Storyteller

Productivity

ebook reader and audiobook sync

SHOW HN2023

338points
67comments
#117of 3,109 in 2023
Top 4%of 2023 by points

How HN took it

LovedMost comments that take a side are positive

14 positive, 20 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 1 critical, out of 35 comments about the project. Thread score +0.35.

Idea: 9 for, 0 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Fills a gap left by Whispersync; wanted for years

    From 2 comments
    • This looks absolutely incredible, and like something I’ve been trying to find for years! Thank you so much building this!
      zachlatta on HN
    • Awesome! Thanks for sharing and working on this! WhisperSync functionality is a game-changer; it's one of the main reasons I'm able to read so much (switching modalities several…
      chrisweekly on HN
  • Good reader experience and sentence highlighting

    From 1 comment
    • This is true, but it really limits the ability to highlight the current sentence visually while it's being read, which is great for language learning and for reducing cognitive…
      smoores on HN

Objections

  • Only works with DRM-free ebooks and audiobooks

    From 2 comments
  • Docker-only setup is hard for some users

    From 1 comment
    • Good job! I'm probably going to use this. Would love to have my collection accessible from mobile. A small "nit". Would be great to have non-docker installation instructions…
      atmosx on HN

Requests

  • Server-side reading progress sync

    From 2 comments
    • Not yet, but it's on the roadmap (https://gitlab.com/smoores/storyteller/-/issues/13)! This one actually ought to be pretty straightforward; the only trick to it is making sure…
      smoores on HN
    • Thanks! Server-side position syncing and integration with KOReader are both on the roadmap, actually; you're not the first one to bring this up!
      smoores on HN
  • KOReader and Kobo integration

    From 1 comment
    • I absolutely love this. However, my wife and kids all read EPUBS on kobo e-readers, so I wish we could somehow sync the last page read from kobo to Storyteller so that we could…
      rpxio on HN
  • Text-to-speech narration generation

    From 2 comments
    • Super cool project! > even though there's still a lot more to do A few have asked on this thread already, but since you're already using AI to transcibe, it would be super cool…
      mike986 on HN
    • It's on the list! https://gitlab.com/smoores/storyteller/-/issues/9
      smoores on HN
  • Non-Docker installation instructions

    From 1 comment
    • Good job! I'm probably going to use this. Would love to have my collection accessible from mobile. A small "nit". Would be great to have non-docker installation instructions…
      atmosx on HN

Questions

  • How long does syncing a book take

    From 2 comments
    • Amazing! I've made a similar ebooks-audiobooks aligner years ago: https://github.com/r4victor/syncabook. At that time, I chose to synthesize the text and align two audio…
      r4victor on HN
    • The docs say it's usually 1-4 hours depending on the book and the hardware: https://smoores.gitlab.io/storyteller/docs/syncing-books The docs also have a detailed section about…
      NoahKAndrews on HN
  • Minimum hardware requirements

    From 1 comment
    • This looks awesome. I might be missing it somewhere, but what's the minimum required hardware to run something like this locally?
      pseufaux on HN
  • Handling audio and text differences

    From 2 comments
    • Amazing! I've made a similar ebooks-audiobooks aligner years ago: https://github.com/r4victor/syncabook. At that time, I chose to synthesize the text and align two audio…
      r4victor on HN
    • Hello! syncabook is awesome, and indeed Storyteller does take "the opposite" approach when it comes to forced alignment. Others have linked to the docs, where I go into detail…
      smoores on HN

Alternatives named

  • Audiobookshelf

    From 2 comments
    • This is really neat, it's something I hadn't thought about before. I've started listening to audiobooks on my commute, but I read at night. I currently use audiobookshelf[0] to…
      sphars on HN
    • More information would be nice, a link to the iOS app or screenshots or what features the project have. Is it a ebook/a book library like audiobookshelf with sync or just sync? (…
      0x073 on HN
  • Amazon Whispersync for Voice

    From 1 comment
    • This has existed for a while, it's called Whispersync for Voice. Not available for all titles but it's there
      Infinitesimus on HN
  • Prologue app

    From 1 comment
    • As noted elsewhere in the comments, you can use Plex with the Prologue app to literally have Plex for audiobooks. But yes, it seems this will also do what you want.
      orand on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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