Penguin UK with some ePub books to try out

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by HarryT

DRM-protected ePub such as this is no more portable than any other format. Less so at the moment, in fact; to the best of my knowledge, the Sony PRS-505 is the only eBook Reader which can read it.

That's the problem - you take an open standard like ePub and add to it the ability for anyone to add to it whatever custom DRM they want. The end result is inevitably a confusing mess of mutually-incompatible eBooks. If company "A" and company "B" each add their own DRM, inevitable some devices will be able to read company A's books, other devices will be able to read company B's books, and the poor consumer gets stuck with a mess.

That's why I'm still rather skeptical about the idea of ePub as an "end-user" format. I just don't see it as a solution to the "e-Babel" situation at all.

ePub is not THE solution to eBabel, but it is part of the solution. Even if company A and B used ePub with different DRM, it would mean that if someone cracked those DRMs, the DRM-less file would work on both devices. Or if I decided to publish my own book in ePub without DRM, it would be compatible with both devices.

Another important aspect is that ePub is more standard than other formats, therefore it is much easier to create ePub files with existing tools, unlike formats such as LRF or Mobipocket where you need new tools to produce them.
Thanks to CSS support, SVG and various other features, ePub is also more powerful than the current crop of formats. It'll be much easier to create a good looking book using ePub as a source for these formats, than the other way around.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

ePub is not THE solution to eBabel, but it is part of the solution. Even if company A and B used ePub with different DRM, it would mean that if someone cracked those DRMs, the DRM-less file would work on both devices. Or if I decided to publish my own book in ePub without DRM, it would be compatible with both devices.

I accept what you're saying, Hadrien. I just fear that, in a year's time, we're going to have half a dozen different DRM mechanisms on ePub, and we'll be in a worse situation than we are at present wrt DRM. I know that MobiPocket has technical limitations, but it is pretty much a de facto "standard" at present, being readable on a huge range of different devices, and sold by numerous different eBook stores.

Another important aspect is that ePub is more standard than other formats, therefore it is much easier to create ePub files with existing tools, unlike formats such as LRF or Mobipocket where you need new tools to produce them.
Thanks to CSS support, SVG and various other features, ePub is also more powerful than the current crop of formats. It'll be much easier to create a good looking book using ePub as a source for these formats, than the other way around.

Yes, that's a benefit of it that I absolutely do agree with you about. We need to see ePub supported by a much wider range of portable devices, however, before it's going to become an important player in the market (IMHO). How feasible is it, I wonder, to implement ePub readers on low-power devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, etc? My impression is that, precisely due to the "potential" of the format, that it needs pretty high-spec devices to render it well?

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I accept what you're saying, Hadrien. I just fear that, in a year's time, we're going to have half a dozen different DRM mechanisms on ePub, and we'll be in a worse situation than we are at present wrt DRM. I know that MobiPocket has technical limitations, but it is pretty much a de facto "standard" at present, being readable on a huge range of different devices, and sold by numerous different eBook stores.

To create such a DRM mechanism and make sure that it is available for a device, online stores etc... you need a large organisation. I don't think we'll see dozens of different DRM mechanisms. Maybe 2-3 from companies such as Adobe, Amazon, Microsoft or Apple.
The problem with Mobipocket is not just with technical limitations, but also that some things are very poorly implemented in Mobipocket (the format).

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, that's a benefit of it that I absolutely do agree with you about. We need to see ePub supported by a much wider range of portable devices, however, before it's going to become an important player in the market (IMHO). How feasible is it, I wonder, to implement ePub readers on low-power devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, etc? My impression is that, precisely due to the "potential" of the format, that it needs pretty high-spec devices to render it well?

These days, the average mobile device is getting more and more powerful. The requirements for full ePub support should be pretty much similar than for a good browser (think Safari on the iPhone or Chrome on Android).
Reading systems that provide just basic support (no SVG, minimal CSS etc...) could run on any device. Of course you won't be able to display advanced layouts with such reading systems but for fiction, it should work just fine.
None of the current reading systems are optimized yet, even DE is still working on fully implementing the standard and resolving bugs first.

[mikecook]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

None of the current reading systems are optimized yet, even DE is still working on fully implementing the standard and resolving bugs first.

I guess this is the thing we all need to remember - not only are developers still working out all the bugs, but there are plenty of future developers who haven't even started yet.

Another thing to remember is that this has only been an official standard for less than one year! And already we have several eBook readers and publishers working with this format. Not bad really

[vivaldirules]

I've looked at two of these teasers from Penguin and I have to say I really don't like the way they look. The text in these is not fully justified when displayed on my PC and, even if it was, it wouldn't be when displayed on my Sony Reader. I seriously doubt that I'll be paying money for books in epub or Adobe DE formats even though I am quite interested in what Penguin often publishes. Books should be fully justified and the Reader firmware should be improved to support that, too.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I've looked at two of these teasers from Penguin and I have to say I really don't like the way they look. The text in these is not fully justified when displayed on my PC and, even if it was, it wouldn't be when displayed on my Sony Reader. I seriously doubt that I'll be paying money for books in epub or Adobe DE formats even though I am quite interested in what Penguin often publishes. Books should be fully justified and the Reader firmware should be improved to support that, too.

E-Books shouldn't be fully justified or ragged right either. The reading system should be flexible enough to let the user select what they want.

[mikecook]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I seriously doubt that I'll be paying money for books in epub or Adobe DE formats even though I am quite interested in what Penguin often publishes. Books should be fully justified and the Reader firmware should be improved to support that, too.

The text in the eBooks themselves is neither 'ragged right' nor justified. A paragraph in the source is basically one long line of text surrounded by <p>paragraph</p> tags.

You can specify that these should be justified within the epub file itself, but it is up to the reading system to perform this task.

As Hadrien mentions, this should be up to the users, and I see no reason why a reading system cannot have this option.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I've looked at two of these teasers from Penguin and I have to say I really don't like the way they look. The text in these is not fully justified when displayed on my PC and, even if it was, it wouldn't be when displayed on my Sony Reader.

Given that NOT using full justification in ebooks is my choice, that makes these more appealing to me. It's Adobe's DRM scheme that I object to. End results, neither of us will be buying these DRM'd epubs, eh?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mikecook

As Hadrien mentions, this should be up to the users, and I see no reason why a reading system cannot have this option.

Agreed. MobiPocket Reader, for example, allows the user to select "left" or "full" justification, and that's the way it should be (IMHO).

[AprilHare]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

YEAH BABY !!!! EPUB FROM PENGUIN !!!!! brilliant news !! thanks for the link !

Yea, verily, I thank thee..
I converted all the 'Tasters' with calibre and will be looking at them on my PRS-500.
Now, how can I view the full books without laying out for a PRS-505?

[wallcraft]

All the tasters use the following for cover images:

	<svg:svg viewBox="0 0 751 1157">
		<svg:image xlink:href="images/cover.jpg" transform="translate(0 0)" width="751" height="1157" />
	</svg:svg>

Note that "svg:" is a CSS entry, but this is a SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) construct and is Adobe's recommended way to treat full-cover images. It does not display at all in Windows MobiPocket Reader and FBReader, since neither supports SVG. If all the above is replaced by standard HTML, everyone is happy:

		<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="751" height="1157" />

Penguin is only supporting ADE, so following Adobe guidelines is reasonable, but this does illustrate that format shifting from ePub to earlier formats isn't going to be trivial. In particular, it will require SVG to image translation.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

All the tasters use the following for cover images:

	<svg:svg viewBox="0 0 751 1157">
		<svg:image xlink:href="images/cover.jpg" transform="translate(0 0)" width="751" height="1157" />
	</svg:svg>

Note that "svg:" is a CSS entry, but this is a SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) construct and is Adobe's recommended way to treat full-cover images. It does not display at all in Windows MobiPocket Reader and FBReader, since neither supports SVG. If all the above is replaced by standard HTML, everyone is happy:

		<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="751" height="1157" />

Penguin is only supporting ADE, so following Adobe guidelines is reasonable, but this does illustrate that format shifting from ePub to earlier formats isn't going to be trivial. In particular, it will require SVG to image translation.

I would rather link directly to the cover in the OPF file if we could, but the current limitations doesn't allow this, you can only list OPS Documents in the guide, not OPS Core Formats.
The need for a XML flow and all this viewbox non-sense, should be discussed at the IDPF asap.

[JSWolf]

I don't see ePub possibly haveing difference DRM schemes. I see it as being dobe's DRM scheme being the one chosen for ePub. So we'll have ePub without DRM and ePub with Adobe's DRM.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't see ePub possibly haveing difference DRM schemes. I see it as being dobe's DRM scheme being the one chosen for ePub. So we'll have ePub without DRM and ePub with Adobe's DRM.

The point is, Jon, that the standard says "you can have DRM", but it DOESN'T specify what the specific DRM method is. Any publisher or eBook store could, therefore, add their own DRM to ePub and still call it "ePub" (and it would, indeed, still be ePub, in that it would fully conform to the standard!)

You could, in theory, end up with half a dozen different DRM schemes, all calling themselves "ePub", and all mutually incompatible. That's the main thing I don't like about it; we could end up in a far worse mess with formats than we're in at the moment (which really isn't that bad a situation, practically speaking).

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Given that NOT using full justification in ebooks is my choice, that makes these more appealing to me. It's Adobe's DRM scheme that I object to. End results, neither of us will be buying these DRM'd epubs, eh?

Certainly you can object to DRM but it is a fact of life for some publishers. Use Adobe DRM (The new version) does help establish it as a standard and that may actually be a good thing. Overdrive, for example, uses it for Library books. ePUB is still just getting started and perhaps a dominate DRM system will come about if Adobe doesn't get greedy with their system. Personally if DRM exists I would prefer just one.

Dale