media_content_type: audiobook

[dvanschrick1981]

Hi there,

I am dealing with the shuffle function of Spotify.

As Spotify cannot differentiate between music and audiobook by itself I built an automation in Home Assistant with the Spotify API to turn on/off the shuffle state depending on whats playing.

That is working good when you are only listening to a couple of artists.

Like me I am listening to the german audiobook "TKKG" for example.
So I am telling the API to turn shuffle off if the media_artist is TKKG.

But when I a want to listen to another audiobook I have to add the media_artist manually to my automation.

There is an attribute from the API called "media_content_type" but this is always "music" to I cannot differentiate between normal music and audiobooks.

Unfortunately I cannot identify an audiobook precisely to turn off shuffle.

Manually turn on/off shuffle its not an option because I am switching too often between the two media_content_type.

Can you help here?

Thank you!

Greets

Daniel

[thlucas]

Hi Daniel - Todd Lucas here, author of the SpotifyPlus integration for Home Assistant.

Take a look at the custom SpotifyPlus integration (replaces HA Spotify).  It has a large number of provided services that support almost all Spotify Web API functions.  It's "media_content_type" also contains the spotify uri value (see below for an audiobook example).

source_list:
  - Bose-ST10-1
  - Bose-ST300
  - Web Player (Chrome)
spotifyplus_device_id: 30fbc80e35598f3c242f2120413c943dfd9715fe
spotifyplus_device_name: Bose-ST10-1
icon: mdi:spotify
friendly_name: SpotifyPlus Todd L
supported_features: 2543551
volume_level: 0.36
is_volume_muted: false
media_content_id: spotify:episode:4M3EPiw6yGVGhBDRZBB2eC
media_content_type: podcast
media_duration: 2967.27
media_position: 379.397
media_position_updated_at: "2024-06-14T19:54:19.088463+00:00"
media_title: Chapter 3
media_artist: Penguin Random House
media_album_name: The Elfstones of Shannara
source: Bose-ST10-1
shuffle: false
repeat: "off"
entity_picture: >-
  /api/media_player_proxy/media_player.spotifyplus_todd_l?token=6ba35bcd185b53961d0c6c703c514d0dcf4fdf8c57aa34f4bc60265cdfbcc530&cache=dae4af20915c34c0

 Hope it helps!

[dvanschrick1981]

Hi Todd,

first of all thank you for getting me known of that integration. I installed and tested it but I get this output for the german TKKG example:

source_list: DeepThought, Denon AVR-X3300W, Volumio, Überall
volume_level: 1
is_volume_muted: false
media_content_id: spotify:track:1jiWGbUkEuekRkavq1GsOV
media_content_type: music
media_duration: 35.44
media_position: 7.112
media_position_updated_at: 2024-06-16T21:17:15.664420+00:00
media_title: TKKG Titelsong
media_artist: TKKG
media_album_name: Folge 232: Drohnenaugen in der Nacht
media_track: 2
source: DeepThought
shuffle: false
repeat: off
spotifyplus_device_id: e0cce38437c305c898bf83b2b4cb8023c4fe17c7
spotifyplus_device_name: DeepThought
entity_picture: /api/media_player_proxy/media_player.spotifyplus_xxx?token=cf463a899335b18016881904db772f73e4faf4a4802822b82f9c9ad0dc5cf12e&cache=3567b5f43e17313e
icon: mdi:spotify
friendly_name: SpotifyPlus
supported_features: 2543551

I am not sure but I think there is a difference between podcast and music given by the API already but Spotify do not provide the difference between music, podcast and audiobook so that I cannot identify them. As you can see in my entity attribute also the media_content_id provides "spotify:track" instead of "spotify:episode".

Greets
Daniel

[thlucas]

Hi Daniel. 

I believe the issue here is that the "Folge 232: Drohnenaugen in der Nacht" title is recorded as an "album" that has "tracks" to separate it's episode content.  When you look at the "Folge 232: Drohnenaugen in der Nacht" title in the spotify web player, it's URI value is "spotify:album:2H6V3f2vVJgDmXndKZ3t9G" - this denotes an album (not an audiobook).  By default, any content playing for an album context would be derived as a "track" for the media_content_type value in HA.

In comparison, here's an example of an audiobook ("DragonSong", URI=spotify:show:3PFyizE2tGCSRLusl2Qizf).  Notice that its media_content_type is "podcast" for the currently playing content.  

...
media_content_id: spotify:episode:6u1UhjcauKDyL3CAxwT3mI
media_content_type: podcast
media_title: Introduction
media_artist: Recorded Books
media_album_name: Dragonsong
media_context_content_id: spotify:show:3PFyizE2tGCSRLusl2Qizf

I would think it would be "audiobook", since I found it when searching for audio books, but I believe Spotify identifies audiobooks as "shows" instead of "audiobook".  

I guess it's up to the content provider on how they provide their media to Spotify for consumption.  

With that said, I can modify the SpotifyPlus integration to return a new state attribute called "media_context_content_id" that would contain the context URI ("spotify:album:2H6V3f2vVJgDmXndKZ3t9G" in the case of "Folge 232: Drohnenaugen in der Nacht".  This is what it would like like:

media_content_id: spotify:track:3uueCWMR6rQf9vxlTpT5UN
media_content_type: music
media_title: 232 - Drohnenaugen in der Nacht - Teil 01
media_artist: TKKG
media_album_name: "Folge 232: Drohnenaugen in der Nacht"
media_context_content_id: spotify:album:2H6V3f2vVJgDmXndKZ3t9G

[dvanschrick1981]

Hi Todd,

that's the "issue" I reported. They don't handle audiobooks as audiobooks. That's the main problem which you cannot solve also I think.

The content-type from the content provide has to be correct.

Greets

Daniel