[GUI Plugin] AudioBook_Duration

[wiso]

Originally Posted by silatiw

Thank you for the new version with .zip file support. The plug works very well.
If I can, I have two small suggestions:
- if the book is longer than 24 hours, the result is presented e.g. 1day 3:22:45, in my opinion it should be 27:22:45
- could you please abbreviate the plugin name under the icon in the caliber menu. There is an 'AudioBook Duration plugin' probably better it will be: 'AudioBook Duration' Then the distance between the icons is smaller.

1) True, I used timedelta for the duration, but it is a date and has the limit of 24 hours as the maximum value of the time, I will change it with a custom function (which I did in version 1.0.0 and did not end up using)

2) It is true that the word plugin in a plugin is redundant, so I will remove it.

[Magic815]

So I stumbled across this plugin and see that v1.0.6 added M4B support. However, I have a really dumb question: How does one get M4B audio books into the Calibre library in the first place? In my initial searching, I thought audiobook files (such as M4B) are not supported by Calibre?

[theducks]

Calibre will STORE other things in the title folders (a title folder is what shows in the formats section of the MDE (Metadata editor)

You can just drop those other types into that panel.
Supported means Calibre can do other things (like Edit, View).
Unsupported means you must do the extra lifting, like oppen the MDE and double-clicking a M4B (assumes the OS knows what to do with that type.)

[Magic815]

Originally Posted by theducks

Calibre will STORE other things in the title folders (a title folder is what shows in the formats section of the MDE (Metadata editor)

You can just drop those other types into that panel.
Supported means Calibre can do other things (like Edit, View).
Unsupported means you must do the extra lifting, like oppen the MDE and double-clicking a M4B (assumes the OS knows what to do with that type.)

I see, so if I have the below folder (which contains the m4b and other supporting files - not sure if any of those are needed?),

I can add those to be inside my main Calibre Library folder? Do I do that just via my Windows folder explorer manually outside of Calibre? Or is it possible to store that folder (or maybe just the m4b file) via the Calibre GUI?

[theducks]

Well I tried a number of things. (VLC is my media player)

A put the cue file there: VLC showed the Playlist (that is what a CUE does), but VLC could not find the m4b. I then added the m4b file there. still no joy (cue path has encoded spaces:%20 ) using the cue.

I can open the M4B directly with Calibre (it launches VLC in my case), but there is no playlist to allow switching chapters.

I also failed adding a folder (xyz.ab) which contained the other files.
jpg is the cover (not needed to play)
nfo is details about the audio (not needed to play)

[wiso]

Hi !!

What I do when I add audiobooks with multiple audio files is create an .m3u playlist.

I directly add this playlist with the name of the audiobook name to caliber and then (manually) copy the files to the caliber folder.

If you click on the audiobook, it will open the playlist with your player and it will have all the files of each chapter loaded.

The .m3u file is something like this:
(you can edit the .m3u file with any text editor)

#EXTM3U
my_audiobook_name_01.mp3
my_audiobook_name_02.mp3
...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by theducks

Well I tried a number of things. (VLC is my media player)

A put the cue file there: VLC showed the Playlist (that is what a CUE does), but VLC could not find the m4b. I then added the m4b file there. still no joy (cue path has encoded spaces:%20 ) using the cue.

I can open the M4B directly with Calibre (it launches VLC in my case), but there is no playlist to allow switching chapters.

I also failed adding a folder (xyz.ab) which contained the other files.
jpg is the cover (not needed to play)
nfo is details about the audio (not needed to play)

Either something is wrong with your MB4 or VLC doesn't properly support MB4. Try Foobar2000 with your MB4. I know it will work there correctly. You don't need a .cue file with MB4 as there are section markers within the MB4 so you can switch from one section to another.

[Magic815]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Either something is wrong with your MB4 or VLC doesn't properly support MB4. Try Foobar2000 with your MB4. I know it will work there correctly. You don't need a .cue file with MB4 as there are section markers within the MB4 so you can switch from one section to another.

Cool - so I take that to mean that if I use the metadata edit window to manually add the .m4b file as a new format, that will "merge" the audiobook format into the same single book listing inside Calibre? And that single .m4b file will work as-is, if I was to remotely access my library (via content server) and download it to my phone?

[theducks]

Yes the file will coexist with the book
NO it is unsupported, the content server does not know what to do with those files.

I figured out what was going on.
Calibre renames the files when it adds them, thus breaking the internals of the cue (still has the old name). (the cue is a text file: NP++ peeks just fine)

[Magic815]

Originally Posted by theducks

Yes the file will coexist with the book
NO it is unsupported, the content server does not know what to do with those files.

I figured out what was going on.
Calibre renames the files when it adds them, thus breaking the internals of the cue (still has the old name). (the cue is a text file: NP++ peeks just fine)

Ah, looks like I can use calibre-web then, to remotely access m4b files, yea? I'm trying it now, and it seems to work. Even with Calibre changing the file name, I see to be able to download the file to my phone, and I think it plays fine. Or is there an issue I'm not seeing with the mis-matched m4b file name and internal cue data?

[wiso]

Originally Posted by Magic815

I see, so if I have the below folder (which contains the m4b and other supporting files - not sure if any of those are needed?),

I can add those to be inside my main Calibre Library folder? Do I do that just via my Windows folder explorer manually outside of Calibre? Or is it possible to store that folder (or maybe just the m4b file) via the Calibre GUI?

You can show us any .cue file that give you problems, i can use .m3u or .cue files with vlc or another players correctly.

example of my .cue

PHP Code:

REM GENRE "audiobook"
REM COMMENT "some coments"
PERFORMER "Performer name"
TITLE "audiobook_title"
FILE "Autdiobook name.m4a" MP3
 TRACK 01 AUDIO 
  TITLE "intro"
  PERFORMER "Performer name"
  INDEX 01 00:00:00
 TRACK 02 AUDIO 
  TITLE "chapter1"
  PERFORMER "Performer name"
  INDEX 01 01:00:00
 TRACK 02 AUDIO 
  TITLE "chapter2"
  PERFORMER "Performer name"
  INDEX 01 02:00:00
... 


[Magic815]

Originally Posted by wiso

You can show us any .cue file that give you problems, i can use .m3u or .cue files with vlc or another players correctly.

example of my .cue

PHP Code:

REM GENRE "audiobook"
REM COMMENT "some coments"
PERFORMER "Performer name"
TITLE "audiobook_title"
FILE "Autdiobook name.m4a" MP3
 TRACK 01 AUDIO 
  TITLE "intro"
  PERFORMER "Performer name"
  INDEX 01 00:00:00
 TRACK 02 AUDIO 
  TITLE "chapter1"
  PERFORMER "Performer name"
  INDEX 01 01:00:00
 TRACK 02 AUDIO 
  TITLE "chapter2"
  PERFORMER "Performer name"
  INDEX 01 02:00:00
... 


I guess I'm not sure I have a problem with the cue file? I've tested moving the m4b file to my phone on it's own (not bringing over the cue file, the nfo file, or the cover) - and it seems to play just fine on my phone. The m4b file itself has embedded chapters, so I'm not even really sure why the cue file is also in there. Maybe there are some playback devices that can't properly read the embedded chapter breaks, and so the cue file helps for those?

[wiso]

Originally Posted by Magic815

I guess I'm not sure I have a problem with the cue file? I've tested moving the m4b file to my phone on it's own (not bringing over the cue file, the nfo file, or the cover) - and it seems to play just fine on my phone. The m4b file itself has embedded chapters, so I'm not even really sure why the cue file is also in there. Maybe there are some playback devices that can't properly read the embedded chapter breaks, and so the cue file helps for those?

ma4 and m4b files have embedded chapters, and yes, the .cue is a "b" option in case you couldn't read those embedded chapters in older players.


P.S: Version 1.0.9 released with support for caliber 6.0 and qt6 libraries.

[dunhill]

thanks for the update and support for calibre 6

[alyshadeshae]

I have an issue where some (not all) of my audiobooks are producing incorrect durations.

The ones showing up wrong are always shorter (usually much shorter) than the actual length of the audiobook. I'm attached one example (and linked it from imgur), but this isn't my only incorrect one.

top line is info from calibre showing incorrect duration
bottom line is from file explorer showing correct duration

When I have audiobooks in multiple parts, I merge them together into one file using Merge MP3, so my first thought was there was a metadata holdover from before merging. However, I've had this issue happen in audiobooks that did not need to be merged and there are audiobooks that I've merged that don't have this issue at all.

Any thoughts on fixing this?