Sony has just anounced PDF support at CES!


Check out engadget for Sony CES conference.

Sony has just anounced PDF support at CES!


Check out engadget for Sony CES conference.

"And the PRS-505 -- announcing support for PDFs!" I hope the details turn out well for us. Like Adobe DE. And generally better support for A4 and letter formatted PDFs. And, of course, the same for the PRS-500. I can't wait to hear! :)

So does this mean they are finally admitting that current PDF support is abysmal?

What is the significance here? Am new to the e-reader world.Just got a 505 and have downloaded a couple of PDF documents which are readable although the font size is VERY small. These weren't e-books but rather normal documents.

Thanks

What is the significance here? Am new to the e-reader world.Just got a 505 and have downloaded a couple of PDF documents which are readable although the font size is VERY small. These weren't e-books but rather normal documents.

Thanks

I guess the significance would be if this announcement meant the anticipated support of Digital Editions. This would allow DRM'd PDFs to be viewed on the Reader. PDF is one of the formats many libraries use for ebooks (Mobi being the other).

I'm still looking for more info, so I don't know exactly what they announced. My guess is that the 505 will support Adobe DE.


As for my snide remark, I had a PRS500. I thought the way it displayed PDFs was horrible.

...have downloaded a couple of PDF documents which are readable although the font size is VERY small.

For most of us, I think, this is precisely the issue.

I've followed up with a couple emails and a message left on voice mail. Let's see what happens.

I don't understand why they were so vague. PDF Support? We already have that...

Anyway, I sent an e-mail to Engadget and Sony's CES folks so maybe we can get some answers.

I don't understand why they were so vague. PDF Support? We already have that...

Anyway, I sent an e-mail to Engadget and Sony's CES folks so maybe we can get some answers.

The Sony Readers are at best marginally useful for PDFs. I would say if they make it so that the Readers can be used to read typical A4- or letter-formatted PDFs without secondary conversions, then they would supporting PDFs. At the moment, they don't do that. Thanks for emailing them. I hope you hear good news!:)

I would say if they make it so that the Readers can be used to read typical A4- or letter-formatted PDFs without secondary conversions, then they would supporting PDFs.

There's absolutely no way to do that, unless they implement some sort of "panning" mechanism, which would probably be rather too slow on an eInk screen.

There's absolutely no way to do that, unless they implement some sort of "panning" mechanism, which would probably be rather too slow on an eInk screen.

I assume you are right, but the panning which works on the Readers for jpeg images works okay. It would be a clunky but useful fix.

Link ?

Edit: Found it... http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/06/live-coverage-from-sonys-ces-press-conference/

The Sony Readers are at best marginally useful for PDFs. I would say if they make it so that the Readers can be used to read typical A4- or letter-formatted PDFs without secondary conversions, then they would supporting PDFs. At the moment, they don't do that. Thanks for emailing them. I hope you hear good news!:)


If the Reader had a more controllable zoom mechanism, it would be possible to trim out blank page margins and fill the available screen real estate with text. For example, infinitely variable zoom (in conjunction with landscape orientation) makes the iPhone surprisingly usable for PDFs, even with its much smaller screen.

A flexible zoom would make the Reader's relatively huge screen usable in landscape mode with 99% of PDF ebooks without horizontal panning -- but I'm guessing that E-Ink's slow refresh makes iPhone-style, interactively adjustable zoom impossible while the Reader's clunky cursor control limits other options. Sony will have to rethink both the hardware controls and the software interface to make it happen, but it should be possible.

Or if they've got a way to reflow the rascals.

Personally, I'm hoping that this is an ill-informed reference to DE.

I found the text of the speech.

With Sony’s latest Reader, the future of digital books is here.

The Reader continues to win critical praise and for the month of December, it was the number one selling device on SonyStyle.com.

What’s more, we’re excited to announce enhanced support for Adobe PDFs which improves the reading experience and underscores our commitment to open formats.

When you combine a vast library of reading material with Sony technology that’s geared toward ease of use and convenience, well, let’s just say that’s a best-selling proposition.

from:
http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/speeches/release/32858.html

"enhanced support"

Nothing like being specific, is there? And that's certainly nothing like it. :sad2:

So the reader is FW upgradable then? .. Sorry to sound Daft I have'nt received mine yet..

Personally, I'm hoping that this is an ill-informed reference to DE.

I agree. That would be huge. Definitely a move that could help keep them competitive. If I could read my library's Overdrive and Safari ebooks I might consider buying a 505 in addition to my Kindle.

I got emails from a couple of people at Sony. Here is the important one:

Hi Nate,
No specific annoucement. We're showing reflowable pdf in booth but no timeframe on availability for prs. We simply reiterated our commitment to working with adobe to improve pdf experience on prs.

Sorry for the late reply. Show is crazy. Hope this helps.

Create another thread Nate, this should be on the front page.

Durn tootin'

I got emails from a couple of people at Sony. Here is the important one:

Well at least you got a decent reply. I got a reply back from Sony but it told me that they're constantly updating their product pages and to check out the product page for the PRS-505... lame.

I hope they announce a date soon.

Where did you send the email?

I went to the CES website, looked for the press conference pages, and found the one Sony did yesterday. I email and called the contact person. He got back to me last night, and gave me the email of someone could answer my questions. I emailed her, and she responded at about 4pm today.

I thought that was a fairly quick response on their part, considering that they are both at CES, and there are many more interesting things to do than answer email.


P.S. I also identified myself as a moderator here at MobileRead. That may have raised my email from spam to semi-legitimate press query.

Sony does seem to have a fairly high regard for this forum. :wink: I have it on very good authority that we're "on the scope" of the Senior VP of Digital Imaging and Audio (the division that the Reader falls into -- now we know why it has an MP3 player: so that they could find a division to classify it under! :D) -- hello, if you're reading this, by the way. :bigwave:

So the reader is FW upgradeable then? .. Sorry to sound Daft I have'nt received mine yet..
Yes, the 500/505 are both upgradeable via a firmware flash. There has been no new firmware for the 505 since it's release. But we are hoping for one maybe in January that add in better PDF support and/or Digital Editions support. But if it doesn't come out in January, February would do fine.

According to Teleread (http://www.teleread.org/blog/) this morning,

"But now a Sony spokesman has told Mike Cane:

'…we demonstrated a technology that we are working on for the PRS505. This is code that will allow text based PDFs to be reflowed and resized. This would allow you to read PDFs much better and easier on the 505. When perfected this new code will be updated into the firmware of all 505s sold free of charge. That’s all we are talking about […]'”

According to Teleread (http://www.teleread.org/blog/) this morning,

"But now a Sony spokesman has told Mike Cane:

'…we demonstrated a technology that we are working on for the PRS505. This is code that will allow text based PDFs to be reflowed and resized. This would allow you to read PDFs much better and easier on the 505. When perfected this new code will be updated into the firmware of all 505s sold free of charge. That’s all we are talking about […]'”

And what about us 500 owners? What is so different about the 505 that this can't work on the 500? I thought they were basically the same except for external button arangment and screen type?

BOb

Apparently the 505 has some different hardware arrangements internally too. The most obvious is the USB Mass Storage capability that the 505 has and the 500 doesn't, though I rather doubt that particular one is an issue here.

More likely factors are the difference in memory they have to work with in the 505 vs. the 500, and I believe that the 505's processor is a step up from the 500 (could easily be wrong on that one, I don't clearly remember the details :shrug:). Either of those could put whatever they're doing to reflow (and we haven't the foggiest notion what that is, as of yet) within the 505's capabilities, but outside the 500's.

Then there could be other less obvious factors that mean the 500 couldn't handle this function.

I don't know that it can't, by the way, and I really hope that it can, personally.

So far as I know, the Sony view on this point is still that they'll update the 500 with new features as they can, but they aren't promising to do so, citing concerns about potential hardware constraints. :shrug:

I don't think the issue is technical, the current PDF reader on 505 is exactly the same as on 500, so it should be very simple to make the new one run on both models. I think it's probably a combination of using this feature to promote the new model and desire to save on support/documentation/QA/etc for the 500.

But whatever new changes they come up with would necessarily have to be different, wouldn't they? ;)

Nat digged out some more info here:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=136650#post136650

Instead of re-typing, here is my similar post on the PDF reflow:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19023

Thanks
F.

this is good news