Whitcoulls in New Zealand

[3d0g]

Originally Posted by Rothbardian

"Kobo native format" isn't epub? AFAIK it only does epub and pdf, ne?

Nope. Native is proprietary and stored inside an sqlite database.

[taming]

The native format in the sqlite database satisfies the DRM requirement most publishers insist on.

[artig]

Originally Posted by Rothbardian

"Kobo native format" isn't epub? AFAIK it only does epub and pdf, ne?

If you purchase and download books directly in the Kobo/Whitcoulls/Whatever desktop application they are stored on your computer as an sqlite database. In some proprietary internal format. On WinXP it's stored in "Documents and Settings\[user]\Local Settings\Application Data\Whitcoulls\Whitcoulls Desktop Edition".

The desktop application is synchronized with the files from the Kobo website. As long as you're logged into the desktop application you can read the books on the computer without synchronizing with the website again. And you can also synchronize with the Kobo ereader.

Books downloaded in ePub format with ADE are moved to the Kobo in that format, but the Kobo when disconnected from the computer then internally converts them to the sqlite database format and deletes the ePub files.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by artig

Books downloaded in ePub format with ADE are moved to the Kobo in that format, but the Kobo when disconnected from the computer then internally converts them to the sqlite database format and deletes the ePub files.

I don't believe so; books in ePub format remain in ePub files on the Kobo. The processing that is done seems to place some info. about the books in the sqlite database (probably to speed up the Kobo's home page display, and the reader's ToC viewing) but leaves the ePub files intact.

[Rothbardian]

Originally Posted by 3d0g

Nope. Native is proprietary and stored inside an sqlite database.

But I'm pretty sure what's in the sqlite database is just the epub content. Some of the 100 books that came with it are not encrypted; AFAICT the content is just the body subtree of the XML file that would be in the epub container. (The content of encrypted books is base64-encoded encrypted data; can't tell what's in that, without figuring out how to decrypt it, but presumably the same thing)

[3d0g]

Originally Posted by Rothbardian

But I'm pretty sure what's in the sqlite database is just the epub content. Some of the 100 books that came with it are not encrypted; AFAICT the content is just the body subtree of the XML file that would be in the epub container. (The content of encrypted books is base64-encoded encrypted data; can't tell what's in that, without figuring out how to decrypt it, but presumably the same thing)

Possibly, but I'd be surprised as there are many, many records per book in the sqlite db. There's more going on than just the body subtree. Besides, even if kobo is stripping EPUBs down to just body text and parsing out into sqlite records, it's not really an EPUB anymore, is it?