Is AZW3 the new default format for Kindle?

[JayKindle]

I have a Keyboard Kindle.

I've noticed lately that the default format to convert ebooks in calibre for my Kindle is AZW3. It used to be MOBI. Did something recently changed? I tend to just press the conversion button--I know I can choose a different format, but I used to just press it and MOBI was the default.

I've been keeping up with the calibre updates every Friday and my Kindle Keyboard has the current firmware (3.4)

I'd like to ask the experts if I should allow calibre to continue converting my ebooks to AZW3 or should I change it back to MOBI? If I must change it back, where is the default setting for this? Thanks.

[dwig]

The setting is in Preferences > Output Options > MOBI. There's a drop down control to select whether the default output is the older classic MOBI, the new KF8 or a hybrid. Frankly, I don't remember which is the initial setting.

The same control is in the MOBI section of the conversion dialog when converting to MOBI so that you can override the default on a book by book basis as desired.

Personally, I've set the default to be the old classic MOBI. I only override this when a particular book's formatting will be better if I select KF8 or the hybrid (my usual second choice.) The hybrids are twice the size, typically, and sometimes even larger. I don't have a space problem on either my K3 or my PC's HD and I almost always transfer via USB so I don't bother with creating KF8 only files. Only in the rare case of loading the files by emailing them to my Kindle will cause me to create a KF8 only file.

[kovidgoyal]

MOBI is still the default. Amazon's support for KF8 is not nearly mature enough to warrant making it the default.

[Rebecca_06]

Originally Posted by dwig

Personally, I've set the default to be the old classic MOBI. I only override this when a particular book's formatting will be better if I select KF8 or the hybrid (my usual second choice.) The hybrids are twice the size, typically, and sometimes even larger.

Does anybody know of a link anywhere that covers the different, new formats of Amazon's? I'm mostly using AZW3 or MOBI, but have no idea what the hybrid format is at all.

[pchrist7]

Hi All
I'll join this thread as I'm looking into similar issues that could be related to this subject. Calibre is set to use old mobi.
Last weekend I upgraded my K3 to FW 3.4, upgraded Calibre to 0.8.69, added an azw book from K4PC, converted to mobi and sent to K3.
Read the book during the week, but yesterday when I tried to update "read status" by using Fetch Annotations, the new books info didn't change.
No mbp file for the book was found in Calibre or on K3. Instead a han file was present on K3.
Has to test this some more using Calibre 0.8.70
Any further insight & info about this would be more than welcome.
Cheers,

[pchrist7]

Originally Posted by pchrist7

Hi All
I'll join this thread as I'm looking into similar issues that could be related to this subject. Calibre is set to use old mobi.
Last weekend I upgraded my K3 to FW 3.4, upgraded Calibre to 0.8.69, added an azw book from K4PC, converted to mobi and sent to K3.
Read the book during the week, but yesterday when I tried to update "read status" by using Fetch Annotations, the new books info didn't change.
No mbp file for the book was found in Calibre or on K3. Instead a han file was present on K3.
Has to test this some more using Calibre 0.8.70
Any further insight & info about this would be more than welcome.
Cheers,

Hi all
Just did the whole process again, and it turns out that I must have some way, for some reason, decided to have the conversion process produce the "both" mobi output
Too old, have slept too many times since then to remember why
This time I made sure that the convertion settings for Mobi Output were set to old, and the mbp file is generated on K3 when reading, and it imports correctly to Calibre using Fetch annotations.
Just for your information,
Cheers

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Rebecca_06

...I'm mostly using AZW3 or MOBI, but have no idea what the hybrid format is at all.

The "hybrid" is merely a file that contains both the classic MOBI data and the new KF8 data. Thus, it contains two separate copies of the book. Old ereaders (device or app) that don't support the new KF8 format will see only the classic MOBI version. New ereaders will see both and will generally only use the KF8 version. Kindle Preview is the only exception that I'm aware of; it allows switching between the two versions for testing purposes, emulating different devices' displays.