Quote:
Originally Posted by peterbbb
A genuine question.
Which ebook format is the best? Why do we have so many different formats? What are the advantages of each format?
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We have many different formats becuse up till now, there wasn't any sort of agreement on a standard, and each vendor rolled their own. Ebooks are simply recapitulating what has happened countless times in the computer industry.
At the bottom, you have plain ASCII text files, consisting of 7 bit ASCII characters, and containing letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and control-characters. Plain text can be read on just about anything, but has no provision for color, images, text attributes, fonts. or links. Incorporating those required new formats.
Adobe created the PDF format, intended to make a document appear the same on all supported platforms, but not originally intended for ebooks. An implicit assumption was that the PDF would be source for a printed document.
Microsoft created the .LIT format used by the Microsoft Reader, and specific to systems running a flavor of Microsoft Windows.
Peanut Press created an ebook reader targeting devices running the Palm Operating System, and devised a markup language called PML for it. Peanut was bought by Palm to become the Palm Digital Media Division, then sold to Motricity who renamed it eReader, and the viewer was posted to a variety of other platforms.
Mobipocket created an ebook format that is essentially encapsulated HTML, and produced versions of their reader for an assortment of platforms. They were subsequently purchased by Amazon.
Sony produced the Sony Reader, and created yet another format for it called LRF.
Amazon produced the Kindle, and used the Mobipocket format as the format the device understood, but used a DRM scheme incompatible with the one used by Mobipocket. People who bought DRM protected titles from Mobipocket for reading on a different device, and then acquired a Kindle, had to buy new copies from Amazon to be able to read them.
A fair amount of stuff exists in HTML format, which can be read on almost anything that can run a browser.
We are now seeing the beginnings of agreement on a standard format called ePub. Major publishers are looking at adopting it (or have adopted it) as an output format from their production processes (aided by the fact that many use Adobe InDesign to do markup and typesetting, and InDesign can output an ePub file as well as the PDF files normally sent to the printer to make plates.) Sony has implemented ePub support in the latest firmware revision for their reader. Mobipocket Creator software can take an ePub file as input for conversion to a Mobipocket file.
The fly in the ointment is Digital Rights Management, and the measures implemented to make sure you can't simply copy and share your purchased electronic books files with others. DRM provisions tend to lock you to a specific device for your content, regardless of the format, and if you lose or break the device, you might just have to buy a new copy of the books as well as replace the device.
The cynical decision these days seems to be "Which format makes it easiest to break the DRM, and convert it to a form readable on what I have?" The answer there is Microsoft LIT.
Personally, I don't buy DRM protected titles. I want to get the content once, and read it on whatever I happen to have. My first choice is HTML, because it can be read native or easily converted for another device. My second choice is Mobipocket because there are versions of the viewer for a wide range of devices.
I lose out on electronic copies of current commercial titles, but my "to read" backlog of electronic books I already have is large enough that I need to learn how to read a book with each eye to have a prayer of catching up, so I'm not exactly hurting for content...
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Dennis