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Old 07-30-2010, 12:55 PM   #16
TonytheBookworm
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I see someone filed a request ticket for it on calibre but the author turned it down. His reason was it is specific to amazon and not for a general purpose program like calibre. There has to be a way to do this though. And it is is the asin that has to be embedded because that is what amazon web services uses. How to embed it is beyond me though. You know of any program that will open the mobi file in edit mode so you can see the headers and everything?
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Old 07-30-2010, 06:49 PM   #17
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TonytheBookworm told me to try embedding the ASIN using mobi2mobi and it works like a charm. Just stick the ASIN number in item 113 and Amazon will recognize it. I also confirmed that the ASIN is how Kindle applications add cover art. So all of us with iPhone and Android applications can now get cover art to show up properly. This is a great find! (It is for me, anyway. I don't know who all was aware of this already). Unfortunately, I have too many mobi books to go through and fix right now. It'll take some time.
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Old 07-30-2010, 11:14 PM   #18
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TonytheBookworm told me to try embedding the ASIN using mobi2mobi and it works like a charm. Just stick the ASIN number in item 113 and Amazon will recognize it. I also confirmed that the ASIN is how Kindle applications add cover art. So all of us with iPhone and Android applications can now get cover art to show up properly. This is a great find! (It is for me, anyway. I don't know who all was aware of this already). Unfortunately, I have too many mobi books to go through and fix right now. It'll take some time.
Have you actually got this to work on mobi files that you got from somewhere else and using the kindle 2 (facebook integration ) ? I still have it show up as a personal document when i highlight and share the quote when i use to actual kindle to do it. Maybe there is something that you have changed that I don't. I know the asin is the key yet, when i added it to my file of item 113 i now see book description is enabled on the kindle however, the facebook sharing thing still shows it as a personal document.
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Old 07-31-2010, 07:18 PM   #19
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Looks like I spoke too soon. Tony is right, the ASIN alone will not make the book show up properly on Facebook. However, it does add proper cover art to Kindle applications on other devices. So it's still useful to add the ASIN, if you're so inclined. Unfortunately, it appears I'm no closer to figuring out the shared highlight tagging issue.
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Old 08-03-2010, 08:46 AM   #20
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Could this enable sync of non-Amazon books?
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Old 08-03-2010, 11:56 AM   #21
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Could this enable sync of non-Amazon books?
In my very limited testing (to get cover images on my Droid), no it doesn't.
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Old 08-16-2010, 10:52 AM   #22
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Thanks for the tip. I'll have to see if I can find that command and try it out.

Also, I noticed you had James Marsden listed under the Fool Moon audiobook. I couldn't believe that James Marsden did audiobooks, so I looked it up. It's actually James Marsters, who, in my opinion, makes it way more awesome.
Ha! You're right. Thank you! What was I thinking.
Oh, and on the command thingy, there's one more thing I insert: BookID. I get this from the ol' mobipocket site. It helps when opening these prc/mobi with Mobipocket reader on PC. With BookID, we get the metadata off server somewhere.
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Old 09-01-2010, 06:15 PM   #23
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To confirm what SpideMat is saying, _some_ of my .mobi books with DRM removed on my new Kindle 3 will sync with my old Kindle (which has original books downloaded from the Kindle Store):

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96834

*If* the ASIN is what they're tracking and we can figure out what the other part is, we can enjoy all the benefits of Whispernet between devices.

Is there a program I should be using to look at the specs on each book so I can see what the sync-able books have in common?
Last edited by Gwen Morse; 09-01-2010 at 06:19 PM.
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Old 09-01-2010, 06:21 PM   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TonytheBookworm View Post
I see someone filed a request ticket for it on calibre but the author turned it down. His reason was it is specific to amazon and not for a general purpose program like calibre. There has to be a way to do this though. And it is is the asin that has to be embedded because that is what amazon web services uses. How to embed it is beyond me though. You know of any program that will open the mobi file in edit mode so you can see the headers and everything?
I would suggest someone with the appropriate skills look into writing a plugin. I can see that Kovid wouldn't want to do it directly but with the magic of plugins, anything is possible.

It's not _too_ onerous to run a "kindle-fying" plugin after the initial import.
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Old 09-01-2010, 07:31 PM   #25
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If you just import the deDRMed book into Calibre, all of Amazon's exth records will be preserved, but if you edit the metadata and do a mobi->mobi conversion, you will lose amazon's exth records.

Calibre's mobi->mobi conversion overwrites the EXTH records that Amazon includes in their ebooks with the user-defined metadata from Calibre. Besides the obvious exth type 113 containing Amazon's ASIN number, exth type 501 should also contain the value 'EBOK' rather than 'PDOC'.

Don't know if that will help with the ultimate goal here (I don't use the social networking features), but it's something to try, anyway.
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Old 09-02-2010, 09:22 AM   #26
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There's speculative info about the exth records here in the wiki: https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/MOBI#EXTH_Header

I don't know enough about this to even know what happens. It sounds like DiapDealer knows a bit (enough to know that Calibre overwrites it).

So, I would guess we want to preserve the Amazon exth records. Is it possible to preserve them and have Calibre update the metadata, or is the Calibre metadata stored in the exth record fields?

I don't use Kindle on FB, but, I would like to be able to Whispersync my reading progress on books bought from Amazon and de-DRMed.

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Old 09-02-2010, 12:42 PM   #27
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or is the Calibre metadata stored in the exth record fields?
Only if you do a mobi to mobi conversion. Otherwise, the original exth records are retained and Calibre's metadata is stored in the external db. So if you just strip and import... I'd think highlights (facebook/twitter) would show up correctly and the book SHOULD sync -- don't quote me.

As for an ebook purchased from another site, I can't see Amazon checking all of the exth records for a complete match. More likely, if the ASIN (record type 113) exists and contains a valid Amazon ASIN -- and the cdetype (record type 501) exists and contains 'EBOK', then things might (just might) work as expected.

Exth record types 1, 2 and 3 may also come into play. If I get a chance to play around with it today, I'll see what I come up with.
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Old 09-03-2010, 04:13 AM   #28
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Only if you do a mobi to mobi conversion. Otherwise, the original exth records are retained and Calibre's metadata is stored in the external db. So if you just strip and import... I'd think highlights (facebook/twitter) would show up correctly and the book SHOULD sync -- don't quote me.

As for an ebook purchased from another site, I can't see Amazon checking all of the exth records for a complete match. More likely, if the ASIN (record type 113) exists and contains a valid Amazon ASIN -- and the cdetype (record type 501) exists and contains 'EBOK', then things might (just might) work as expected.

Exth record types 1, 2 and 3 may also come into play. If I get a chance to play around with it today, I'll see what I come up with.
I'm not sure that I've done a mobi=>mobi conversion on any of my books, but not all my Kindle-store-bought-drm-removed books show as availble to sync. I have updated metadata on most of them. It would be nice to get the benefits of both (Whispersync-friendly exth records and updated metadata stored in the book itself).

Would that be possible or is it an either-or situation? Does Calibre have to store metadata where the exth records should be? Can metadata be stored in a book jacket record or somewhere else?
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Old 09-03-2010, 09:58 AM   #29
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I've confirmed that Calibre doesn't store its metadata info in the mobi itself until you do one of three things:

1) Save to Disk - it records the changes that you've made to the metadata, but retains the Amazon records that were unaffected by your changes (ASIN-113, cdetype-501 are still there if they existed to begin with). You can configure Calibre to not save metadata changes when using the Save to disk option (Preferences->Add/Save->Saving books tab).

2) Send to Device - it records the changes that you've made to the metadata, but retains the Amazon records that were unaffected by your changes (ASIN-113, cdetype-501 are still there if they existed to begin with). You can configure how Calibre synchronizes metadata when using the Send to Device option (Preferences->Add/Save->Sending to device tab). I'm guessing the "Automatic management" option doesn't write metadata to the exth header, but rather synchronizes metadata between library data and the metadata.calibre file (on the Kindle) on every device connect.

3) Mobi 2 Mobi conversion - This overwrites all exth records so only Calibre's metadata is written to the mobi file (ASIN-113, cdetype-501 are erased if they existed to begin with).

What's it all mean??? My stripped Amazon books retain their ability to synchronize across devices (K4PC and K2). Furthest Read point, Notes & Highlights, and Bookmarks are kept in sync (at east all the books I've tried thus far). I've even been able to synchronize books that I didn't purchase from Amazon by adding a valid ASIN (in exth-type 113) and cdetype 'EBOK' (in exth-type 501) with the mobi2mobi perl script. In this case, the Furthest Read point is synced, but not the Notes & Highlights or Bookmarks.

If you have some deDRMed Amazon books that do not synchronize, I suggest using the mobi2mobi script to verify that the ASIN record (113) and the cdetype record (501) do indeed exist and that they contain a valid ASIN and 'EBOK', respectively.

The Social Networking issue (showing the correct cover and book title) appears to be a little more complicated.
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Old 02-25-2011, 10:23 AM   #30
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anything new with this?
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