Aura HD What the heck? - Page 2

Canuck_in_Japan · 05-31-2013, 05:26 AM

I tried to play a DVD on my CD player and the damned thing didn't work! What the hell is wrong with my CD player?

AnemicOak · 05-31-2013, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

I tried to play a DVD on my CD player and the damned thing didn't work! What the hell is wrong with my CD player?

Did your CD player say it supported DVD's? If Kobo doesn't want to support Mobi properly then they should drop support for it altogether.

LordP · 05-31-2013, 07:39 PM

Did your CD player say it supported DVD's? If Kobo doesn't want to support Mobi properly then they should drop support for it altogether."

Thank you.

Finally someone who actually read what I posted.

I am astounded at some of the imbecilic replies, I though this place was a bit more adult.

BWinmill · 05-31-2013, 08:56 PM

Sometimes we're adult. Sometimes we're not.

On the topic of MOBI files, I get the impression that very few Kobo users actually use them so we're not aware of all of the pitfalls. Book buyers tend to buy kePub or ePub. Libraries tend to use ePub and PDF. Those who dip into the Amazon ecosystem know how to convert them to ePub since most of the stuff from Amazon needs a bit of, erm, preprocessing anyway. Since your problem is difficult to explain, people will chirp up with useless replies. Even developers would have a hard time explaining the problem since it sounds like a bug with how Kobo's software scans through the MOBI file, and explaining that bug would require at least some knowledge of the implementation.

rem736's is probably easier to explain, since it sounds like a character encoding problem. Sometimes changing the font will fix that since Kobo's font's have spotty support and (alas) it varies from font to font. Changing the quotes and double quotes to "standard" quotation marks should fix the problem. Over all though the advice to convert MOBI to ePub is probably sound, albeit it may need a bit more skill than some people imply (in some cases). ePub is Kobo's native format after all. It's where they will devote most of their resources during the development process.

davidfor · 05-31-2013, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordP

Finally someone who actually read what I posted.

I am astounded at some of the imbecilic replies, I though this place was a bit more adult.

From my tests the mobi support isn't the best. But, I think it depends as much on the book as anything else. I have tried a few from the library here at MR, and they have been good. But, results for books I have tried from other sources have been mixed but were generally bad. When I convert these to epub, the coding the is produced is usually terrible and I have to clean that up before the epub version looks good.

BeeTee-Ess · 05-31-2013, 09:51 PM

A long time Kindle/Calibre user, all of my books in Calibre are in .mobi format.

I recently bought a Kobo Mini, and sideloaded a number of books from Calibre to it. I was interested to see that Calibre automatically converted them to .epub on the fly, as part of the process.

I have not probed the Calibre settings to see if that was an option or not, but as .epub is native for the Kobo, I am happy with the outcome. The results are perfect.

DNSB · 05-31-2013, 10:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

From my tests the mobi support isn't the best. But, I think it depends as much on the book as anything else. I have tried a few from the library here at MR, and they have been good. But, results for books I have tried from other sources have been mixed but were generally bad. When I convert these to epub, the coding the is produced is usually terrible and I have to clean that up before the epub version looks good.

I'd tend to agree with you about the spotty quality. I located a copy of the book that I suspect was being read (The Hit by David Baldacci) and dismantled the .mobi file using Mobi-Unpack. After that, I took a quick look through the .html file output and some of it's content was a bit strange (used Notepad++ as the editor) going by Amazon's list of supported HTML and CSS though the list I looked at was oriented to the newer KF8 format.

Regards,
David

davidfor · 06-01-2013, 12:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeeTee-Ess

A long time Kindle/Calibre user, all of my books in Calibre are in .mobi format.

I recently bought a Kobo Mini, and sideloaded a number of books from Calibre to it. I was interested to see that Calibre automatically converted them to .epub on the fly, as part of the process.

I have not probed the Calibre settings to see if that was an option or not, but as .epub is native for the Kobo, I am happy with the outcome. The results are perfect.

If you look at the driver options, there is a list of formats. By default, mobi is not selected, but you can choose it. When you save the changes, you will be warned that you selected an unsupported format.

TechniSol · 06-01-2013, 02:20 AM

Well I, for one, feel properly chastised to a degree fully commensurate with the malodorous offenses committed against your most royal personage, your lordship. I mean, really, how dare we?

May I humbly bring to your lordship's attention the concept that some of the imbecilic replies received nearly reached the level of a newbie poster to a forum dedicated to a new device they just purchased blowing off at the very people who might well be essential to answering their future questions?

On the off chance that you find yourself in a reflective mood, I hope that you'll realize being the new kid on the block and using what many might perceive as loaded language, "Are MOBI files on the Kobo always this crappy?" and only listing a Kindle under devices in a forum not devoted to that brand of devices might not have increased your chances of being taken quite seriously...

You might also consider that a sense of humor tends to be very high on the list of desirable attributes for anyone owning a Kobo. If you didn't know that going in, that poor Aura may soon end up in tiny pieces as Kobo software is the very definition of a work in progress.

I hope you'll come to appreciate the occasional sense of the off beat that some of us share here -it does beat crying.

In all fairness, Kobo devices can be frustrating, but also offer more to the user than most other devices overall. I hope you will enjoy your new reader, and welcome to our side of the tracks.

samhy · 06-01-2013, 06:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordP

Finally someone who actually read what I posted.

I maintained what I said and that wasn't a joke, but maybe it wasn't clear enough.

Quote:

Originally Posted by samhy

Because Kindle is a reader dedicated to the .mobi and .azw formats, while Kobo has a limited support for it. Try to put a vanilla .epub book in a Kindle, the Kindle won't know what to do with it.

I don't know for now, but before the .mobi support was stated as limited. And in my book, as I like to have options, I prefer to have a support which isn't working all the time (Kobo with .mobi files) than no support at all (Kindle with an .epub file).

I have described exactly the same behaviour with one .mobi file in another thread, but as it happens I was able to read the next one without any issue. For some I couldn't read them at all. So, it really depends on the .mobi file and all of them aren't equal, as stated by someone earlier.

05-31-2013, 08:56 PM	#19
BWinmill Nameless Being	Sometimes we're adult. Sometimes we're not. On the topic of MOBI files, I get the impression that very few Kobo users actually use them so we're not aware of all of the pitfalls. Book buyers tend to buy kePub or ePub. Libraries tend to use ePub and PDF. Those who dip into the Amazon ecosystem know how to convert them to ePub since most of the stuff from Amazon needs a bit of, erm, preprocessing anyway. Since your problem is difficult to explain, people will chirp up with useless replies. Even developers would have a hard time explaining the problem since it sounds like a bug with how Kobo's software scans through the MOBI file, and explaining that bug would require at least some knowledge of the implementation. rem736's is probably easier to explain, since it sounds like a character encoding problem. Sometimes changing the font will fix that since Kobo's font's have spotty support and (alas) it varies from font to font. Changing the quotes and double quotes to "standard" quotation marks should fix the problem. Over all though the advice to convert MOBI to ePub is probably sound, albeit it may need a bit more skill than some people imply (in some cases). ePub is Kobo's native format after all. It's where they will devote most of their resources during the development process. Last edited by BWinmill; 05-31-2013 at 08:58 PM.

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05-31-2013, 05:26 AM	#16
Canuck_in_Japan Wizard Posts: 1,476 Karma: 14328611 Join Date: May 2009 Location: Tokyo, Japan Device: Aura, Aura H2O, Kindle PW3	I tried to play a DVD on my CD player and the damned thing didn't work! What the hell is wrong with my CD player?

05-31-2013, 07:39 PM	#18
LordP Groupie Posts: 180 Karma: 1341124 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kindle 3	Did your CD player say it supported DVD's? If Kobo doesn't want to support Mobi properly then they should drop support for it altogether." Thank you. Finally someone who actually read what I posted. I am astounded at some of the imbecilic replies, I though this place was a bit more adult.

05-31-2013, 09:51 PM	#21
BeeTee-Ess Addict Posts: 306 Karma: 679580 Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Brisbane, Australia Device: K3, K4NT, KPW2, Voyage, iP4, iP6, iPad Mini, HP TouchPad, Kobo Mini	A long time Kindle/Calibre user, all of my books in Calibre are in .mobi format. I recently bought a Kobo Mini, and sideloaded a number of books from Calibre to it. I was interested to see that Calibre automatically converted them to .epub on the fly, as part of the process. I have not probed the Calibre settings to see if that was an option or not, but as .epub is native for the Kobo, I am happy with the outcome. The results are perfect.

06-01-2013, 02:20 AM	#24
TechniSol GranPohbah-Fezzes r cool! Posts: 1,056 Karma: 3151024 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Nook STRs, Kobo Touch, Kobo Glo	Well I, for one, feel properly chastised to a degree fully commensurate with the malodorous offenses committed against your most royal personage, your lordship. I mean, really, how dare we? May I humbly bring to your lordship's attention the concept that some of the imbecilic replies received nearly reached the level of a newbie poster to a forum dedicated to a new device they just purchased blowing off at the very people who might well be essential to answering their future questions? On the off chance that you find yourself in a reflective mood, I hope that you'll realize being the new kid on the block and using what many might perceive as loaded language, "Are MOBI files on the Kobo always this crappy?" and only listing a Kindle under devices in a forum not devoted to that brand of devices might not have increased your chances of being taken quite seriously... You might also consider that a sense of humor tends to be very high on the list of desirable attributes for anyone owning a Kobo. If you didn't know that going in, that poor Aura may soon end up in tiny pieces as Kobo software is the very definition of a work in progress. I hope you'll come to appreciate the occasional sense of the off beat that some of us share here -it does beat crying. In all fairness, Kobo devices can be frustrating, but also offer more to the user than most other devices overall. I hope you will enjoy your new reader, and welcome to our side of the tracks.