Sideloading Audiobooks

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by davidfor

No. I just dropped mine in the root directory. But, I have just tried one in a sub-directory. I would keep them out of the .kobo directory.

Originally Posted by vrf

No DRM on my library, or maybe it's Overdrive. Yeah, I got the file format thing, I was just wondering if I could keep all the books tucked in a subfolder off of root. That wasn't clear yet.

I didn't bother testing initially as I knew it would work. But, I did test after someone else tried something and they had problems. Which I think were for other reasons.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

It may not work for me as the audiobook feature is not active in Germany. I was hoping that having an audiobook present would just overwrite the feature flag.

I don't think that they would block sideloading the audiobooks. But, are the Bluetooth options in the settings? If they are, and you can connect to an audio device, I would expect playback to work.

[vrf]

Originally Posted by xor_

So, yes, mp3 playback is nice to have. But it's really nothing new. The sweet thing would be progress tracking across reading modes and devices.

Does it at least save your location automatically on multiple audiobooks, or does it restart the zipped collection from the beginning?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Perhaps people didn’t fuss with it because Kobo had stated they wouldn’t work.

I didn't notice this before, but, I'm not sure what you mean. My first post mentioned surprise that no one had talked about playing audiobooks at all. I would have expected someone to try and comment. Maybe I missed it.

If you are talking about sideloading audiobooks, I don't remember ever seeing Kobo saying they wouldn't be supported. And the response I got from them when I asked, was along the lines of, "I'm sure you guys will work it out". Which is one of the reasons for my statement of them not being officially supported, but not actually blocked.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I didn't notice this before, but, I'm not sure what you mean. My first post mentioned surprise that no one had talked about playing audiobooks at all. I would have expected someone to try and comment. Maybe I missed it.

If you are talking about sideloading audiobooks, I don't remember ever seeing Kobo saying they wouldn't be supported. And the response I got from them when I asked, was along the lines of, "I'm sure you guys will work it out". Which is one of the reasons for my statement of them not being officially supported, but not actually blocked.

Must be the benefit of being closer to the inside. I’d asked them about overdrive audiobooks, they’d said it was only Kobo audiobooks. I posted in, I think, the Kobo opinions thread, along with some other bits of info like the power case having a 1200 Mah battery. Though I can understand missing that with all the posting going on, and the multiple threads on the Sage/Libra 2.

But I’d imagine most people who caught that post might have not bothered looking into it. Since it was from Kobos social media reps (Facebook specifically).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Must be the benefit of being closer to the inside. I’d asked them about overdrive audiobooks, they’d said it was only Kobo audiobooks. I posted in, I think, the Kobo opinions thread, along with some other bits of info like the power case having a 1200 Mah battery. Though I can understand missing that with all the posting going on, and the multiple threads on the Sage/Libra 2.

But I’d imagine most people who caught that post might have not bothered looking into it. Since it was from Kobos social media reps (Facebook specifically).

Yes, my question went to an internal person and can't be considered official. There was a comment about OD audiobooks that suggests they might support them in the future. I hadn't thought about it before, but, I wonder if they could do it through the store in a similar way to OD ebooks. I suspect the hard part of that would be the contracts between the companies involved. The lawyers would want their slice of the pie. If it is through sideloading, then it means supporting whatever DRM OD uses. Which would involve the lawyers again, but also mean extra code.

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

It may not work for me as the audiobook feature is not active in Germany. I was hoping that having an audiobook present would just overwrite the feature flag.

This was an user error. My kobo was running on an outdated firmware. After updating it with the latest one, the audiobook player became available.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by davidfor

So far, I don't see a way to get metadata. The title of the audiobook will be the file name, the author is "Unkown Author" and there is no cover. In the book list, the type is "MP3Z".

I'll take a look at the firmware later and see if it reads metadata from anywhere. If not, and there's some sort of standard format for it, I can add support for it in NickelSeries.

[Zenmaster]

I tried sideloading a .mp3z file on my Libra 2 just now. Here were my findings:

I put a Librivox (fully public domain) file, zipped and renamed to a .mp3z extension, into my Libra 2 root directory, and into a subdirectory off the root directory entitled "Audiobooks". (I did not place anything in the kobo directory)

After disconnecting my Libra 2 from my PC, both files showed up on my Libra 2 fine. They appeared as "books", but they had buttons for a very simple player.

The problem was, none of my bluetooth headphones would pair with the Libra 2.

Since I was planning to join the Kobo Audiobook subscription free trial anyway, I went ahead and joined it and got my free audiobook. Upon syncing with my Libra 2, the Kobo audiobook downloaded fine and was seen by the Libra 2 as an audiobook, not a book. When I tried to pair my bluetooth headphones, a pairing window immediately showed up on the Libra 2. I chose my headphones, and they paired immediately. I was able to listen to the audiobook fine.

Happy ending: My two Librivox files could now also be listened to!

Takeaway: If you try sideloading .mp3z files only, you might not be able to pair bluetooth headphones with your Libra 2. You may need to purchase at least 1 official Kobo audiobook to pair your bluetooth devices so you can listen to your sideloaded books. Also, sideloaded .mp3z files worked in both the root directory and a subfolder off the root directory

[vrf]

Originally Posted by Zenmaster

Takeaway: If you try sideloading .mp3z files only, you might not be able to pair bluetooth headphones with your Libra 2. You may need to purchase at least 1 official Kobo audiobook to pair your bluetooth devices so you can listen to your sideloaded books. Also, sideloaded .mp3z files worked in both the root directory and a subfolder off the root directory

Hmm... so clearly there is some marker file or something in the Kobo audiobooks that allow the device to see them differently, to file in Audiobooks and to set up headphones from within book.

Earlier in this thread, someone said you can setup BT devices in the settings menu and then go back to the sideloaded mp3z audiobook, and it'll work that way.

[Nikoz]

Originally Posted by Zenmaster

Takeaway: If you try sideloading .mp3z files only, you might not be able to pair bluetooth headphones with your Libra 2. You may need to purchase at least 1 official Kobo audiobook to pair your bluetooth devices so you can listen to your sideloaded books. Also, sideloaded .mp3z files worked in both the root directory and a subfolder off the root directory

I was able to pair my headphones with the libra without any official audiobook, but I had to try 2 or 3 times (might just have been me though, the headphones are new and so am I regarding bluetooth stuff).

I did some tests and it works well, here's what I found:
- so far I've only been able to read mp3 files (flac and ogg don't work)
- I wasn't able to have the libra display a cover for the mp3z file, but if your mp3 file metadata include the cover it will be displayed when it's read
- the libra doesn't get the author name from the filename, it uses the whole file name as the title
- when you leave the book the libra will remember the file you were reading (the "chapter") but will read it from the beginning, and unfortunately there's no indication of total duration or read time

[vrf]

Originally Posted by Nikoz

- when you leave the book the libra will remember the file you were reading (the "chapter") but will read it from the beginning

Oh, no. That makes this far less useful if it doesn't remember position in a file.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Nikoz

- so far I've only been able to read mp3 files (flac and ogg don't work)

From the libraries in the firmware package, they are only supporting MP3.

- I wasn't able to have the libra display a cover for the mp3z file, but if your mp3 file metadata include the cover it will be displayed when it's read

If you use calibre, the sideloaded audiobooks will show in the device list and match to books in the library. It can update the metadata and my Kobo Utilities plugin can upload a cover.

You can't send an mp3z from calibre. It would need a little work to support that.

Purchased audiobooks do not show up. That is related to how the drivers search for books. Adding them probably won't be hard.

- the libra doesn't get the author name from the filename, it uses the whole file name as the title

Which is the same as other book formats that do not have internal metadata. Or at least an official standard. You will see this for TXT, images and comics.

- when you leave the book the libra will remember the file you were reading (the "chapter") but will read it from the beginning, and unfortunately there's no indication of total duration or read time

That's probably the worst part of all of it if you want to listen to sideloaded audiobooks.

[vrf]

Has anyone tried USB-C headphones on the Libra 2 or Sage?

[rtiangha]

I wonder if it'd be possible to recompile and replace the multimedia libraries with one that has support for more codecs. I'd try it myself, but I don't have one of these devices and no plans to get one any time soon (my Glo HD is still going strong).