PRS-T1 Calibre or Sony

[VicLavigne]

Originally Posted by BlackVoid

I just got my Sony T1.
Well, the Reader software left me totally unimpressed. Add the book and then sync too? Why? With the old software (for PRS series), I could just drag and drop the books to the reader.

Well, I have switched now to Total Commander. I just open the T1 as a drive and copy the books.

I used the Reader software for a while with my first Sony reader (PRS-505). But I found that dragging/dropping worked fine without it. Sometime after that I discovered Calibre, and although I don't need Calibre for moving ebooks onto a device, it sure makes things a lot easier overall. When I bought my PRS-T1, I never even bothered installing the Reader software, don't see the point of it. And firmware updates can be performed manually, as long as you know the firmware has been released.

Vic

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by khalleron

I'm on my 3rd Sony and I've never used anything but Calibre. I used to use the Sony software for the occasional book purchase or freebie, but since I can do that now directly over WiFi, I never use the Sony software at all. I had to reinstall it to do the latest update, but then I uninstalled it again.

So far from needing it for the WiFi, the WiFi renders it unnecessary.

Yes, regarding the WiFi! When I borrowed my very first library book via WiFi, I did a happy dance. I've had my T1 for a week now and I cannot even begin to count the ways this has fulfilled all of my e-reader wish list features. This is now the e-reader I'll be comparing all others to for usability and quality.

Thing I like about Calibre: Cross Platform Friendly As a Debian Linux user, I cannot stress enough how much of a freedom this is.

[Bear 100]

Thanks for all the feedback.

After trying both Sony Reader and Calibre, I choose to use Calibre as my the device to manage and sync my books. My logic:
- The software continues to be updated and expanding, adding features.
- It does a darn good job with getting meta data, using a number of sources. This is important to me as I use this manage my categories
- Some great plug ins that help in management of my library: duplicate finder, series management etc.
- Ability to fetch from free news sources in automated fashion
- Intuitive user interface, much like i-tunes

[tayseidel]

Originally Posted by Bear 100

- Intuitive user interface, much like i-tunes

This is where you went wrong. :-)

Calibre is a program you can actually use and have control over. itunes, is not.

[JSWolf]

I just used Calibre to add a book to the T1 for the first time. It worked very smoothly.

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I just used Calibre to add a book to the T1 for the first time. It worked very smoothly.

But I suspect you've used calibre before, so this isn't a totally fair test.

How much time did you take getting calibre to look and work the way you wanted?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by chrisridd

But I suspect you've used calibre before, so this isn't a totally fair test.

How much time did you take getting calibre to look and work the way you wanted?

Actually, I've never used Calibre before to manage eBooks and put them on a reader. I've only used it to do conversions from the command line. That was the first time using the GUI to manage content.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, I've never used Calibre before to manage eBooks and put them on a reader. I've only used it to do conversions from the command line. That was the first time using the GUI to manage content.

Are you thinking of switching to calibre to manage your library? I have been debating it since I'm not happy with the new Reader software.

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, I've never used Calibre before to manage eBooks and put them on a reader. I've only used it to do conversions from the command line. That was the first time using the GUI to manage content.

Well that's a surprise! Interesting too - I was under the impression almost everyone here uses calibre. Certainly the ones that have been here for a couple of years...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Are you thinking of switching to calibre to manage your library? I have been debating it since I'm not happy with the new Reader software.

The only thing I'd need to figure out is how to be able to reorder collections. But other than that, I may very well use Calibre. When I first moved books over to the T1, I did it manually. I used Windows Explorer to load the books and then I manually sorted the collections on the T1. It wasn't that bad really. But if I can just send to the T1 and it's in the collection already, I'm good to go.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by chrisridd

Well that's a surprise! Interesting too - I was under the impression almost everyone here uses calibre. Certainly the ones that have been here for a couple of years...

Reader Library is just a matter of dragging and dropping and sorting collections in very easy. But because Reader for PC is forcing content to be synced, I'd rather not have to use it for managing content.

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Are you thinking of switching to calibre to manage your library? I have been debating it since I'm not happy with the new Reader software.

At the moment I'm using both.

I use calibre to add books to a sensibly structured folder, and then add them from there to the Sony Reader software. On the Mac at least, the Sony Reader software only stores a reference to the book's original location (i.e. in the calibre library) so you don't end up with multiple copies.

So far (fingers crossed) that arrangement has been working OK.

[tponzo]

Originally Posted by pelenor

So I used Calibre to transfer over a collection of books to see if it would work and it does. However, I transfered one colllection and ended up with 50 collections varying from Fantasy, unread, detective and mystery, epic, etc. Is there areason for this? Do I need to change something in the metadata so this doesn't occur again? Can someone help? OK Never Mind. Figured it out.

okay Pelenor, what did you do as I just had the same problem. I got a lot of collections based on metadata I didn't choose.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The only thing I'd need to figure out is how to be able to reorder collections.

In case it helps, the Calibre bit you need to look at for this is Prefs - Tweaks - Specify how SONY collections are sorted.

It does assume that you are using some combination of Calibre and/or custom metadata fields to define your sort sequence.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by tponzo

okay Pelenor, what did you do as I just had the same problem. I got a lot of collections based on metadata I didn't choose.

Calibre forms collections based on tags - a lot of books come already tagged. You can edit the tags with Calibre so you don't get collections you don't want.