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Originally Posted by mtravellerh
Nick, my friend, I know that you feel strongly about this limitation, but let's be honest: This 300KB rule is not Kovid's and he has only implemented it because there ARE a lot of Sony readers around.
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Oh, and just so as to be clear (clearer?), I don't view Kovid or Calibre as the culprit in imposing this limitation.
Quote:
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The Bebooks seem to have still more problems with epubs (as far as I have heard) and so epubs would be limited to PCs and Iphones and we surely don't want that.
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Yes, I know this will be the case during the transition from a non .epub world to one with abundantly flowing .epub ebooks. I understand, more than most, that yesterday's (or year's) hardware just can't cut it sometimes. Even with my .imp reader, I envision .epubs will be used not directly but with the same conversion process that WILL BE required for my reader to view said .epub ebooks.
It doesn't mean that, in the future, when and if (
) my reader gets a firmware upgrade to allow native reading of .epubs, my tune will change. Then I would expect my reader's conversion software to take a perfectly healthy .epub (i.e. no ADE limitation) and then convert it to my reader's required (and maybe somewhat compromised/crippled) support for .epubs.
Again my view is skewed in that I view .epub as a source and not for utlimate reading on my reader yet. If I did have a Sony reader capable of viewing .epub ebooks natively, the question I would have to wrestle with is would I want (1) the
convenience of a Sony-specific .epub variant over (2) a non-compliant Sony .epub that I would need some software (like Calibre) to re-generate the .epub so that my Sony reader could read it.
My answer, would be a resounding endorsement of
convenience over a "higher good", but the fact remains that in the foreseeable future the "higher good" can take a back seat, but not for the long haul. The hardware will catch up and the present day .epubs will be viewed in a different light.
So do I want the current situation to change? No, but I would want the imposer of the limitation (ADE) to eventually remove that limitation (or raise it sufficiently higher so as to not be a "hinderance" to the way ebooks are scripted in .html).
For ebooks with numerous chapters of limited size, this limitation is a moot point. For huge hyperlinked ebooks, like the kind I usually prepare, I just can't appreciate that my source .epub will be in a 100 or so pieces. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I like to work on the whole rather than the parts.
Perhaps, in my perfect world vision, I would like non-compliant Sony (non-split) .epubs to be the norm and then let every ebook reader (BeBook/Sony/iPhone) that can't handle it to re-generate their variant of that .epub ebook (even if it is .lrf for the Sony-PRS500 or .imp for my reader or .prc for the Cybook Gen3/Hanlin/iLiad...).
I told you it was a RANT!
