Embedding audio/video in epub files

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

P.S.:

I'm still trying to understand why the POSTER image matters inside Sigil. I am not...I'm not criticizing the poster's query. I'm simply trying to understand it better--perhaps there's a workaround. ???

Hitch

I think they're just assuming that if Sigil shows it, then there must be a way to make other readers show it (with some special coding) too. Maybe. *shrug*

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I think they're just assuming that if Sigil shows it, then there must be a way to make other readers show it (with some special coding) too. Maybe. *shrug*

Buuut, I think that s/he said that it was showing in other readers, but NOT in Sigil?

Hmmmm

H

[KevinH]

If the OP wants to force a specific image placeholder for a video for older readers, then adding the poster attribute to the video tag with a url to a still image in the book should do that.

The default (first frame) image placeholder works in Sigil without the need to add the poster attribute, but adding the proper poster attribute and value may be required for some older readers.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Buuut, I think that s/he said that it was showing in other readers, but NOT in Sigil?

Hmmmm

H

I'm pretty sure it was the opposite. The video itself is playing in both Sigil and on "other readers", but the thumbnail image is only showing in Sigil and NOT on "other readers."

Originally Posted by increase

The video plays in an epub reader but the thumbnail image does not show on the reader, yet it displays in the sigil page

Originally Posted by increase

It is the video thumbnail it displays on the sigil page but when I open the reader it shows blank yet the video plays ok

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm pretty sure it was the opposite. The video itself is playing in both Sigil and on "other readers", but the thumbnail image is only showing in Sigil and NOT on "other readers."

Yup, proof positive. I'm losing the marbles that are yet in the old bag....so to speak....


Hitch

[increase]

Originally Posted by Hitch

P.S.:

I'm still trying to understand why the POSTER image matters inside Sigil. I am not...I'm not criticizing the poster's query. I'm simply trying to understand it better--perhaps there's a workaround. ???

Hitch

Its not the poster inside Sigil, that displays correctly, it is the reader (Iam using Moon reader Pro) that does not display the thumbnail

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by increase

Its not the poster inside Sigil, that displays correctly, it is the reader (Iam using Moon reader Pro) that does not display the thumbnail

Okay, so, here's a question then and I probably misread this earlier in the thread too or overlooked/skimmed it:

Does anybody know if MoonReader does show posters for video content in the first damn place?

In other words, do you have any actual reason to think that what you're coding is wrong or incorrect? Have you ever seen an embedded video, from a commercially-made ePUB, with a poster, work with the poster visible in MoonReader?

Hitch

[MicroDrie]

Originally Posted by Hitch

In other words, do you have any actual reason to think that what you're coding is wrong or incorrect? Have you ever seen an embedded video, from a commercially-made ePUB, with a poster, work with the poster visible in MoonReader?

Hitch

In the past I have studied the phenomenon of video in an epub. I have found out through experience that something that is displayed correctly in Sigil is unfortunately no guarantee that this is also the case on another Epub reader.

Sigil follows the Epub standard very well, Epub readers usually follow it only very limited. You should be happy if the video is showing and anything more like display buttons and poster is usually not possible for more than the default key.

When HTML5 was introduced, not everything immediately worked perfectly in all web browsers. However, for HTML5 there are brenchmarks that show what a web browser does and does not support. Unfortunately I haven't seen a single brenchmark for Epub readers yet. As a result, there is no incentive for the makers of Epub readers to strive for their Epub readers to fully support the Epub standard.

And so unfortunately the development of an Epub reader is stuck on a digital plain text version of a paper book where you can be happy that the Epub reader can be displayed with many limitations with perhaps some text formatting and a video.

You may find that the attached Epub file shows which HTML commands your Epub reader supports. If an option is shown in red, it is not possible to use it in your Epub reader under any circumstances. But even with a green display, a completely correct display is not always the case, because only the acceptance of an HTML5 command can be tested, not the correctness of the display of the HTML5 command.

After a lot of research I have not succeeded in overruling the standard display of a video with my own control keys. In principle, there are many HTML5 examples on the Internet that are displayed correctly on a standard browser. The fact that the poster is not displayed on the Moon reader, but is displayed correctly on Sigil, leads me to the conclusion that the code is good, but that the Moon reader does not support a poster with a video.

If someone does have a poster view for a video, I'm very curious about the code of that Epub.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by MicroDrie

Unfortunately I haven't seen a single brenchmark for Epub readers yet.

EPUBTest.org.

Their older website (pre-2017) used to have compatibility/functionality tests across lots of devices/apps. (Similar to CanIUse.com for HTML+CSS.)

They were testing all sorts of things in the EPUB specs like:

• HTML5
  
  • <audio>/<video>, <figure>, <article>, <section>, ...
• CSS3
  
  • Counters, calc(), ...
• MathML
• SVG
• Media overlays
• alt text
• hidden in the <spine>
• [...]

I wrote about it most recently in:

• 2019: "Font Best Practices"
  
  • Talking about WOFF/WOFF2 support.
• 2021: "Google Play Books and Nested Lists - Some Weird Display Issue"
  
  • Talking about the horrors of <ol> + Google Play's absolutely atrocious "EPUB" code output.

Originally Posted by MicroDrie

And so unfortunately the development of an Epub reader is stuck on a digital plain text version of a paper book where you can be happy that the Epub reader can be displayed with many limitations with perhaps some text formatting and a video.

I also discussed this to death years and years ago:

• 2017: "Indexes without page numbers?"

At the time, I thought AZARDI / Infogrid Pacific had a fantastic EPUB/ebook analysis in their old blogposts.

If I remember correctly, they used an analogy:

"Currently, ebooks are like looking at a book under a piece of glass."

AZARDI was then describing ways to display+look through the ebooks in a more useful way.

Ebooks should be ENHANCEMENTS on top of a physical book, not just a "glass" replacement.

(Of course, I still love ebooks and am a 100% ebook reader, but the blog did make many good points.)

• 2013: Infogridpacific.com: "IDPF Index Spec. Deconstructed"
  
  • "Indexing and eIndexing, IDPF, ePub3, Specification, Analysis, Opinion"

Since then, there's been slow, but steady progress in some of these areas.

(Like popup+bottom-of-the-screen footnotes or multi-language support.)

But yep, there can definitely be more ebook-only enhancements.

- - -

Side Note: Personally though, I think <audio> + <video> ARE NOT one of those features.

See my posts in:

• 2019: "(sigh), Kindle/KPF format Blues..."

where I described many of those "INTERACTIVE/MULTIMEDIA EBOOKS" failures over the decades. (Kindle-in-Motion, etc.)

- - -

Side Note #2: On AZARDI + their old blog...

I remember during the introduction of EPUB3 + merging of IPDF with W3C, they also had very good posts on the "wrong direction" EPUB3 was taking.

They were bringing up many important points that are still relevant today.

(Now, this info is very hard to find, because the old URLs are mostly dead. You'd have to use Archive.org to recover them.)

Originally Posted by MicroDrie

The fact that the poster is not displayed on the Moon reader, but is displayed correctly on Sigil, leads me to the conclusion that the code is good, but that the Moon reader does not support a poster with a video.

Moon+ Reader is abysmal. They do not follow the EPUB specs. They completely override everything and try to force the book into their mold.

I most recently described this again in:

• 2021: "Moon+Reader and tables"

Here's a piece of one of my posts:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Moon+ Reader is horrible. I've written about why many times over the years. Some reasons:

• No <table>s
• No SVG
• Completely overriding publisher CSS
  
  • Breaking essential formatting like poetry + scenebreaks.
• Locking Text-to-Speech (TTS) behind paywall.

[...]

Originally Posted by MicroDrie

If someone does have a poster view for a video, I'm very curious about the code of that Epub.

Most likely similar code to what's online and works in web browsers... except no EPUB3 readers (except maybe latest version of iBooks + Readium) would support such a thing right now.

[Hitch]

This ^ Tex's post, above:

is why I asked if the bloody poster EVER shows up. I mean, from commercially, competently-made eBooks, rather than MicroDrie's experiment(s).

Are we, in fact, chasing a coding glitch or are we chasing a unicorn?

AFAIK or remember, Moon+Reader is bloody abysmal and while it's one thing to go coding and chasing and testing something that we've all SEEN work, it's entirely another to try to invent the damn wheel for an eReader that has basically turned its back and spit on the wheel in the first place. Every single time I get a customer having layout hysterics, it's almost inevitably, yes, yes yes, Moon+Reader.

So, before we all leap into the pool: has anybody, here, anybody at all, ever seen a movie/video poster display in Moon+Reader? Going once, going twice...

Hitch

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I mean, from commercially, competently-made eBooks, rather than MicroDrie's experiment(s).

Are we, in fact, chasing a coding glitch or are we chasing a unicorn?

Well, again, it's like HTML5+CSS3 + all the Accessibility stuff...

"Progressive Enhancement" + "Graceful Degradation" are 2 key concepts.

I mean, it wouldn't hurt if you coded the stuff correctly.

Just that the poster image wouldn't work in the current EPUB3 readers.

Doesn't mean a future device/app wouldn't be able to take advantage of it though. :P

So you have to:

1. Temper your expectations.
2. Always remember to test fallbacks + various devices.

(For example, you don't want to code your ebook in a way that makes it unreadable on all the old devices. Like old Kindles, etc. See InDesign's iBooks-only EPUB3 output...)

Originally Posted by Hitch

Moon+Reader is bloody abysmal and [...] it's entirely another to try to invent the damn wheel for an eReader that has basically turned its back and spit on the wheel in the first place. Every single time I get a customer having layout hysterics, it's almost inevitably, yes, yes yes, Moon+Reader.

LOL.

Another one I ran across a few years ago, the author was still using the ancient "EPUBReader" addon for Firefox.

He's sending me a screenshot of my "broken ebook". I've never seen such an example in my entire life, and there was NO WAY my simple/clean HTML+CSS could even produce such an outcome...

So I told him to:

• Install ADE
  
  • As I described in one of the initial emails...
• Install Thorium Reader
  
  • As I described in one of the initial emails...

He never followed those instructions, and instead, the EPUBs were just opening up in his default program—EPUB Reader—(which must've been installed at least 10 years before).

You can't make up some of this stuff...