is connected to an internet point that blocks ports outside the normal browser/mail usage.

I've never had this problem with Audible's app. But Booksonic and Plex are frail when it comes to bookmark retention. @Popeen

 

[fredbert]

With Audible app you play downloaded files so the full data is available locally. But if you're streaming it could be the client loses the current position, book length, chapter, chapter position, etc in the 'file' if that information gets lost or corrupted. Do you have the same issue with Plex client with a downloaded book?

 

[Telos]

Do you have the same issue with Plex client with a downloaded book?

In my evaluations, I always use downloaded books for Audible, Booksonic and Plex. Both Booksonic and Plex have lost my listening position.

With Booksonic, it seems to lose or replace the bookmark when I listen in an environment with an WiFi connection that does not allow contact with my server. When I rejoin my server, the correct bookmark is hopelessly gone.

I'm unsure of the method of failure fourplex, however it occurred during a similar pattern of listening activity Which cause problems with Booksonic.

Losing listening position is quite frustrating. Ideally bookmarking should leave a trail of breadcrumbs, as it does with the Kindle app where all the bookmarks are retained, until they are deleted by the user.

 

[Telos]

Any iOS users (I am Android user) tried Prologue for Plex audiobook play?

 

[fredbert]

Any iOS users (I am Android user) tried Prologue for Plex audiobook play?

Downloaded it, just for you!

Bookmark features seems, on a few mins playing, to be a favourite mark to tag a book for reading. It doesn't save a location to jump back later ... though current position is saved between closing and opening a book. Saved also after playing another book.

I don't have Internet access to my Plex but I did start playing a book and switched of iOS WiFi. The playback scrubber implies there's quite a lot of cached stream ahead (this one is 10hr book and at position 1hr it looks to have 1.5-2hrs cache). Pulled the scrubber to out-of-cache and it stops to get more data. Switched WiFi back on and after a short pause the playback resumes from the position I'd pulled the scrubber.

Edit: the cached data is dumped when going to another book and back, so no resuming when stream is lost once you exit the currently playing book.

Edit 2: Just noticed it doesn't support chapterised audiobook: it's a single huge chapter of 10hrs which makes refinding position more difficult.

This is the iOS audiobook app I use, downloading files with DS file via iOS Files api within the app (free, no ads, tip-jar gets a change of theme and icon, supports chapters)

‎BookPlayer

 

[Telos]

I'm dissatisfied with apps I've tried. Bookmarking is highly unreliable. Today I drove off rejoining a book I listened to yesterday. It turns out the bookmark I last set was apparently ignored (despite the "bookmark created" notification), so I relistened to 40 minutes of narration to reach new material.

For this 20-hour audiobook, I've gone to using Google Assistant to "remember" my last listening position.

My investigations have led me to believe that there are no decent means to use the NAS for audiobooks (why Audible stands out from all others is a puzzle). Either I will need a reader that only sources books from my phone (no cross-device syncing), or I may try breaking up books into 15-minute chunks to make bookmark failure less painful.

 

[fredbert]

Scrubbing a 20hr book is really difficult, which is why I chapterise my AAC books. But multi-file is the other option.

In the Mac app I use to create audiobooks, Fission by Rogue Amoeba, I see there's also an export option to chapterise MP3. I've never tried it but maybe something supports it?