MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Audio or Video files into an eBook using calibre

Ghitulescu · 09-19-2014, 03:32 AM

I said text and images are already featured in ePubs (and other eBooks).

Videos are however difficult to display on a slow display as eInk. Audio support in eReaders has been dropped since long. Concerning the latter I thought that Sony which also manufactures MP3-players would have seen it as a market split, but this move occurred to Kindle as well and probably all others.

While it's true that ePubs could be used on a variety of devices with bonus features, why amend them the ePubs to de usable only on those devices but not on these originally developed? Wouldn't be better to use a native format for those feature-enhanced devices? When it was the last time when you opened a paper book and saw a video in it? Leave alone Harry Potter, this is pure fantasy

I mean (again) if such an enhanced device can read HTML (to give an example) and HTML allows for videos and music/audio embedding (like internet does), why not use this format - in the end ePub is based on (stricter) HTML, so no conversion loss can be assessed.

I would however agree with you, if the content and/or format conversion had to be lossy (like those portables that play MP3 but not the original CD WAV format), I would also be supporting this opinion. But as long as an alternative format, better suited for a particular device exists, why not taking advantages of its strengths instead of butchering a stable format, which seems to be, from this vantage point, insufficient.

09-19-2014, 03:32 AM	#26
Ghitulescu Fanatic Posts: 563 Karma: 403106 Join Date: Aug 2014 Device: PRS-T1	I said text and images are already featured in ePubs (and other eBooks). Videos are however difficult to display on a slow display as eInk. Audio support in eReaders has been dropped since long. Concerning the latter I thought that Sony which also manufactures MP3-players would have seen it as a market split, but this move occurred to Kindle as well and probably all others. While it's true that ePubs could be used on a variety of devices with bonus features, why amend them the ePubs to de usable only on those devices but not on these originally developed? Wouldn't be better to use a native format for those feature-enhanced devices? When it was the last time when you opened a paper book and saw a video in it? Leave alone Harry Potter, this is pure fantasy I mean (again) if such an enhanced device can read HTML (to give an example) and HTML allows for videos and music/audio embedding (like internet does), why not use this format - in the end ePub is based on (stricter) HTML, so no conversion loss can be assessed. I would however agree with you, if the content and/or format conversion had to be lossy (like those portables that play MP3 but not the original CD WAV format), I would also be supporting this opinion. But as long as an alternative format, better suited for a particular device exists, why not taking advantages of its strengths instead of butchering a stable format, which seems to be, from this vantage point, insufficient.