doctorow
09-30-2006, 03:21 PM
CBR's Tony Salvaggio has reviewed (http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=8498) the Sony Reader's capabilities to display Manga content.
Optimizing Manga for display on the Reader is no easy task, as the subtle tones and varied line weights have to be processed into the 4 color palette of the Reader. At 160 DPI, the manga displayed on the 6 inch screen was small, but very legible. Sources at Tokyopop confirmed that this level of legibility was arrived at through much trial and error, and more than a few pre-processing scripts before being encoded into the Reader's proprietary format. On the plus side, I was able to read the manga with no eye strain, even at the slightly reduced size (compared to the original print version).
It seems that Tokyopop is one of the few publishers to jump on to the Sony Reader at the launch stage, although I did see a test example from another publisher, as well as a brand new Harlequin manga that came in the day I was at Sony. The complex tones of the shojou style book held up very well and increased my anticipation for what this technology could mean for portable manga reading.
Optimizing Manga for display on the Reader is no easy task, as the subtle tones and varied line weights have to be processed into the 4 color palette of the Reader. At 160 DPI, the manga displayed on the 6 inch screen was small, but very legible. Sources at Tokyopop confirmed that this level of legibility was arrived at through much trial and error, and more than a few pre-processing scripts before being encoded into the Reader's proprietary format. On the plus side, I was able to read the manga with no eye strain, even at the slightly reduced size (compared to the original print version).
It seems that Tokyopop is one of the few publishers to jump on to the Sony Reader at the launch stage, although I did see a test example from another publisher, as well as a brand new Harlequin manga that came in the day I was at Sony. The complex tones of the shojou style book held up very well and increased my anticipation for what this technology could mean for portable manga reading.
