Content Lord of the Rings Now Available! KINDLE, EPUB, PDF, LIT, and MOBI

[sassanik]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The covers are in black & white.

The illustrations in "The Hobbit" are black & white. Worse - they haven't converted the colour plates to greyscale, they've just left them out! On the plus side, I suppose the illustrations are an OK size - about 600 pixels in largest dimension, and are sharper than I could get from a scan of a hardcover.

Paul

I am not surprised that the books are coming in black and white and not color. Most ereaders can't display color, so it makes sense to use black and white instead. The file size is probably a bit of an issue as well, color does take up more space than black and white. Though they should have converted the color pages.

Ohh I just figured out that the highest price of the books at fictionwise is the one that has 3 books in it. But still $15 for a single book if you don't buy the bundle! That is HC prices!


Amy

Originally Posted by sassanik

I am not surprised that the books are coming in black and white and not color. Most ereaders can't display color, so it makes sense to use black and white instead. The file size is probably a bit of an issue as well, color does take up more space than black and white. Though they should have converted the color pages.

Ohh I just figured out that the highest price of the books at fictionwise is the one that has 3 books in it. But still $15 for a single book if you don't buy the bundle! That is HC prices!


Amy

Color ereaders vastly outnumber B&W ereaders. Think of all the millions of Palm, Windows Mobile and iPhone/iPod Touch's devices out there that display full color.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by sassanik

I am not surprised that the books are coming in black and white and not color. Most ereaders can't display color, so it makes sense to use black and white instead. The file size is probably a bit of an issue as well, color does take up more space than black and white. Though they should have converted the color pages.

While it's true eink readers (or the Jetbook or eBookwise) can't do color, for now, there are more folks that use PDA's, Phones & Computers to read ebooks than there are folks who use dedicated readers and those devices can display color. Not to mention even dedicated readers will do it in a year or two.

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

I got my copies. Now, just let me say this: All of us who have at any time said, "When the legal e-book comes out, I'll chuck my darknet copy and pay the full fare," show the industry that we were serious. I know I am.

I did mine. Well, I still have them backed up on my computer. But my Kindle has the legit versions now.

[NormHart]

"SECURE MOBIPOCKET FORMAT [2.9 MB], SECURE EREADER (RECOMMENDED) FORMAT
All formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED"

I won't be buying these, <sigh>.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by NormHart

"SECURE MOBIPOCKET FORMAT [2.9 MB], SECURE EREADER (RECOMMENDED) FORMAT
All formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED"

I won't be buying these, <sigh>.

They don't work on the Kindle anyway (unless you do the deDRM dance).

[All4Fun]

Originally Posted by NormHart

"SECURE MOBIPOCKET FORMAT [2.9 MB], SECURE EREADER (RECOMMENDED) FORMAT
All formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED"

I won't be buying these, <sigh>.

I'm not understanding what the issue is. How's this different when owning the physical books?

[pdurrant]

The images in the mobipocket files are RGB JPEGs, just with the RGB values of each pixel being identical. This is the worst of both worlds - no colour, and yet without the sharpness that would come from using greyscale JPEG.

The price of The Hobbit is a bit higher than I'd like to see it, but not totally outrageous. Considering LOTR as three books, the omnibus is also higher than I'd like but not totally outrageous. As individual books it's much too high.

But I'm a little unhappy that the quality of the illustrations isn't better, and that there's some coding problems. But no so unhappy that I want to return them. If I get really fed up, I could roll my own version.

Originally Posted by sassanik

I am not surprised that the books are coming in black and white and not color. Most ereaders can't display color, so it makes sense to use black and white instead. The file size is probably a bit of an issue as well, color does take up more space than black and white. Though they should have converted the color pages.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by All4Fun

I'm not understanding what the issue is. How's this different when owning the physical books?

I think NormHart's concern is that the TTS feature of the Kindle2 can't be used with these releases.

[pdurrant]

With DRMed ebooks you're at the mercy of the person controlling the DRM servers. If they go out of business*, or decide to close your account*, or stop doing business with your retailer*, or shut down their DRM servers*, you're stuck. When your current ebook readers die, you'll lose access to your ebooks.

That's why I won't buy DRMed ebooks unless the DRM can be removed.

*I can provide examples of all these things having happened already, if you insist.

Originally Posted by All4Fun

I'm not understanding what the issue is. How's this different when owning the physical books?

[All4Fun]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

With DRMed ebooks you're at the mercy of the person controlling the DRM servers. If they go out of business*, or decide to close your account*, or stop doing business with your retailer*, or shut down their DRM servers*, you're stuck. When your current ebook readers die, you'll lose access to your ebooks.

That's why I won't buy DRMed ebooks unless the DRM can be removed.

*I can provide examples of all these things having happened already, if you insist.

Agreed and why I've un-DRM'd my purchased ebooks to allow me to do what I want. But once that's done, couldn't you print, read aloud, and otherwise do whatever you want with the ebook? (rhetorical).

And for those folks not willing to un-DRM their books, aren't the restrictions very similar to owning the physical ebook which was my original question?

These questions are largely rhetorical as it doesn't affect me directly but just trying to understand if there are other issues that I'm just not aware of.

[paperless]

All the new Tolkien ebooks are available at BooksOnBoard - 30% straight discount off of list. A great deal for non-proprietary readers. http://www.booksonboard.com/index.ph...SEARCH=tolkien

[All4Fun]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The images in the mobipocket files are RGB JPEGs, just with the RGB values of each pixel being identical. This is the worst of both worlds - no colour, and yet without the sharpness that would come from using greyscale JPEG.

The price of The Hobbit is a bit higher than I'd like to see it, but not totally outrageous. Considering LOTR as three books, the omnibus is also higher than I'd like but not totally outrageous. As individual books it's much too high.

But I'm a little unhappy that the quality of the illustrations isn't better, and that there's some coding problems. But no so unhappy that I want to return them. If I get really fed up, I could roll my own version.

Would anyone know if the images are better in the epub or lit versions?

[pdurrant]

I've written an email to HarperCollins about the deficiencies I found in the mobipocket ebooks. I suspect they will be getting rather a lot of email about this release, both praise and criticism, so I don't expect a quick reply.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

So - I'm pleased to have legitimate version, but a bit disappointed that the proof-reading for the encoding seems to be a little lacking on such a big release, and that they haven't included all the illustrations.

[pdurrant]

Hopefully someone will buy them and let us know. Just unzipping the epub version should reveal the image files. and ConvertLit should do the same for the lit files.

Originally Posted by All4Fun

Would anyone know if the images are better in the epub or lit versions?