Weirdness just developed in page-turn time

KlondikeGeoff · 07-27-2007, 05:21 PM

Have had the Reader for eight months now, have read scores of books, and no trouble in the page-turn time, a couple of seconds, until now.

Suddenly it is much, much slower, some 5-6 seconds. It only began after about 100 pages into the start of "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

I now have to hit the page turn button about three lines from the bottom.

To make it more confusing, I bookmarked that, went to another book to try it, and it seems OK there.

No delay in any of the menus or other functions. It does take exceedingly long to turn it off or turn it on though.

I did a full recharge with the wall plug last night, did the plug-and-unplug fandango to get the battery bar OK, but still just as slow as ever.

What in the world would make just one book act like that? Any suggestions as to how to fix it?

kovidgoyal · 07-27-2007, 05:43 PM

page turn time can be affected by the book itself. Where did you get this book and what format is it in?

KlondikeGeoff · 07-27-2007, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

page turn time can be affected by the book itself. Where did you get this book and what format is it in?

That's interesting. Any idea why?

I've heard of books that are slow reading, but this is ridiculouse.

Bought it from the Sony Connect eStore.

JSWolf · 07-27-2007, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KlondikeGeoff

That's interesting. Any idea why?

I've heard of books that are slow reading, but this is ridiculouse.

Bought it from the Sony Connect eStore.

If there is an embedded font font in the book and there is enough of it used on the page, that is precisely the sort of page turning you get. Maybe for some reason they've embedded a font at that point in the book.

kovidgoyal · 07-27-2007, 08:05 PM

Also the LRF file could be badly formed. Too long a block element will cause page turns to slow down.

KlondikeGeoff · 07-27-2007, 09:28 PM

A bit more info. I've been reading in the Large size in the landscape position, as have vision problems. Just out of curiosity, put it back on Large in the portrait position, and the page-turns were back to normal.

Reverting to the other way, slow again. Guess will just have to bear with it until the book's done. Fortunately, only 500 some (Sony) pages.

Good thing the book I just finished (Mailer's "Harlot's Ghost) was OK, as it had more than 4000 pages!

fryandlaurie · 08-12-2007, 07:41 AM

Wow, I just ran into the same problem only with this particular book it takes 20 seconds to switch to the next page in landscape mode.

The book is an Andrew Vachss title from the Connect store and it is quite short (517 pages in portrait mode and small font setting). I tried other books from the upload section here on mobileread and there is no problem with them in landscape mode.

How is it possible that Sony does such a bad job at formatting its books (if the problem really is format-related as kovidgoyal has suggested)? Do they test their books before they sell them?

Maybe I got it all wrong: Maybe Sony is not incompetent when it comes to formatting books in their very own proprietary format, just average. Instead, the helpful mobileread members who work tirelessly to increase the number of available books in the book upload section are exceptionally skilled.

I will go with the latter interpretation and would like to thank all uploaders.

BTW, if the Andrew Vachss book had come without DRM I would likely have been able to fix it for better performance (with a little help from the more knowledgeable mobileread members maybe). DRM sucks!

Cheers,
fryandlaurie

JSWolf · 08-12-2007, 07:59 AM

I've just tested a couple of Connect (with DRM) purchased books in landscape at all fint sizes. Page turns work fine for me.

HarryT · 08-12-2007, 08:17 AM

The only time I've had very slow page turns is with documents with embedded fonts.

Dr. Drib · 08-12-2007, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KlondikeGeoff

A bit more info. I've been reading in the Large size in the landscape position, as have vision problems. Just out of curiosity, put it back on Large in the portrait position, and the page-turns were back to normal.

Reverting to the other way, slow again. Guess will just have to bear with it until the book's done. Fortunately, only 500 some (Sony) pages.

Good thing the book I just finished (Mailer's "Harlot's Ghost) was OK, as it had more than 4000 pages!

How was Mailer's book? (I used to read quite a lot of his earlier work.)

Also, how are you enjoying The Road? -- That may be my next purchase.

Thanks,

Don

JSWolf · 08-12-2007, 08:21 AM

As long as the page has less then 1/2 of the text in an embedded font, page turns are not too slow. I have one book that has embedded fonts for the epigraph style and for the chapter headers. The chapter headers do not slow page turns.

HarryT · 08-12-2007, 08:39 AM

Have you tried the book of the "Odyssey" that I uploaded in Ancient Greek? That uses an embedded font and takes forever (well, many seconds

) to turn the page.

fryandlaurie · 08-12-2007, 08:51 AM

I just tested some more books from the Connect store. Some of them work fine, James Ellroy and other Andrew Vachss titles for example. Still other Andrew Vachss titles have the same problem with page turning in landscape.

I don't know enough about the lrf/lrx format to tell if the ones that cause the long delay have embedded fonts or not.

After I have read the books purchased with the $50 Sony Connect credit I will stick to books from the mobileread upload section and look into formatting other books myself.

Apart from the problems described above my Sony Reader experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Seeing as the purchased books were basically free it would not be fair to hold this minor hiccup against Sony (even though I used the term "incompetence" in the post above which in retrospect seems a bit harsh).

It did, however, harden my resolve to stay away from any DRM'ed content. Last time I purchased DRM content was when I bought some TV episodes from iTunes. Even though my notebook was supposed to be adequate for Fairplay video playback it was not. The video would turn into a slide show regularly. That was quite surprising given that my machine can play two parallel DVB/AVI streams without any such problems.

Cheers,
fryandlaurie

fryandlaurie · 08-12-2007, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Have you tried the book of the "Odyssey" that I uploaded in Ancient Greek? That uses an embedded font and takes forever (well, many seconds

) to turn the page.

It takes about 5 seconds to turn the page which is still fine (if I could read ancient Greek that is).

Also, I compared the page turning performance for one of the problematic books when it is stored on the internal reader memory as well as on the SD card. There was no difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KlondikeGeoff

Good thing the book I just finished (Mailer's "Harlot's Ghost) was OK, as it had more than 4000 pages!

I loved that book!

Cheers,
fryandlaurie

KlondikeGeoff · 08-12-2007, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

How was Mailer's book? (I used to read quite a lot of his earlier work.)

Also, how are you enjoying The Road? -- That may be my next purchase.

Mailer's book, the first of his I've read since "The Naked and the Dead" was good. Fascinating plot, and good idea of the inner workings of CIA. Warning: very annoying that he ended it abruptly without any attempt to wrap up things, and worse, the last line reads "TO BE CONTINUED." As far as I know, he has not written a sequel nor intends to.

"The Road" is pretty depressing. I read a lot of user reviews after reading it, and they were mixed, some loved it, others definitely did not. I can't mention more without giving away the plot. So you're on your own.

If you do get, would you try it in the Large portrait mode just to see if you get the same slow page turn problem?

07-27-2007, 05:21 PM	#1
KlondikeGeoff Wombat Aficionado Posts: 481 Karma: 733 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Arizona Device: Fire, Kindle1, Sony PRS-500 Reader, Rocket 1100 eBook	Weirdness just developed in page-turn time Have had the Reader for eight months now, have read scores of books, and no trouble in the page-turn time, a couple of seconds, until now. Suddenly it is much, much slower, some 5-6 seconds. It only began after about 100 pages into the start of "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. I now have to hit the page turn button about three lines from the bottom. To make it more confusing, I bookmarked that, went to another book to try it, and it seems OK there. No delay in any of the menus or other functions. It does take exceedingly long to turn it off or turn it on though. I did a full recharge with the wall plug last night, did the plug-and-unplug fandango to get the battery bar OK, but still just as slow as ever. What in the world would make just one book act like that? Any suggestions as to how to fix it?

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Sudden big slowdown in page turn time	KlondikeGeoff	Sony Reader	16	06-25-2011 10:15 PM
PRS-600 Page turn	John F	Sony Reader	6	09-03-2010 08:13 AM
K3 page turn slowdown	secretpact	Amazon Kindle	5	09-01-2010 11:11 PM
PRS-300 5 Second to turn Page!	Elton Noway	Sony Reader	7	06-05-2010 05:38 PM
PRS-300 How long should a page turn take?	nimble	Sony Reader	6	03-27-2010 11:48 AM

07-27-2007, 05:43 PM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,858 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	page turn time can be affected by the book itself. Where did you get this book and what format is it in?

07-27-2007, 08:05 PM	#5
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,858 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Also the LRF file could be badly formed. Too long a block element will cause page turns to slow down.

07-27-2007, 09:28 PM	#6
KlondikeGeoff Wombat Aficionado Posts: 481 Karma: 733 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Arizona Device: Fire, Kindle1, Sony PRS-500 Reader, Rocket 1100 eBook	A bit more info. I've been reading in the Large size in the landscape position, as have vision problems. Just out of curiosity, put it back on Large in the portrait position, and the page-turns were back to normal. Reverting to the other way, slow again. Guess will just have to bear with it until the book's done. Fortunately, only 500 some (Sony) pages. Good thing the book I just finished (Mailer's "Harlot's Ghost) was OK, as it had more than 4000 pages!

08-12-2007, 07:41 AM	#7
fryandlaurie Member Posts: 20 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Germany Device: Sony Reader	Wow, I just ran into the same problem only with this particular book it takes 20 seconds to switch to the next page in landscape mode. The book is an Andrew Vachss title from the Connect store and it is quite short (517 pages in portrait mode and small font setting). I tried other books from the upload section here on mobileread and there is no problem with them in landscape mode. How is it possible that Sony does such a bad job at formatting its books (if the problem really is format-related as kovidgoyal has suggested)? Do they test their books before they sell them? Maybe I got it all wrong: Maybe Sony is not incompetent when it comes to formatting books in their very own proprietary format, just average. Instead, the helpful mobileread members who work tirelessly to increase the number of available books in the book upload section are exceptionally skilled. I will go with the latter interpretation and would like to thank all uploaders. BTW, if the Andrew Vachss book had come without DRM I would likely have been able to fix it for better performance (with a little help from the more knowledgeable mobileread members maybe). DRM sucks! Cheers, fryandlaurie

08-12-2007, 07:59 AM	#8
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 73,975 Karma: 128903378 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	I've just tested a couple of Connect (with DRM) purchased books in landscape at all fint sizes. Page turns work fine for me.

08-12-2007, 08:17 AM	#9
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	The only time I've had very slow page turns is with documents with embedded fonts.

08-12-2007, 08:21 AM	#11
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 73,975 Karma: 128903378 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	As long as the page has less then 1/2 of the text in an embedded font, page turns are not too slow. I have one book that has embedded fonts for the epigraph style and for the chapter headers. The chapter headers do not slow page turns.

08-12-2007, 08:39 AM	#12
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Have you tried the book of the "Odyssey" that I uploaded in Ancient Greek? That uses an embedded font and takes forever (well, many seconds ) to turn the page.

08-12-2007, 08:51 AM	#13
fryandlaurie Member Posts: 20 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Germany Device: Sony Reader	I just tested some more books from the Connect store. Some of them work fine, James Ellroy and other Andrew Vachss titles for example. Still other Andrew Vachss titles have the same problem with page turning in landscape. I don't know enough about the lrf/lrx format to tell if the ones that cause the long delay have embedded fonts or not. After I have read the books purchased with the $50 Sony Connect credit I will stick to books from the mobileread upload section and look into formatting other books myself. Apart from the problems described above my Sony Reader experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Seeing as the purchased books were basically free it would not be fair to hold this minor hiccup against Sony (even though I used the term "incompetence" in the post above which in retrospect seems a bit harsh). It did, however, harden my resolve to stay away from any DRM'ed content. Last time I purchased DRM content was when I bought some TV episodes from iTunes. Even though my notebook was supposed to be adequate for Fairplay video playback it was not. The video would turn into a slide show regularly. That was quite surprising given that my machine can play two parallel DVB/AVI streams without any such problems. Cheers, fryandlaurie

Advert

Advert