MBW 721: Where the Wild Fraggles Are

Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…

What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!

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Andy’s point about Android and security is well taken. It may not be as good as Apple - but that does not mean it’s bad. I think message gets lost a lot of the time when the discussion comes up. Google’s security is pretty decent, and it would behoove all of the hosts to repeatedly mention this in any discussion of security.

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@Leo should check out Prologue. It is an iOS app designed to play .m4b files. Very nice interface, Can stream from Plex or download locally. I have been going through the process of using Epubor to remove the DRM from my audiobooks and load them on my NAS. This is exactly what you’re looking for, though iOS only.

Prologue

Yeah I tried Prologue but was a little unhappy with it. What I’d really like is M4B support in Plex.

I’m not into audiobooks, so I don’t know the specifics on the format. But from what I understand, it will play M4B (though probably not a fully fleshed out support of the format). There is a 3rd party agent for the Metadata (or I think they’re using Musicbrainz now which has that support), and settings to keep your spot in the track.

I would just say “if its not as good as Apple, its not as good as it should or could be”

@Leo I just listened to MBW 721 and I heard you lament not being able to play m4bs on Plex. At leas when using the web player, you don’t have to use an m4b. I also use an app to remove the DRM from my purchased Audible books and what I get out in return is an .m4a. The web player of Plex allows for playback and speed control on any audio file. Here is how you do it.

  1. Log into Plex and either create or locate a library with your Audiobooks
  2. (Skip this step if you are creating a library) Click on the three dots to the right of the library name and select Manage Library > Edit
  3. Click on Advanced and check ‘Store track progress’ option (you can leave all other options alone)
  4. Save changes and then listen to your audiobooks

When you come back to it, even if you close the tab and come back later, it’ll resume where you left off just like if you pause a movie or TV show in the middle. Unfortunately, in my testing the Plexamp app would just spin forever when I tried to play the audiobook though it would play normal music files just fine.

Extra tip: Clicking the three slider button on the left side of the player bar, you can change the playback speed, though that doesn’t stick between sessions.

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I want to keep the files as M4B for playback on other devices. Fortunately, Andy has informed me of an interesting new app:

https://www.bookcamp.app/

This app (which will go to an invite-only beta soonish) looks to be the One True Ring for audiobooks. It’s a player app for iOS and Android that runs as a server between the client and your Plex library.

Here’s a Reddit thread about it: Reddit - Dive into anything

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Sweet, I’ll request access and take a look when I can. Thanks!