Author Topic: Multiple Audio Books  (Read 803 times)

richard

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    I am getting old and gezzerly. I have way over 4,000 audio books stored in folders arraigned in alphanumeric order. The files inside are also in alphanumeric order. Some of the books may have have as many as 3,700 tracks in the folder. I plan on running them on a solid state 6TB-8TB external drive (With mirrored backups).
     I want to be able to move forward or backward in the folders as well as the files inside each folder. My intent is to have a system ready so if I am placed in a care center I can play books constantly over a PC. Before  my marble bags gets worn out or torn and I lose my marbles I may want to scroll forward or back in files or folders(books). When I am no longer able I want my books to play over and over on about the 5 year cycle I anticipate for the number of books I have.
    My concern is that the files will be mixed and in the middle of my Churchill's 6 volume history of WWI I will get random Harry Potter, Starship Troopers, James Bond and Lolita. That would be disturbing :-[     
     Can this program do the massive sort of folders in alphanumeric order as well as the files inside?

karbock

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Good day, Richard, and welcome!
First of all, I wish you to keep as long as possible your autonomy, with the help of angels around you.

As for MusicBee:
* it does include a directory browser
* the auto-DJ feature can be left OFF

MusicBee can suit your needs, although it is rather focused on playing and browsing with the help of tags, thus the major part of the interface relates to tags and playlists...

In your case, the first (Windows) application that comes to my mind is XMPlay, which I used massively in the past for my audio collection.

XMPlay's interface is simple and comprises:
* a control panel (regular size, or mini-player)
* a list window with 3 states:
    - library: all your files (with full file names), with columns you can select (see below)
    - playlist: the now playing list, which you can easily redefine or adapt, save to / import from an external file
    - information: about the current track

You can easily select tracks in the library and:
- add them to the playlist
- replace the playlist

Other interesting features:
* a queue
* a search window, which moreover allows you to skip non-matching tracks when playing

Possible columns of the library window:
* filename, title, artist, album, date, track, genre, file type, file size, duration, last play, play count, age, rating, subsongs
As for me, I usually kept the library sorted by full filename and relied on the convenient search function.

I can send some screenshots of MusicBee (browsing by folder) and XMPlay, so that you can make up your mind.
Last Edit: February 14, 2023, 07:09:56 AM by karbock

karbock

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Both MusicBee and XMPlay are excellent and free audioplayers.
Kudos to Steven (MusicBee's author) and Ian (XMPlay's) for their awesome job.
Moreover, MusicBee relies on codecs written by XMPlay's developer.

As for browsing:
- MusicBee is focused on browsing by tags, and is highly configurable,
  but it can also browse your folder structure. IMO, it's the best tag-based audioplayer out there.
- XMPlay allows you to browse the library shown as a flat list,
  or to search within it (filenames and tags).

As for the playlists:
- MusicBee features static and auto-playlists (= with dynamic content, based on rules)
- XMPlay shows only 1 static playlist, i.e. the now playing list

MusicBee, with folder browser, and Tracks view
(configurable)



XMPlay, control panel (regular)
(One of the many skins available, tuned by yours truly: supplemental time slider for the mini-player and colours which are easy on the eyes)



XMPlay, mini-player + playlist



XMPlay, mini-player + library
Last Edit: January 28, 2023, 12:37:43 PM by karbock

hiccup

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This post is going to stick with me for a while. All the 'best of luck' to you Richard.

Mayibongwe

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This post is going to stick with me for a while. All the 'best of luck' to you Richard.
+1 ... I love this community
Favourite song at the moment:   Decode by Paramore

hiccup

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Both MusicBee and XMPlay are excellent and free audioplayers.
Do you happen to know if XMPlay remembers last playing positions?
(which is an important feature/requirement for audiobooks)

karbock

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Do you happen to know if XMPlay remembers last playing positions?
(which is an important feature/requirement for audiobooks)

The option is present:

hiccup

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The option is present:
Great.
I just had some doubts about that when reading this: https://www.un4seen.com/forum/?PHPSESSID=1tp6o7js547egedv27rdf8cduh&topic=19983.msg139762#msg139762

So if I understand things correctly, when you close XMPlay when a track (book) is playing, it will continue at that point when you restart XMPlay.
(same as MusicBee)

Perhaps a bit off-topic, but it's interesting, because it means that when you stop listening to a book, restart the player and play some music, the next time you 'open the book' it will start from the beginning again.
So you'll need to be sure to create a bookmark manually in such cases.
Else you'll need to find where you where the last time yourself. (an experience similar to a pain that some say that can occur in your backside region)

It would be a nice feature that for audiobooks the last read (listened-to) page was always remembered.
(regarding literature, E-ink is my weapon of choice, and my e-reader does just that, so I could imagine audiobook listeners would appreciate such a feature too)
Last Edit: January 28, 2023, 10:56:54 PM by hiccup

karbock

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So if I understand things correctly, when you close XMPlay when a track (book) is playing, it will continue at that point when you restart XMPlay.
(same as MusicBee)

Indeed.
XMPlay's weakness is that it recalls only 1 bookmark at a time.

Perhaps a bit off-topic, but it's interesting, because it means that when you stop listening to a book, restart the player and play some music, the next time you 'open the book' it will start from the beginning again.
So you'll need to be sure to create a bookmark manually in such cases.
Else you'll need to find where you where the last time yourself. (an experience similar to a pain that some say that can occur in your backside region)
You can say that again! :)

If bookmarks are a must-have, XMPlay is to rule out.
Another contender could be AIMP (free audioplayer with folder browser + bookmark manager).

Differences:
- AIMP's folder browser is present straight out-of-the box as the default browsing option
- in AIMP's folder browser, when a folder has only 1 subfolder, the 2 folder names are joined with a \ in-between.
- both bookmark managers are very convenient
- MusicBee's is more configurable
- in MusicBee, a bookmark = start + end, whereas in AIMP = a single time mark.

Let's compare the two with bookmarks within the same 3 files.
(Note: AIMP is available in English, but was installed with the French locale on my PC.)

MusicBee's bookmark manager:




AIMP's bookmark manager:




AIMP's main window:



--
MusicBee's latest release, Faded skin
AIMP's latest release, default skin (light version)
Last Edit: January 29, 2023, 03:45:20 PM by karbock