manual.calibre-ebook.com/conversion.html and AZW3 current situation?

[avid01]

As I understand the basic settings in Calibre for Kindle is Mobi. Because AZW3 support is still in beta.

However at http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/conversion.html
I read:

To edit ebooks, I recommend first converting them to EPUB or AZW3 using calibre and then using the Edit Book feature to get them into perfect shape.

And:

There is a demo .docx file that demonstrates the capabilities of the calibre conversion engine. Just download it and convert it to EPUB or AZW3 to see what calibre can do.

So you get it. Mobi is old. But still the default because AZW3 is in beta. OK, I get it, but still a bit confused.

By the way, for my interest, I understand Epub is an open format and AZW3 is closed but how closed? Can you get a code or documentation on how to produce it? Or how Calibre produces it if it is so proprietary to Amazon?

[eschwartz]

What makes you think AZW3 is a beta format?

I believe the reason it is default is because it is still relatively new -- older Kindles which many people are still using don't support it.

The MobileRead wiki has useful information regarding MOBI, also you can take a look at the KindleUnpack plugin. Or examine calibre's source code: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...re/ebooks/mobi

All current work on decoding AZW3/MOBI has been done in python.

[kovidgoyal]

mobi is default because amazon does not support sending azw3 by email and older kindles dont support it.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

mobi is default because amazon does not support sending azw3 by email and older kindles dont support it.

And that too.

[avid01]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

What makes you think AZW3 is a beta format?

I mean: AZW3 supoprt in Calibre (is it beta?); not AZW3 in Kindle (definitely not beta).

Btw. Do you have the data what % of Kindle users use such old Kindles which does not support AZW3?

(Or is it something similar to the music scene, where most of all releases are still in mp3 still in 2014, though 99% of the population can play .aac, .ogg, .flac, whatever more up to date formats)

Thanks for both of your answers.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by avid01

I mean: AZW3 supoprt in Calibre (is it beta?); not AZW3 in Kindle (definitely not beta).

Btw. Do you have the data what % of Kindle users use such old Kindles which does not support AZW3?

(Or is it something similar to the music scene, where most of all releases are still in mp3 still in 2014, though 99% of the population can play .aac, .ogg, .flac, whatever more up to date formats)

Thanks for both of your answers.

calibre supports AZW3 very well, so it is not at all beta. However, there is no harm in using MOBI for the sake of emailing. And there are still oodles of people with Kindle3's, I should think. Dunno about the Original Kindle though.
But really I doubt anyone has hard data.

I wonder if there is a way to recognize the specific model over USB. I know the USB ID was recycled...

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And there are still oodles of people with Kindle3's, I should think.

The Kindle 3 with latest firmware does read azw3.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The Kindle 3 with latest firmware does read azw3.

People who haven't updated to fw3.4, which is three thirds of the people I know.