Adobe Digital Editions 1.8 preview now available

[rkomar]

JPEG2000 still produces very reasonable images at very high compression ratios, so you could produce a much smaller sized book with nice images than with straight JPEG. I read somewhere on this forum that Amazon charges according to book filesize, so maybe authors/publishers are looking to reduce costs.

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by loyukfai

FWIW, the engine used in 1.8 supports JPEG2000 images properly.

Hopefully Adobe will finish it for official release soon.

Cheers.

In PDF files, where it is a valid image type, not in ePubs where as it has already been noted that it is not currently a core media type.

(Remember RMSDK handles both PDF and ePub files).

[readingglasses]

Does anyone know why epub reading software running on a PC has more capability than what runs on an ereader?

I seem to recall that ADE on a desktop can display almost anything (arabic, vertical chinese characters), stuff that it can never display properly or at all on a reader device.

How much can ADE (and for that matter, other epub readers), running on a desktop/full computer system, call on the OS's drivers and rendering engines to do things that it itself can not do?

I mean, does it have a fallback, say, on windows, to use windows' rendering engine to display, say, arabic?

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by readingglasses

Does anyone know why epub reading software running on a PC has more capability than what runs on an ereader?

I seem to recall that ADE on a desktop can display almost anything (arabic, vertical chinese characters), stuff that it can never display properly or at all on a reader device.

Font Choices in part, ADE 1.7 shipped with a default fonts (Myriad and Minion) that included the glyphs for the languages that it supported (European, and CJK, but not HATV - Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Vietnamese).

That being said the vertical text support wasn't included until very recently in RMSDK ( not being part of the ePub spec, yet)

However RMSDK (and hence ADE) supports both PDF and ePubs, so most of what you are remembering about arabic or vertical tet was probably done with PDF.

For PDFs, the CPU matters and PDF is more usable on the desktop than on devices.

[Jim Lester]

It is also worth noting than on the Mac at least, that fonts can be easily added. If you do a "Show Package Contents" and look in the Resources/rmsdk_resources directory you find a userStyle.css (which right now just contains an empty body element) along with a fonts directory and a hyphendict directory.

The userStyle.css is the same override mechanism in the RMSDK that has been played with extensively on the Sony Readers (and other devices) for a while now. I believe (but have not verified that the url "res://" should point to this directory - so adding fonts into the fonts directory, you should be able to use the url "res://fonts/fontname.otf" in an @font-face rule in the userStyle.css

[Jane12]

This is great! Thanks Jim!

Now just hoping that when Adobe finally adds device support to ADE 1.8 it will transfer B&N-flavored Adobe DRM books as well as traditional Adobe DRM books.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Jane12

This is great! Thanks Jim!

Now just hoping that when Adobe finally adds device support to ADE 1.8 it will transfer B&N-flavored Adobe DRM books as well as traditional Adobe DRM books.

ADE is not needed to transfer books with 'B&N' Adobe DRM, and it won't help if your reading device does not use a recent (within last couple of years) version of Adobe's RMSDK software. Unfortunately, Sony devices don't conform to this requirement (and apparently this remains true with the new PRS-T1, though I'd like to see confirmation of this).

On devices with the correct software, you just copy the .epub file over and open it. You'll be prompted for username/password, these are the name on the credit card associated with your B&N account when the file was downloaded, and password is the CC #. A secure hash of these credentials is stored on the device and can be used for other books that use the same ones.

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by tomsem

On devices with the correct software, you just copy the .epub file over and open it. You'll be prompted for username/password, these are the name on the credit card associated with your B&N account when the file was downloaded, and password is the CC #. A secure hash of these credentials is stored on the device and can be used for other books that use the same ones.

However on devices that are using RMSDK 9.2 or above, regardless of if they implement the password dialog or not, one possibility is that Adobe may choose
to have ADE automatically update the activation record on the device to include the secure hash, when transferring the content, so that the device never needs to ask.

This would be very helpful, especially for devices without a soft (or hard) keyboard where you couldn't enter in a username/password even if there was a dialog.

[Jane12]

I've happily used Bluefire Reader to open B&N books on my iPod without going through ADE -- just upload the book to Dropbox, then download to my iPod. It's fabulous.

This was what I was hoping for with the T1. But since Sony has apparently chosen not to allow B&N books to be opened directly on their readers, I'm hanging my hopes on the next version of ADE. Glad to hear it's a possibility.

Does anyone know what version RMSDK is used on the x50s and T1s? I thought I saw it somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it again.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Jim Lester

However on devices that are using RMSDK 9.2 or above, regardless of if they implement the password dialog or not, one possibility is that Adobe may choose
to have ADE automatically update the activation record on the device to include the secure hash, when transferring the content, so that the device never needs to ask.

This would be very helpful, especially for devices without a soft (or hard) keyboard where you couldn't enter in a username/password even if there was a dialog.

If Sony has gone to the trouble of not implementing the password dialog (assuming they have 9.2 or above on there), perhaps they would not be happy to have Adobe do a workaround. Assuming it was a conscious decision on their part (for what reason, I can't fathom).

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Jane12

I've happily used Bluefire Reader to open B&N books on my iPod without going through ADE -- just upload the book to Dropbox, then download to my iPod. It's fabulous.

This was what I was hoping for with the T1. But since Sony has apparently chosen not to allow B&N books to be opened directly on their readers, I'm hanging my hopes on the next version of ADE. Glad to hear it's a possibility.

Does anyone know what version RMSDK is used on the x50s and T1s? I thought I saw it somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it again.

I would love to know this, too. I want to pick up a Sony T1.

[Jane12]

I knew I had seen the RMSDK version for Sony listed somewhere, but it turns out it wasn't for the T1, it's for the new Reader for PC/Mac software.

According this Sony T1 support page, the new Reader for PC/Mac software uses RMSDK 9.1

http://ec2-50-19-245-21.compute-1.am...d=99&mdl=PRST1

I'm guessing that means the T1 also uses 9.1 <sigh>

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Jane12

I knew I had seen the RMSDK version for Sony listed somewhere, but it turns out it wasn't for the T1, it's for the new Reader for PC/Mac software.

According this Sony T1 support page, the new Reader for PC/Mac software uses RMSDK 9.1

http://ec2-50-19-245-21.compute-1.am...d=99&mdl=PRST1

I'm guessing that means the T1 also uses 9.1 <sigh>

Wait, I'm confused, lol.

ADE 1.8 allows for reading of (let's say) B&N books and Kobo books on a Sony - but only if Sony is using RMSDK 9.2 or above? Or is it 9.1 or above?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Wait, I'm confused, lol.

ADE 1.8 allows for reading of (let's say) B&N books and Kobo books on a Sony - but only if Sony is using RMSDK 9.2 or above? Or is it 9.1 or above?

ADE 1.8 is currently in 'Preview', and does not have the ability to proxy/copy protected ePubs to supported ereaders. When the release version comes out, it will be able to do that.

But ordinarily B&N ebooks can be read on ereaders without using ADE to move them over. The ereader has to:
- run appropriate RMSDK version (whatever that is)
- implement the password dialog

Sony definitely has not done the latter. But if they are using a current/recent RMSDK then it is possible that ADE 1.8 release version could workaround that by creating the necessary 'activation record' that is needed to open the book. That is, however, a second 'if'. So if this is important to you, wait until ADE 1.8 release version comes out and see if it works then. If not, we may still not know exactly why, but we'll at least know that it's probably not going to be possible without some change on Sony's part.

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by tomsem

- run appropriate RMSDK version (whatever that is)

9.1 added the ability to read passhash (ie like B&N) protected documents.
9.2 ( & ACS 4.1) added the ability to vend passhash document (outside of B&N - B&N has it's own way of doing this outside of ACS).

The current version of RMSDK is 9.3 but that was just released a month ago, so it is probably not the version in any of the Sony Readers.