Sony PRS-T1 (jp) How to get purchased books into Calibre

[Kumabjorn]

I am trying to get my PRS-T1 (japanese version) in tune with Calibre.
Books purchased from Sony's Japanese bookstore are found in the Download folder.
They have names like 00000000034518.MNH
They do not show up in Calibre's Device Library when connected. I tried opening some files with ADE but no joy.
I'm fairly sure they are epub files (and that Sony has done something with them).
Does it look the same on non-Japanese versions of PRS-T1?
What else are my options to get calibre to recognize those files?

[kovidgoyal]

If they are actually epub files simply renaming them to have a .epub extension will do the trick.

[Kumabjorn]

I guess I was wrong. I renamed it from the MNH extension to the EPUB extension and then I added it to Calibre. When I tried to view it in Calibre, I got this:
calibre, version 0.8.49
ERROR: Could not open ebook: File is not a zip file

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\viewer\main.py", line 63, in run
File "threading.py", line 483, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\iterator.py", line 207, in __enter__
File "site-packages\calibre\customize\conversion.py", line 208, in __call__
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plugins\epub_in put.py", line 140, in convert
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\zipfile.py", line 751, in __init__
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\zipfile.py", line 786, in _GetContents
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\zipfile.py", line 801, in _RealGetContents
BadZipfile: File is not a zip file

So I guess the Japanese PRS-T1 is using a proprietary file format. I have no problem reading actual EPUB files on the device, don't need to convert or anything, download to PC and sideload it.

[melmac]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

I am trying to get my PRS-T1 (japanese version) in tune with Calibre.
Books purchased from Sony's Japanese bookstore are found in the Download folder.
They have names like 00000000034518.MNH
They do not show up in Calibre's Device Library when connected. I tried opening some files with ADE but no joy.
I'm fairly sure they are epub files (and that Sony has done something with them).
Does it look the same on non-Japanese versions of PRS-T1?
What else are my options to get calibre to recognize those files?

Do you purchased your books from the Japanese store using the reader software? If so and it works like the US store the then mine end up in Documents/Books/Reader library/ as epubs

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by melmac

Do you purchased your books from the Japanese store using the reader software? If so and it works like the US store the then mine end up in Documents/Books/Reader library/ as epubs

Yes, they are purchased from Sony's Japanese eBook store.
They end up in Documents>eBook Transfer Archive>Sony_Reader>media>books as 000000000000E2103.mnh (or similar) after I connect the Sony to my computer.

[melmac]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Yes, they are purchased from Sony's Japanese eBook store.
They end up in Documents>eBook Transfer Archive>Sony_Reader>media>books as 000000000000E2103.mnh (or similar) after I connect the Sony to my computer.

Interesting not only do mine store as an epub but its also automatically named as the book. I assume that both your reader and software are authorised ? Also have you tried a more global search of your C Drive for *.epub Just in case the reader software is storing them somewhere else unexpected.

[Kumabjorn]

I do know where all the epub files are. Those strange file names are the same on the computer and the Reader. The Reader is authorized, otherwise I couldn't purchase from Sony's Japanese Bookstore. That is actually one of the features I craved and the reason I specifically got the Japanese PRS-T1. I just assumed the books were in the same format. It would be interesting to know if a non-Japanese PRS-T1 can open a Japanese eBook.

[Kumabjorn]

I have come to the final page of the book.
On that page it states that the book is in XMDF format.
How does that differ from ePub?

[kovidgoyal]

Japan (and China) tend to have a lot of ebook formats that you see nowhere else in the world. IIRC XMDF was a format introduced by Sharp for Manga, though I could be wrong. It is no relation to epub whatsoever.

[Kumabjorn]

Hence, there is no conversion algorithm available in Calibre then?
Are there any Japanese or Chinese members in the support community?

[kovidgoyal]

Yeah calibre knows nothing about XMDF. There is support for a couple of chinese formats (SNB and Haodoo PDB, added by Chinese calibre users, but no one from Japan has stepped up for XMDF).

[injapan]

interesting thread I have the same delimma