Sony, Nook, Kindle

[delphin]

Originally Posted by jocampo

. . .

By the way, let's be clear and say, non DRM ePub books. Because B&N, Sony and even Apple, sell ePub books, but they are DRM protected. So you can only read on their own devices; Sony is the exception, which you can move and read to B&N readers, but you cannot use or read B&N or Apple books outside of their own world. If you take that into consideration, breaking DRM and using Calibre, also breaks any format barrier and makes Kindle an option, which for sure is what lot of people are doing and both ways, B&N and Amazon users.

If I understood your argument correctly, it was something like -

The DRM isn't really compatible anyway so you will end up having to strip it

- AND -

Since you have to strip DRM anyway, you can just convert the file while your at it . . .

- AND THEREFOR (by this convoluted logic) - this makes the Kindle just as easy to use with multiple ebook sources right?

This might be true it EITHER of your premises was correct, but I'm sorry to say that I disagree on both points.

First of all, the so-called EPUB DRM incompatibly issue you brought up is nowhere near as big a problem as you have made it out to be.

Along with Sony, nearly ALL popular readers now support ADEPT DRM (even the $99 dollar low end models), and ANY of them can buy from Sony, Kobo, Google and Borders (yes Borders ebook web store is still there).

Also, B&N has at least publicly committed to harmonizing their DRM with Adobe ADEPT DRM. Currently they are half way there, because both the e-ink Nook and Color Nook can read standard Adobe ADEPT EPUB books purchased at Sony, Kobo, Borders, and Google.

Sadly I do not expect Apple to fall in line, but if that's the way they want to be, that's fine with me, as I am quite happily living now in a Macintosh and I-trash product free household. (I was one of the first in my city to own the original Mac nearly 30 years ago, but Apples recent change to a business model that involves hooking a vacuum cleaner hose to your wallet has caused me to part ways)

The second area where I disagree, is that I feel you have also misstated the facts by implying that a DRM stripped book, and a book that is both DRM stripped AND format converted, are equivalent.

They are NOT.

For me, buying from B&N would be a very minor hassle, because after stripping the DRM, I would have a perfectly formatted EPUB that will read perfectly on my Sony.

On the other hand, buying a book that is both DRM protected AND in the wrong format, is more of a problem because you would have to BOTH strip the DRM -AND- run the book through a potentially LOSSY CONVERSION from MOBI to EPUB or EPUB to MOBI.

If you are dealing with simple justified text, then things should be fine, that works fairly well, but anything more complex than that could be a problem.

Some EPUB titles now have really nice embedded fonts and other fancy formatting that would not be available if the same title was purchased in MOBI or AZW and converted to EPUB or purchased in EPUB and converted to MOBI.

Conversion times from EPUB to MOBI are also currently an issue with Calibre on my machine. On my 1.6 GHz PC it takes about 10 to 15 minutes average to convert a single title, with some titles taking as little as 5 minutes and some taking 20 minutes or more (some folks have reported a single conversion taking HOURS.)

Aside from the delay, you also occasionally have to deal with conversion issues like the formating sometimes getting mangled for things like Drop-Caps, fancy headings, or any index or hyper-links beyond the basic Table Of Contents (which can also disappear depending on how the EPUB is formatted internally).

So - Long Story Short - Push come to Shove - I'll take a DRM stripped book from B&N every time, before I would buy a Amazon version and then have to deal with both DRM and a potentially troublesome conversion.

[SolRaven]

With all of this DRM stripping conversation, I've realised that I only convert my Kindle books to go on my Sonys, but I never put my Sony books onto the Kindle.

[jocampo]

Delphin,

there is no good or bad ebook format and not because I like Kindle the ePub is bad or viceversa. What people needs to understand that the real issue here is DRM, not Amazons or Kindle.

And not sure why you're saying that converting via Calibre is a hassle, it usually takes 60 seconds or so. All my books are computer books, with lot of graphics, SQL code, etc, and I've never had any problem converting from ePub to mobi of mobi to ePub....never...ever...

Calibre conversion takes some CPU resources so I would not blame your issue to the format itself but your machine's resources. It is a simple and easy process on modern PCs.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by lor2ie

"Kindle 3 doesn't support the new world standard EPUB format used by virtually EVERYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET.

Except Canada. And the UK. Oh, and Australia.

And of course 80% of the e-books sold are sold in the US. (10% for Europe and 10% for the rest of the world). And Amazon has 70-80% of the US market. But even if we pretended that the entire rest of the world did use epub, there's still a 65-35 global kindle/epub split.

But it's even more fragmented than that - you can't read nook books on a sony, or iBooks on anything but an iReader.

[wyndslash]

all of them are plastic, yes, no? (sorry, still figuring things out here on my end there are no ereaders being sold locally so i have to rely on you guys)

[bevdeforges]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

all of them are plastic, yes, no? (sorry, still figuring things out here on my end there are no ereaders being sold locally so i have to rely on you guys)

No, the Sonys at least have metal (aluminum?) cases. But with a good cover (I have an M-Edge with a book light) it may not make all that much difference.

The important thing to consider is how YOU want to use a reader. Kindle owners seem to be happy with their 3G and/or wifi functions, whereas I chose my Sony specifically NOT to have wireless capabilities. Partly because I wanted access to US and UK books (I live in France) and partly because I want to be able to get the odd book in French or German, and Amazon just doesn't have much in the way of current foreign language (i.e. non-English) books. The UK book access thing has changed since I got my Sony, but I can still get US books through the Sony store and some UK published books from Kobo, while I still have access to the French e-book sources.

I also like NOT having wireless because I have to connect the Sony to the computer to charge it now and then. I have a history of finding my mobile phone dead just when I actually need it because I've "forgotten" to plug it in, and at least I wind up charging the Sony when I go to download the Sunday newspapers from the web or when I buy books online.

If you want to buy books spur of the moment from anywhere, go for the Kindle. But if you want to buy non-English language books, you may want to consider a reader that does e-pub. It's all a matter of your personal preferences.

[SolRaven]

Originally Posted by bevdeforges

If you want to buy books spur of the moment from anywhere, go for the Kindle.

I brought my Kindle w/ me on vacation last summer thinking that the wireless capabilities would enable me to download books if I wanted. What I found out was that where I was staying had NO 3G connection. Ugh! They did have WiFi, but that didn't help w/ my Kindle 2. I ended up plugging it into my netbook and downloading books like I did on my Sony anyway.

[wyndslash]

well, the more i read the comments on the sony readers, the more i wished i knew someone here who had one (or any ereader, for that matter), so i could test it and see how i like it. ereaders here haven't caught on yet. well, i've also read some threads where people were saying that they found a thin crack in the bezel of their kindles. i wonder if this is due to the plastic or just part of the whole manufacturing process (that came out bad; i mean, that in manufacturing there are bound to be some bad eggs especially the first few releases). that said, i may be more inclined to stick with the kindle for my first ereader as i do like their customer service and their online store. and the fact that they do have a pretty nice rep in my family

[delphin]

Originally Posted by jocampo

Delphin,

there is no good or bad ebook format and not because I like Kindle the ePub is bad or viceversa. What people needs to understand that the real issue here is DRM, not Amazons or Kindle.

And not sure why you're saying that converting via Calibre is a hassle, it usually takes 60 seconds or so. All my books are computer books, with lot of graphics, SQL code, etc, and I've never had any problem converting from ePub to mobi of mobi to ePub....never...ever...

Calibre conversion takes some CPU resources so I would not blame your issue to the format itself but your machine's resources. It is a simple and easy process on modern PCs.

Whether there is such a thing as a 'good' and 'bad' format is debatable, but I do think that one thing that history shows pretty clearly is that eventually there are winners and losers.

I think MOBI and AZW are posed to go the way of the Dodo bird when the upcoming EPUB 3 feature set is fully implimented.

EPUB 3 includes JavaScript support which will allow the creation of 'smart books'.

Stories with interactive elements, technical books which can perform calculations, reference books with intelligent search features - the list goes on and on.

Publishers will have to support smart books in EPUB format, because that's what everyone else in the world other than Amazon uses, and with the complexity of creating a scripted 'smart books' being so much higher than a simple non-scripted title, publishers will want to stay with a single format.

Also after EPUB matures a little and there is a much larger base of free open source code with non-restrictive licenses that Amazon can STEAL like they did with the Linux OS used in Kindle, then I suspect that most of their objections to EPUB will vanish.

After all, they can still lock-in the suckers with proprietary DRM like Apple right?

As far as your comments about software performance vs. PC resources, you're joking right???

The same Netbook that you implied lacks 'resources', the one that often takes 15 minutes or more to perform a simple ebook conversion, can handle real time 720p HD video playback pretty smoothly.

So let's look at that -

1280 x 720 x 32bits/pixel x 30fps is just over 110.5 MEGABYTES of video data being processed and displayed EVERY SECOND.

The simple Atom chipset used in my machine lacks the fancy dedicated video decoding hardware found in some modern Intel and AMD offerings, so it has to get by on RAW CPU HORSEPOWER for all video decoding.

I have worked on video codec code, and trust me on this, a complex video codec like XVID or H264 does magnitudes more complex calculations than those involved in simple text and html format conversions.

I have enormous respect for the author of Calibre. It's not his fault that some of the conversion libraries he currently has available don't perform better, but this fact doesn't give me any illusions about Calibre's ebook conversion performance which is quite honestly pretty PATHETIC.

Yes, I understand that in practical terms, the answer to badly performing software is often to simply buy faster hardware.

I do have a nice quad core 3.5 GHz Athalon desktop machine that I imagine could crank through the same conversion in minute or two, but I prefer the Netbook for downloading, managing, and converting ebooks.

I have no need or desire to replace my Netbook with a faster model, as it's adequate for nearly everything else, and truth be told can live with this delay.

Doesn't mean I have to like it though.

[FF2]

Originally Posted by jocampo

Delphin,

there is no good or bad ebook format and not because I like Kindle the ePub is bad or viceversa. What people needs to understand that the real issue here is DRM, not Amazons or Kindle.

And not sure why you're saying that converting via Calibre is a hassle, it usually takes 60 seconds or so. All my books are computer books, with lot of graphics, SQL code, etc, and I've never had any problem converting from ePub to mobi of mobi to ePub....never...ever...

Calibre conversion takes some CPU resources so I would not blame your issue to the format itself but your machine's resources. It is a simple and easy process on modern PCs.

Yes, I'm not sure what this emphasis on conversion time is all about. Do we really need instant conversion anyway. Can't someone wait 3 or 4 minutes and surf the web for other things. And even if it takes a bit long or much longer, the computer is capable of doing most of it in my absence. The book will be their later and I'm sure most of us have at least one or two other books we could read in the interim.

I admit that I can handle the delay issue when I get a free B&N book and can read it LATER on my K3. And my netbook is definitely slower than my desktop pc.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Except Canada. And the UK. Oh, and Australia.

And of course 80% of the e-books sold are sold in the US. (10% for Europe and 10% for the rest of the world). And Amazon has 70-80% of the US market. But even if we pretended that the entire rest of the world did use epub, there's still a 65-35 global kindle/epub split.

But it's even more fragmented than that - you can't read nook books on a sony, or iBooks on anything but an iReader.

Pocketbook Germany sold last winter 10 times as much readers as they used to. I suspect this is true for all the other companies that are on sale here, too. Which means even if we are right now not having the number of ebook owners the US have, we will in the near future. And as Europe/Eurasia has a couple of people more and the readers available and known here are the Sonys, Pocketbooks, Bookeens, iRivers and not Kindles, it is quite sure that epub is or will be very soon the worldwide standard. The ebook shops here offer epub almost exclusivly, the libraries also.

We are used to have a vast choice of shops to buy with and readers to choose from, with wifi and without and I can't think of the Kindle being the messiah here, were it does not have the newness it had in the States.

Europeans also like the stuff they buy to be solid quality products. The Kindle looks and feels cheap compared to most other readers, it will be hard for it to beat a solid one, I guess.

[Lilly]

I have 3 Sony Readers and 1 Kindle 2. I have to admit, I bought my 1st Kindle in 2008 because Amazon prices were so much better than everyone else; I then upgraded to the Kindle 2 in 2009. I have not felt the need to upgrade my K2. I just love the touchscreen of the Sony. Since buying the PRS-950, it has been my main reader and I have not picked up the others in a long time. I think the Sony readers are the best e-ink devices around. They are just really well made.

[delphin]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

. . .
Europeans also like the stuff they buy to be solid quality products. The Kindle looks and feels cheap compared to most other readers, it will be hard for it to beat a solid one, I guess.

Some folks just equate plastic with cheap, but the plastic construction of the Kindle didn't bug me as much as the unsophisticated 1990's style software and badly thought out mechanical ergonomics.

In the case of the Sony, I for one would PREFER somewhat larger mat finish dark plastic buttons, vs. the cheesy 'fake metal' finished plastic buttons that they use now, because this would give less glare and distraction.

Unlike the Kindle, you wouldn't have to worry about the key labels wearing off (as has happened to heavily used Kindles), because the Sony keys aren't labeled on the keytops anyway (Sony puts the key labels on the case above the keys).

Don't knock the Kindle too much though just because it's case is plastic, as the main reason that e-readers get broken seems to be screen damage.

The Sony's metal construction may provide slightly more protection against the screen getting cracked by twisting torque, but this remains to be seen, and if something bangs into the screen you are out of luck no matter whether you own a Kindle or Sony.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by delphin

Some folks just equate plastic with cheap, but the plastic construction of the Kindle didn't bug me as much as the unsophisticated 1990's style software and badly thought out mechanical ergonomics.

In the case of the Sony, I for one would PREFER somewhat larger mat finish dark plastic buttons, vs. the cheesy 'fake metal' finished plastic buttons that they use now, because this would give less glare and distraction.

Unlike the Kindle, you wouldn't have to worry about the key labels wearing off (as has happened to heavily used Kindles), because the Sony keys aren't labeled on the keytops anyway (Sony puts the key labels on the case above the keys).

Don't knock the Kindle too much though just because it's case is plastic, as the main reason that e-readers get broken seems to be screen damage.

The Sony's metal construction may provide slightly more protection against the screen getting cracked by twisting torque, but this remains to be seen, and if something bangs into the screen you are out of luck no matter whether you own a Kindle or Sony.

I didn't say it cause it is plastic but because it looks and feels cheap. The buttons make sounds and the keyboard looks cheap. Had a plastic device myself, an ItalicaReader, and loved it. It is lightweight and can be sturdy. But the execution of the Kindle does not scream 'well made' in my eyes. Thats it!

The old Sonys were built like tanks, the new ones are not. They are way better build than most of the other readers but not as good as they used to be. One the other hand they are lighter now and still sturdy.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Pocketbook Germany sold last winter 10 times as much readers as they used to. I suspect this is true for all the other companies that are on sale here, too. Which means even if we are right now not having the number of ebook owners the US have, we will in the near future. And as Europe/Eurasia has a couple of people more and the readers available and known here are the Sonys, Pocketbooks, Bookeens, iRivers and not Kindles, it is quite sure that epub is or will be very soon the worldwide standard. The ebook shops here offer epub almost exclusivly, the libraries also.

Of course this might happen. Or it might not...but .lrf was the de facto standard in the US until the Kindle came along; when markets are undeveloped, anything can happen.

We are used to have a vast choice of shops to buy with and readers to choose from, with wifi and without and I can't think of the Kindle being the messiah here, were it does not have the newness it had in the States.

The advantage of the Kindle, and the reason it was successful, was because of its integration with Amazon; this made buying books much more convenient. B&N set up a similar system, which is why they are number 2 in the US. I have no idea whether Amazon has any plans like that for Europe (or whether something like that is even possible there, due to various anti-consumer laws)...but that's what's made Amazon so successful here.

Europeans also like the stuff they buy to be solid quality products.

As opposed to the the rest of the world who prefers to buy shoddy products?
Everyone prefers to buy solid quality products, but the opinion as to what that is often differs. And I'm sure you probably realize that there are vast differences even between Germans and Dutch, not to mention among Poles, Italians, Greeks, Spanish, etc.

Europeans tend to buy the exact same consumer electronics we do in the US, with the only notable difference being that they pay much more for the same stuff. But I don't think that they are happy about it.
The Kindle looks and feels cheap compared to most other readers, it will be hard for it to beat a solid one, I guess.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, whatever.