01-14-2009, 10:30 AM | #16 | |
Books and more books
Posts: 917
Karma: 69499
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: White Plains, NY, USA
Device: Nook Color, Itouch, Nokia770, Sony 650, Sony 700(dead), Ebk(given)
|
Quote:
|
|
01-14-2009, 12:28 PM | #17 |
curmudgeon
Posts: 1,481
Karma: 5748190
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Redwood City, CA USA
Device: Kobo Aura HD, (ex)nook, (ex)PRS-700, (ex)PRS-500
|
You folks are being way too practical in your definition of standard. I was using the "accepted and promulgated by an actual standards body" definition. As distinct from a variety of Microsoft "standards" (can anyone say "DirectX"?), for example. Of course ePub is being pushed by Adobe.
In a more practical sense, of course, being "standard" as in "commonly available" depends on actual uptake of the standard by enough players to cover the great majority of the market in question. And that remains to be seen for ePub. For the moment, however, it is the big hope for reducing the current "Tower of eBabel" effect in the eBook world. Xenophon |
01-14-2009, 12:35 PM | #18 | |
zeldinha zippy zeldissima
Posts: 27,827
Karma: 921169
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Paris, France
Device: eb1150 & is that a nook in her pocket, or she just happy to see you?
|
Quote:
list of idpf members : http://www.idpf.org/membership/currentmembers.asp |
|
01-14-2009, 01:39 PM | #19 | |
Books and more books
Posts: 917
Karma: 69499
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: White Plains, NY, USA
Device: Nook Color, Itouch, Nokia770, Sony 650, Sony 700(dead), Ebk(given)
|
Quote:
Ereader is still there and got a big lifeline from FW and the iPhone/Touch appl. MsLit is still there. Talk is cheap but for now epub is just a drop in the bucket in the ebook world and while I am all for standards, I just do not see it displacing the major proprietary formats like Mobi, Lit, Ereader soon Same with devices and conversion applications, let's wait a little before we jump on the epub bandwagon. And from my experience with epub on the 700, it's a nice looking format, comparable with a pdf, but then a reflowable pdf would do instead too since the smaller size of the epub is getting irrelevant in the world of faster processors and increasing available memory. I am all for standards, but as with music, you do not really need a "unique" one as long as there are free and fast conversion tools between formats. Mp3 and Apple format coexist happily as well as the Microsoft music formats or the Real music formats. The issue here is drm and epub does not advance the drm-free world in any way, and while on the face of it it does not regress it either, being pushed by Adobe the big drm cheerleader does not give me confidence... |
|
01-14-2009, 01:41 PM | #20 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,279
Karma: 1002683
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: New York
Device: PRS-700
|
amazon doesnt sell epub, nor sony.
nor do most of those sellers. Amazons own kindle doesnt support it. what liviu was saying is how can it be a standard if no one uses it edit ahh you beat me to the punch liviu |
01-14-2009, 01:43 PM | #21 |
Enjoying the show....
Posts: 14,270
Karma: 10462841
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Arizona
Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir
|
|
01-14-2009, 01:47 PM | #22 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,279
Karma: 1002683
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: New York
Device: PRS-700
|
|
01-14-2009, 01:56 PM | #23 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 19,832
Karma: 11844413
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Tampa, FL USA
Device: Kindle Touch
|
Quote:
BOb |
|
01-14-2009, 01:59 PM | #24 |
Enjoying the show....
Posts: 14,270
Karma: 10462841
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Arizona
Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir
|
|
01-14-2009, 03:05 PM | #25 | |
Wizard
Posts: 1,279
Karma: 1002683
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: New York
Device: PRS-700
|
Quote:
and in fact most hardware makers are just laughing at it. Amazon is a member of the IDPF... yet they do not even follow it... I think epub is laughable. i dobut it will ever become a standard in the industry. no worries desertgrandma, it I saw someone attacking the kindle I would defend it too.. I love the kindle.. if only it were smaller. Look at the IDPF forums to see how serious they take it.. the most posting member is a spammer trying to sell hacked software and its been sitting there for over a month. Last edited by Andybaby; 01-14-2009 at 03:13 PM. |
|
01-14-2009, 04:19 PM | #26 | |
Books and more books
Posts: 917
Karma: 69499
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: White Plains, NY, USA
Device: Nook Color, Itouch, Nokia770, Sony 650, Sony 700(dead), Ebk(given)
|
Quote:
The claims about epub are that everything will read it, everyone will be able to convert easily to it, and that is what I am quite skeptical about. We will see but as long as drm is around, everyone will want their proprietary format for obvious reasons. Microsoft did not sell iTunes-drm format songs... we all know the examples, no reason to believe things will change with ebooks. Trade groups and all-hugs-we-all-get-along work until the advantages of going alone are too high, and for drm that's a given since device lock is a major reason of its existence. As for plain vanilla unencrypted epub, right now the tools to make nice books lack as does software to reliably read them on various devices. This may or may not change, but right now epub is mostly useless I still use my 770 and sometimes it's annoying to do a Calibre lrf (700) and a Mobipocket prc (770) for the same book, so I tried to do epub for both and on the 700 it worked but at some cost of speed, while on the 770 it opened, worked for a while and then crashed. So back to lrf's and whatever (prc, opf, html, rtf) for the 770... When better tools will be around I will be happy to use epub, but for now recommending it as the format of choice is not something I would do. |
|
01-14-2009, 04:25 PM | #27 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 19,832
Karma: 11844413
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Tampa, FL USA
Device: Kindle Touch
|
Quote:
Then again, "defacto" standard is what you are looking for. Will ePub become the "defacto" standard. Perhaps, perhaps now. I would argue that mobipocket and LIT and PDF are the defacto standards today. BOb |
|
01-14-2009, 06:54 PM | #28 |
zeldinha zippy zeldissima
Posts: 27,827
Karma: 921169
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Paris, France
Device: eb1150 & is that a nook in her pocket, or she just happy to see you?
|
well, i agree that epub is just starting out and has a long way to go, of course. but i do think it has a very good chance of becoming the de facto standard, because it does have the support of some pretty important players already including most of the major publishing houses (in fact, some publishers which are just starting to provide their books in digital format are *only* publishing epub books).
the fact that sony devices can read it natively is also a very big deal, given that sony is among the oldest ebook device makers, and there are a lot of sony devices out there ! ipods / iphones can also read epub books, using stanza, and there are a LOT of those out there ; feedbooks distributes something like thousands (or was it more ?) epub books every day. natively is not the only way to support it though : mobipocket (and therefore amazon, who owns mobipocket) actually does already support (drm-free) epub, in the sense that the mobipocket desktop reader will already convert it to mobi format (if you have the mobi destop reader installed, double-clicking any epub file will automatically launch the conversion, and when it's done it will be displayed in the reader), effectively making any mobipocket-capable device an epub-capable device. (all you kindlers : you can read epub books on your kindle ! and it's probably the most painless conversion of all of them !) given that mobipocket is a competing format, i suspect that's probably as good as we can hope for, but i think it's actually quite reasonable, since epub is designed to be a source AND end format. ETI also supports epub and the eb1150 will also support epub by converting it to the native imp format (well, we eb1150ers are used to having to convert everything ). it's an extra step but it does open up a whole new format to these devices, which is not to sneezed at. between the sony, the ipod / iphone, and all the mobipocket-enabled devices out there, there is a pretty huge potential audience for epub. someone (sorry, i can't remember just now who and i'm feeling too lazy to go back and find the post... ) mentioned drm earlier. i wholeheartedly agree that drm is the scourge of all things digital, and ebooks are no exception. however, this is true of drm on *all* formats, not just epub, and i do also think it's important to keep that issue separate from epub as a standard format. i imagine that to some of you the notion of standard formats is pretty abstract and seems relatively trivial or irrelevant ; i'm a webdesigner though and non-compliant browsers and code (which don't respect the webstandards, defined by W3C which is the web equivalent of idpf) are the bane of my existence. a standard format is sort of the webdesigner's holy grail, and it's really clear to me how important it is to have a standard format for ebooks too. that's why i support epub in every way i can as of now, even though the tools for creating and displaying epub are not yet perfect, and even though the format itself is still being defined. even in its current state it is already much better than the existing formats in so many ways, and it will only get better. even if currently it doesn't suit your needs i think that the support of consumers as well as the industry is important, and a standard format is in your best interests too, so i do hope you will at the very least keep checking back to see how it evolves, and support it in whatever way will fit into your reading habits. |
01-14-2009, 07:00 PM | #29 | |
Wizard
Posts: 1,279
Karma: 1002683
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: New York
Device: PRS-700
|
Quote:
zelda, thanks for your post. I think the epub standards are lacking... but it can get better. Last edited by Andybaby; 01-14-2009 at 07:06 PM. |
|
01-14-2009, 10:22 PM | #30 | |
Books and more books
Posts: 917
Karma: 69499
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: White Plains, NY, USA
Device: Nook Color, Itouch, Nokia770, Sony 650, Sony 700(dead), Ebk(given)
|
Quote:
Before there was oeb which was not a single file like epub, but a package that was then compressed - and possibly drm'ed - in prc, imp, lit, possible other formats (embiid??. lrf??) Of course you could use oeb directly - for example my 770 can read a properly packaged oeb, by using the opf file as "base" and especially before the prc reading capability was introduced, I would explode a lit file in the oeb package and just put it like that or zipped on the 770. When Fbreader could handle (non-huff, non-drm) prc I would usually go one step further and use the Mobipocket Creator to get the prc file since it was more compact. So is epub intended to be used like oeb, namely basing proprietary formats on it - here we may not need compression, but every firm can put its incompatible drm on it for example - or is epub as it stands/develops further is to be a unique format readable on all devices drm or no drm...?? The second thing is something I am very doubtful of. The first who knows, it's possible but what do we gain from the current state other than more capabilities in the underground machinery that as a consumer I do not see anyway... We would still have incompatible formats for various devices since that is not a technical issue but a social one. Right now we could have all devices reading drm Mobipocket which is probably the easiest to adapt, if the will was there. |
|
Tags |
epub, why epub = best format |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
A lot more freezing on saves in 0.2.1 | Stinger | Sigil | 5 | 06-20-2010 05:02 PM |
Classic NY Times Price going up a lot I think | evan2000 | Barnes & Noble NOOK | 7 | 04-21-2010 03:04 PM |
I know it's a lot to ask, but... | FizzyWater | Calibre | 14 | 12-21-2009 09:44 AM |
Getting a lot of files on to the 700? | gv3 | Sony Reader | 11 | 11-26-2008 02:29 PM |