m4b support

[jimnh]

A lot of audiobooks I listen to I change from m4a to m4b extensions so they are bookmarkable (means the ipod remembers where I left off listening).
I updated the 0.2.1.1.1 srcs to allow m4b where m4a was allowed (minor changes in src/main.c and src/mp3-scanner.c); Worked like a charm and now m4b shows its id fields.
-jim

[rpedde]

Gotcha.

I’ll put that in the next nightlies.

— Ron

[mtrimmer]

I just loaded 1372 from the nightlies site on my slug but … nada. I checked the source and didn’t see any reference to m4b. Any idea when this is going to make it in?

[rpedde]

@mtrimmer wrote:

I just loaded 1372 from the nightlies site on my slug but … nada. I checked the source and didn’t see any reference to m4b. Any idea when this is going to make it in?

Sorry… completely forgot. It’s in svn now, you’ll see it on next nightlies.

I’d appreciate feedback if you use it — I don’t have any m4bs to test.

— Ron

[mtrimmer]

Just a quick note before I begin digging into 1376. This update didn’t work and I am not sure why. I am going to delve into the db first to see if the scan worked but isn’t presenting back to iTunes for some reason…

[rpedde]

@mtrimmer wrote:

Just a quick note before I begin digging into 1376. This update didn’t work and I am not sure why. I am going to delve into the db first to see if the scan worked but isn’t presenting back to iTunes for some reason…

You will have to add .m4b files to your extension list, but once they are there, they should get indexed and just like a m4a. Or should be anyway. I’d be interested to hear.

Might have to go into the web interface and do a full rescan.

— Ron

[mtrimmer]

I think I’ve got it. There seems to have been an install issue… since I’m a newbie, I may have done it wrong. I just installed over the top of 1372 and the db scan didn’t work… here is an extract from mine…

INSERT INTO songs VALUES(21333,’/media/audio/Anne McCaffrey/The White Dragon/10-47 Track 47.m4b’,’10-47 Track 47.m4b’,’10-47 Track 47.m4b’,”,”,”,”,’m4b’,”,”,”,”,”,0,0,600000,873417,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,’m4b audio file’,1155528150,1155528150,0,1157455766,0,0,0,’unkn’,0,0,0);

The last one is the m4b file and it registers as “m4b audio file” and “unkn”. When I removed the mt-daapd package and loaded 1376 the scan worked. Here is what it looks like now…

INSERT INTO songs VALUES(17687,’/media/audio/Greg Bear/Star Wars – Rogue Planet/1-03 Rogue Planet 1 C.m4b’,’1-03 Rogue Planet 1 C.m4b’,’Rogue Planet 1 C’,’Greg Bear’,’Star Wars – Rogue Planet’,’Books & Spoken’,”,’m4a’,’Lucasfilms’,”,”,”,”,128,44100,222981,3623362,2000,3,26,1,5,0,0,0,0,0,2,’AAC audio file’,1155756024,1155756024,0,1157501333,0,0,0,’mp4a’,0,0,0);

Now… when I look at the XML from a full iTunes client it looks like this…

–
Track ID
649
Name
Data Quality: Putting Your Data To Work For You
Artist
Gartner
Album
Talking Technology 2006/01
Genre
Books & Spoken
Kind
Protected AAC audio file
Size
2609401
Total Time
634923
Disc Number
1
Disc Count
1
Track Number
2
Track Count
8
Year
2006
Date Modified
2006-08-14T17:12:56Z
Date Added
2006-08-14T17:43:24Z
Bit Rate
32
Sample Rate
22050
Persistent ID
A397552BDC5576F8
Track Type
File
Location
file://localhost/C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/TRIMMEMA/My%20Documents/My%20Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/Gartner/Talking%20Technology%202006_01/02%20Data%20Quality_%20Putting%20Your%20Data%20T.m4b
File Folder Count
4
Library Folder Count
1

Now I’m not sure what all the differences I should be looking for are but I think the type needs to change to “Protected AAC audio file” and I’m going to bet that the type will also need to change. Right?

[rpedde]

@mtrimmer wrote:

I think I’ve got it. There seems to have been an install issue… since I’m a newbie, I may have done it wrong. I just installed over the top of 1372 and the db scan didn’t work… here is an extract from mine…

Yeah, to make it re-scan files it already scanned, you have to go into the web admin and hit hte “full scan” button. (or delete the songs.db).

What doesn’t work about it the way it is? I downloaded a couple m4b files, and they seem to work fine as regular aac files (in fact, so do m4p files!).

What isn’t working like you would expect?

[mtrimmer]

Sorry… I should have been more specific. The .m4b files now appear as regular audio… that works great! When using an iTunes client .m4b files show up as “Audiobooks” when using the Search Bar (ctrl+shift+b). This currently this works for the .m4v files as “Videos”.

I use this function to keep my audiobook collection better organized since I am no longer limited to using one or two genres to categorize my books.

[rpedde]

@mtrimmer wrote:

Sorry… I should have been more specific. The .m4b files now appear as regular audio… that works great! When using an iTunes client .m4b files show up as “Audiobooks” when using the Search Bar (ctrl+shift+b). This currently this works for the .m4v files as “Videos”.

I use this function to keep my audiobook collection better organized since I am no longer limited to using one or two genres to categorize my books.

Ahh.. gotcha. Let me see what I can do on that. As an aside, where did you get your dragonrider audiobooks?

— Ron

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