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Originally Posted by rmeister0
My understanding of the Sony, and I don't remember exactly where I read this, is that the Beb file does some pre-rendering, or possible has pagination pre-calculated for pre-set font types and sizes.
The fact that the Sony has a smaller screen may also impact the perception, but I'm not sure.
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I posted some info on the BBeB format in
this post in
this thread over in the Sony Reader forum.
To nutshell it, the BBeB format is XML based, which makes it pretty low-overhead, and I'd guess that Sony's software/OS is optimized to handle it quickly.
I don't have a clue if it encodes page numbering or not, however.
As to the other, non-BBeB formats (RTF/TXT/PDF) the Sony Reader supports, if you run the file through their software to load it onto the Reader, it apparently does some pre-rendering during the load to optimize display loading, or some such, which may result in faster flipping.
I should probably stress (since most folks seem to think differently) that the Sony Reader will load/display RTF/TXT/PDF files natively, without running through their loading software. And that the loading software does
not convert the files to BBeB, it just adds some pre-rendering of the pages. I guess it's up to the user to decide for himself whether the quicker page turn is worth the extra memory space.
I hadn't thought about the effect the smaller screen might have on percieved page-flip-time, but I'd think that it might be more noticable on a smaller screen. I'm thinking in terms of how far your eyes have to go fromt the bottom left of the last line, to the top right of the first line of the next page. If the screen is refreshing while you move your eyes the larger one gets more of it done during the move (across the larger distance) than the smaller one.
On the other hand, as fast as eyes typically move, I'd guess that an extra two inches isn't likely to result in a perceivable difference. Two
feet wouldn't be likely to make a difference a person could notice!