So where the heck is the Sony Reader's new firmware?!?

[HarryT]

For all formats.

[cmacnaug]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This is not a problem with the 505, but with how you've loaded the books onto your 505. If you use eBook Library toload the books on your 505, eBook Library paginates and puts the info on your 505 for you. But if you use another method of loading content, then the 505 cannot find the pagination info and thus it has to do it for you when you first open the book and when you change sizes. Opening the book sorts out small. So the solution is to use eBook Library to copy your books to the 505 and that problem won't happen.

Those of you that responded that I should use eBook Library are right. In the test that I ran where it took 4 minutes and 40 seconds to open War and Peace, I had forgotten that a while back I had transferred it outside of the eBook Library. I've just tried reopening it, and it only took 54 seconds! This time it didn't show the "Formatting..." message. It just appeared to be hung during that time. This makes sense because I didn't remember it taking that long back when I was reading it. Also, changing font size now only takes about 1 min 20secs, and during this time the reader also just appeared to be hung (no status message or rotating icon).

To be sure that this wasn't a problem with the formatting being done on the reader, I deleted the book and re-transferred it from the eBook Library and saw the same behavior (this time 61 seconds to open).

Anyway 54 seconds is still a long time to open a book and 1min 20secs is still a long time to change the font size. Anyway, this isn't a big issue for me anymore. The largest books that I have in the pipe are the new Einstein biography and Crime and Punishment which are both about 1500 pages with small font size. These both only take about 5-7 seconds to open which seems reasonable enough to me.

I'm be curious to hear what load times others with large books are seeing on the 505. Maybe there is something funny with my particular reader.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by cmacnaug

Anyway 54 seconds is still a long time to open a book and 1min 20secs is still a long time to change the font size. Anyway, this isn't a big issue for me anymore. The largest books that I have in the pipe are the new Einstein biography and Crime and Punishment which are both about 1500 pages with small font size. These both only

Just for comparison... I have the King James Bible on my Jetbook demo unit. It takes about 8-10 seconds to open and/or make a change that modifies how many reader pages the document is such as changing font size of screen layout. In the 18point font in portrait mode it shows as 7154 pgs.

Art of War opens in less than 3 seconds.

BOb

[astra]

Originally Posted by cmacnaug

Those of you that responded that I should use eBook Library are right.

Hmm. Didn't I ask you whether you used eBook library and you said yes, you did?

Anyway,

1min 20secs to change font size - first time. Let's say from small to medium. Then you pressed zoom button again and it took anout 1.5 min to change font size from medium to large. Then you pressed zoom button again and got back to small. If you want to go back to medium now, does it take 1min 20secs again?
Also, after initial 60 seconds to open the book, does it take 60 seconds every time to open it?

If yes, then I believe you have a faulty reader.

Or faulty lrf files...

[astra]

I wonder whether anyone can suggest a book from upload section of our forum of similar length (to War and Peace) for cmacnaug to download and test on his reader?

[HarryT]

My "Sherlock Holmes" omnibus is probably of a similar length.

[astra]

Thanks Harry_T.

cmacnaug
If I were you, I would download the omnibus mentioned above and see how well it works on your reader.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by AprilHare

I tend to suspect the Sony firmware, not the Sony software nor hardware, with respect to the crashes associated with large eBook collections. I use a 8 GB memory stick* (which indeed supports quite a large collection of eBooks) and it is, as you say, very buggy after disconnection. My routine comes down to:
1) Download the eBooks to the Sony Reader.
2) Discover the 'non-circling spinning arrows', followed by endless reboots and more 'non-circling spinning arrows'.
2a) Panic.
3) Remove the memory stick during a reboot. If no reboot, madly press the Reset button (which seems more like a 'Free Beer' button sometimes) and hopefully induce one.
4) Reinsert the Memory Stick and quickly reconnect the Reader to the PC running the Sony software.
5) Disconnect the Reader, then hopefully the Reader starts again recompiling the contents of the memory stick..
6) Wait 20 minutes or so, keeping an eagle eye on the Reader just in case it jams again.
7) Hopefully it finishes, showing that new book goodness. If not, go back to 2a.
8) Get used to waiting longer and longer for menus to load, saving bookmarks and getting used to scrolling hundreds of pages of books one slow click at a time...

Yes, a new firmware revision is needed.

*Yes, the 8 GB memory stick is supported by the Sony Reader (despite what the Sony Reader packaging said, greater than 4 GB indeed works).

I've been having this problem too, and we are not alone. That's very important to me, I have 10 gigs of storage in my book reader and I want this thing to be able to access it all.

What I've found is that it's best not to put all of your books on at once, do like half, let the Reader process those, and then add the rest. If you are using rsync, I use "rsync -r -v -v -L -P --stats --size-only --whole-file"

Anyway, Sony if you are reading this, fix the large book collection problem!

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by curtw

That assumption makes no sense at all. They made the 505 compatible with 10 GIGABYTES of expansion memory. If they didn't plan on having people puts books into that memory, then they should not be in business.

That's exactly my thinking on this as well.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by cmacnaug

Yes the character set was all western ... there was a picture in one of the docs that failed ... would that cause it to choke? I guess I sort of assumed that if the Reader is advertised as supporting RTF then any RTF document would work, but I confess I haven't looked at the docs to look for any caveats.

In terms of large books. Both Anna Karenina and War and Peace were from the Connect store and loaded through the eBook Library. Has any one else had any performance problems with very large books?

I have, I had problems opening a copy of The Fall of the Roman Empire that clocked in at 6.x megs. The funny thing is that the Reader opened it the first time, and then after, refused, gave that page 1 of 1 but the bookmark was on page 47. Wierd. I also had a large 10 meg file that wouldn't open but I dont' remember that it was.

[BenG]

That assumption makes no sense at all. They made the 505 compatible with 10 GIGABYTES of expansion memory. If they didn't plan on having people puts books into that memory, then they should not be in business.

Don't forget they are also promoting it as an mp3 player.

[Megatron-UK]

Is there any further news on the release of an update for the 505? I wonder if Sony are really going to add ePub support or not.

[NatCh]

Unfortunately, nothing recently.

[Roto]

Originally Posted by BenG

Don't forget they are also promoting it as an mp3 player.

and a pdf reader

[kfarmer]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Unfortunately, nothing recently.

Slightly more than nothing, and recent...

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...t=19023&page=4