PRS-600 An hour and 20 minutes start up time!

[eric11210]

Turns out I was wrong about PRS+ not being ported to the 600. According to the website's main page, they tested the software on the 300 but pulled it quickly because of a battery drain problem. However, in this change log they say that betas for the 300 and 600 should be out in a few weeks (this was written just a few days ago) so maybe I'll get that problem fixed after all once the new software is available. I sure hope so. I really don't want to do deal with yet another device. I already have an iPhone a netbook and an ereader. I really don't feel any need for a tablet as well.

[jashsu]

Originally Posted by yts06mgr

I use Reader Library software for organizing lots of file and creating the database so that when I unplug the USB cable everything is ready to go immediately. But, recently I simply try not to carry around many books in the Reader.

I'm confused here. If I understand correctly, you're saying that using the Sony software to transfer books will prevent long indexing times, but in the Sony SD Card Usage thread, another user claims there is no difference whether or not Sony software is used or the file is just dragged into the SD card.

Can anyone clarify?

[vxf]

Originally Posted by jashsu

I'm confused here. If I understand correctly, you're saying that using the Sony software to transfer books will prevent long indexing times, but in the Sony SD Card Usage thread, another user claims there is no difference whether or not Sony software is used or the file is just dragged into the SD card.

Can anyone clarify?

How you transfer files on the device has nothing to do with it. Once you unplug it, or turn it on, the device will re-build its internal database - and that is what takes time.

So no, using SONY's software will not help.

Unless... you use SONY's software to store stuff on your PC and only carry a limited selection on your SD card. But that's a different story, I suppose.

Re-reading that post has me confused as well - I am not sure what he meant. But I did test it extensively, and indexing times seem to be the same whether I use SONY's software or Calibre.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jashsu

Hm. I have 105 epub books stored on my Memory Stick. I just did a cold reboot and the scanning took 5-6 seconds. Assuming the loading time increases linearly with the number of books, that should mean two and a half minutes to scan 3000 items.

Unfortunately it's non-linear. The scan time increases dramatically when you have more than a few hundred items present.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by vxf

Re-reading that post has me confused as well - I am not sure what he meant. But I did test it extensively, and indexing times seem to be the same whether I use SONY's software or Calibre.

If you use LRF books on your Reader, they need to be paginated. If you load them using the EBL software, that will do the pagination for you. If you load the books by some other method, they will be paginated by the Reader itself, when you first open the book, or when you first select a new font size; this can take several minutes for a large book. That's the benefit that using Sony's software provides.

That, however, is a completely different issue to the start-up library scan. Using Sony's software does not help with that.

[Mike_73]

I tried different memory cards once in my 505. The speed rating of the card definitely makes a difference (I tried several Sandisk cards rated at different speed and I could actually get different burst rates on my SLR to really see the difference).
Then I tried the memory sticks. I had the feeling that they were slightly faster than the same speed rated SD cards, allthough not really noticeable. The biggest change was with different speed rates.
As long as you go with the Sony FW, everytime you add/remove a file from any memory location will result in a rescan. I guess the FW is checking whether or not there is a change in file number. If so (as the reader cannot know what has changed), the reader starts rebuilding the database again.
I've had several mp3 players so far and some did the same thing. Others checked each memory space seperately, so building the database was easier there. And some I think actually tried to just implement the newly added/removed file information which seems to me the best solution.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Mike_73

I've had several mp3 players so far and some did the same thing. Others checked each memory space seperately, so building the database was easier there. And some I think actually tried to just implement the newly added/removed file information which seems to me the best solution.

With respect, however, we're discussing eBook readers, not MP3 players, and I'm certainly not aware of any other reader which does this. Most devices simply display the file system of the storage media and start up in the same time regardless of whether one has 1 book or 1000 books present. This particular issue is, to the best of my knowledge, unique to Sony.

[Mike_73]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With respect, however, we're discussing eBook readers, not MP3 players, and I'm certainly not aware of any other reader which does this. Most devices simply display the file system of the storage media and start up in the same time regardless of whether one has 1 book or 1000 books present. This particular issue is, to the best of my knowledge, unique to Sony.

Even though this is not about mp3 players, mp3 players share the same or similar innards as ebook readers. After all they all are little computers dealing with 1s and 0s, right? So it's coming down to how they organise files
My point here wasn't a discussion about mp3 players at all even though I used them as an example. There was one device that incorporated SD card content into the database and there were others that didn't. Like I said, just an example.
Sorry for interrupting.

[GlenBarrington]

I am always surprised when I hear that people have enormous numbers of books on their reader.

I think if I were an engineer designing eReaders, I too would not consider designing for performance when managing Library sized colections of books.

Off the top of my head, I would say the power supply, the current quality of processors, and heat issues inherent in ereaders would make an eReader a less than optimal device for managing complete libraries. This is probably a case of the engineers trying to 'catch up' with the users.

To me at least, it makes MUCH more sense to store my ebooks on an inexpensive external HD connected to my PC. I transfer books to the reader every couple of weeks and delete them from the reader as I am done with them while the original copies remain safely on my HD. This is also why, from my perspective, super huge amounts of RAM or removable media isn't such a big deal.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

I am always surprised when I hear that people have enormous numbers of books on their reader.

There are, though, many people who do want to be able to store thousands of books on a reading device. There are some devices which handle this task very nicely (eg Bookeen and BeBook devices, to give a couple of examples). Sony is uniquely bad in this regard due to its library scan on startup. There are other devices (eg nook) which have no actual problem storing large numbers of books, but whose lack of any organisational capability makes it difficult to manage large book collections.

[Mike_73]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

To me at least, it makes MUCH more sense to store my ebooks on an inexpensive external HD connected to my PC. I transfer books to the reader every couple of weeks and delete them from the reader as I am done with them while the original copies remain safely on my HD. This is also why, from my perspective, super huge amounts of RAM or removable media isn't such a big deal.

Me, too.

It just seems easier to me to track what I have read and what I still want to read much better and therefore just delete the books I've read from the reader. So I refill every time my reader only has one book left.

So there are different kind of people having different requirements. The ones who want to keep all books on one device, and then, there are the others

[eric11210]

For me at least, the idea of having an entire library at my fingertips and not needing to think about which books are on my computer as opposed to on my reader was really important. The truth is, the Sony works fine for a large library. It's just when I want to add to said library that it does a really bad job. Until PRS+ comes out for the 600 (at which time I'll see how it does with the stop scanning thing), I started doing updates just once a week, downloading the Sunday papers and magazines rather than daily newspapers (which to be honest were anyway a pain to download, even if the reader didn't require an hour and change to restart after I put them on.

Eric

[kartu]

When book appears on SD/IM for the first time, it needs to be "opened" by the viewer to get metadata (author, title etc). Next time, reader will only check if the book file is still there. It should be a bit faster if you copy it using Sony Library software.

Reader is accessing external cards using Kinoma's homebrew libs. (internal memory is accessed using standard linux calls) For whatever reason, they are a) buggy b) damn slow, listing folder content in particular.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eric11210

For me at least, the idea of having an entire library at my fingertips and not needing to think about which books are on my computer as opposed to on my reader was really important. The truth is, the Sony works fine for a large library. It's just when I want to add to said library that it does a really bad job. Until PRS+ comes out for the 600 (at which time I'll see how it does with the stop scanning thing), I started doing updates just once a week, downloading the Sunday papers and magazines rather than daily newspapers (which to be honest were anyway a pain to download, even if the reader didn't require an hour and change to restart after I put them on.

Eric

But why get a Sony at all in that case, given that there are so many other devices available which don't have the "library scan" issue?

[eric11210]

Because I didn't know about the library scan issue until after I bought it and loaded it with my books. And since I live in Israel, it's not so easy to simply return it and buy something else. I'll pay return shipping back to the States and then pay taxes when a different unit comes in from overseas. Unfortunately, in all the reviews I read about the Sony Reader, no one mentioned the library scan issue. And it's certainly not mentioned on their web site. So, instead, I'm learning to live with the problem. It's only an issue when I add books anyway since I have a charger so I've taken to adding books only once a week.

Edit: And the Sony is the only name brand reader I've found for sale here. The reader I ordered from Borders for $178 including shipping, were I to buy it at a local store (there is only one that I found offering it) is going for 1,399 shekels ($368.15 at the current exchange rates). Other readers I saw advertised locally are from brands I never heard of but cost even more (around 2,000 shekels or around $526.35). I think they're more expensive since they have Hebrew support (and while I do speak fluent Hebrew, as an expat American, I still prefer to read in my native language), which is a rarity here (books are really big here, but I have yet to see a single person besides me with a book reader -- we're still very much in the dead tree world), but the bottom line is that I don't have the option of buying a different one here either.

I also happened to get lucky that the customs people passed it through without charging me tax on the thing. I think they saw the book box that Borders shipped it in and assumed it was a book without bothering to look at the (clearly visible) customs declaration with the value written on it. Otherwise, I should have been charged an extra $60-$80 in taxes, so unless this thing absolutely fails to do what I want, I have really good reasons to keep it.

Eric