Calibre pushing m3u playlist to CC

[polarwind]

Hi all,

I followed the advice from a topic on this forum in how to avoid to let Calibre copy all mp3 files (we're talking audiobooks now), and instead create a m3u playlist file. This works perfect in my current setup on Windows 7. (I installed the MP3 plugin).

However, when I look in CC for supported extentions, m3u is not included. I understand that there are some challenges when moving a m3u file to a mobile device, since the path to the mp3 files will most likely not be working. So what would be the best way to deal with this.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by polarwind

Hi all,

I followed the advice from a topic on this forum in how to avoid to let Calibre copy all mp3 files (we're talking audiobooks now), and instead create a m3u playlist file. This works perfect in my current setup on Windows 7. (I installed the MP3 plugin).

However, when I look in CC for supported extentions, m3u is not included. I understand that there are some challenges when moving a m3u file to a mobile device, since the path to the mp3 files will most likely not be working. So what would be the best way to deal with this.

CC supports MP3 files as a "book format", one MP3 file per book. It does not support playlists.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by chaley

CC supports MP3 files as a "book format", one MP3 file per book. It does not support playlists.

Most of the Audiobooks I see have many files.
A Playlist is like index.html, it controls the order
Not every device can handle a single 300MB file

The Issue I frequently see, is most playlists contains Absolute paths.
It does NOT need that if the playlist is packaged with the book files, relative paths work just fine with my MP3 players


What we could use is a MP3Z/R file (MPZ is used ), unfortunately, the burden would be on CC/Calibre to pack and un pack these before passing to the player

[chaley]

Originally Posted by theducks

Most of the Audiobooks I see have many files.
A Playlist is like index.html, it controls the order
Not every device can handle a single 300MB file

The Issue I frequently see, is most playlists contains Absolute paths.
It does NOT need that if the playlist is packaged with the book files, relative paths work just fine with my MP3 players


What we could use is a MP3Z/R file (MPZ is used ), unfortunately, the burden would be on CC/Calibre to pack and un pack these before passing to the player

I will start with what won't happen.

• I am 99.99% sure that calibre will never handle multiple files of the same format per book. Kovid has said this many times. This means that any multi-MP3 audio book must be "packaged" outside of calibre.
  
• I am 100% sure that CC will not look into/process book format files. This means that any "packaged" audio book must have an Android app that knows what to do with the package format.

A thing that can happen: I have no objection to adding extensions to CC. The only rules are that a) the extension must be a reasonably-accepted standard for something, b) apps must exist that can handle it, and c) it be clear how to use it without increasing our support load. For example, the M4B extension seems to be designed for packaging audio books and is supported by (at least) the Android app "Smart AudioBook Player"

Some ideas that might work for unpackaged multi-file audio books:

• Save the files as separate books, using a custom series-like column to indicate which chapters are in a given book/mp3 file.
• If there is an app that can stream audio books from the "net", add the appropriate link as a calibre identifier or in a comment. Create an empty text format then send the book to CC.
• Store the audio book chapters somewhere that groups them together and permits accessing them individually, then add an appropriate link to the book record. I tried this with Evernote, putting 3 mp3 files into a single note then adding a link to that note to CC, and it worked. I could play/pause the individual files. Of course, Evernote is not an audio book reader so instead of using it to play the file, perhaps it would be better to extract a file and "read" it with a dedicated app.

[Sweetiekins]

Actually, I don't know how to stop it, but I think creat m3u playlist is a good idea. Well, maybe this tutorial is helpful. What is an M3U File & How to Play M3U Files? But, I am not sure it is really useful because I just contact m3u file before long.