Tag Archives: audio book

Announcement, Programming

Audioserve new features

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I have been working on some new features in audioserve and they are now available in latest releases. In this article I’d like to talk little bit about them and probably later also provide new demo videos, as there has been many changes from last demos.

Summary of new features:

  • Single file audiobooks (m4b) support
  • Alternative subfolders sorting (recent, alphabetical) and most recent folders list
  • Folders download in web client
  • Easier deployment with smaller docker image or static binary
  • Server config file
  • Playback sharing/synchronization between clients

See below for details.

Continue reading Audioserve new features →

Announcement

Next Audioserve Version

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As I’m using audioserve for almost a year, I’m becoming quite keen about it – it’s exactly what I wanted – simple, lightweight and works as I needed. With it listening to audiobooks is just a simple pleasure. Recently I updated audioserve server with couple more features, which might not be essential, but can be useful: multiple transcoding formats  ( meaning target formats) and transcoding cache. Continue reading Next Audioserve Version →

Announcement

audioserve Android Client Early Beta Is Available

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So finally there is something. I’m using it myself now to listen to audiobooks and it have almost all functionality I wanted it to have. It might be still bit unstable and few things is not well behaving (keep up long time in paused state, navigation between notifications and activities is still bit messy and few more issues), but generally it works. Continue reading audioserve Android Client Early Beta Is Available →

Digital Media, Programming

Splitting Large Audio Books

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I’m big fan of audio books.   During past years I’ve been using setup described in this article (libresonic server, android client, audio encoded with opus codec) for audio books listening.  It works well  for me , but it’s best with audio books split to chapters or to parts not longer then 1 hour. However some audio books come in  one large file (m4b format, or  aax proprietary file  from Audible).  To listen to such audio books conveniently I need to split them. Luckily with ffmpeg tool and a bit of bash scripting it is not difficult. Continue reading Splitting Large Audio Books →

Tools

Opus Audio Codec for Audio Books And More

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Opus is a relatively new lossy audio codec from Xiph Foundation, successor to Vorbis and Speex codecs.  It provides very good quality for low bandwidth (<=32kbps) streams with speech, but also provides high quality for broader bandwidth (>64kbps) and more demanding data like music etc.  So it can be one-off solution for any digital audio encoding.  According to some tests presented on it’s site, it’s comparable with HE AAC for higher bandwidth, higher quality data,  while it additionally  provides better results for lower bandwidth, speech data  this is something xHE ACC is addressing too, however I have not seen available codec yet.).  And what is most appealing on Opus is that it’s free, without patents and it’s open source.  (While majority of common audio codecs e.g MP3, AAC are restricted by patents and are subject to paying loyalties , I think Fraunhofer holds basic patents, but situations is quite complex and differs per country).

Based on positives reviews, I though that Opus could be ideal codec for audio books, where it can provide good quality at low bit rates. At least for me, I really do not need top quality for audio books  (say mp3 320kbps), while the book takes gigabytes of space, but on the other hand,  I do appreciate good quality and with low quality audios I have problems to understand them and I cannot really enjoy the book.

So how can Opus help and is it ready for everyday use? Continue reading Opus Audio Codec for Audio Books And More →