Editor for EPUB w/SMIL on Windows?

[daniel.weck]

Has anyone tried this?
(I haven't)

http://www.xldir.com/smil-synchronize.html

[AlPe]

Hi Daniel,

thank you for your feedback about Tobi and Readium SDK. I look forward seeing the outcomes of Readium SDK, because I do really care about Audio-eBooks.

(Side note, you might want to pass this along to whom is in charge of the website: on readium.org there are several different pages and links to docs dealing with the licensing details of Readium SDK for non-members of the Readium Foundation, and it is difficult to tell what are the exact licensing terms applicable to that case, especially for FOSS projects.)

Originally Posted by daniel.weck

Has anyone tried this?
(I haven't)

http://www.xldir.com/smil-synchronize.html

With respect to the creation of the SMIL synchronization map and the insertion of the required id's in the XHTML source, it essentially does what Tobi does, but "in the browser". No auto sync, as far as I understand.

EDIT: clarification.

[daniel.weck]

Originally Posted by AlPe

It essentially does what Tobi does, but "in the browser".

Interactive waveform editor, audio resampling, etc. ??
(genuinely asking, I do not know the tool)

[daniel.weck]

Originally Posted by AlPe

(Side note, you might want to pass this along to whom is in charge of the website: on readium.org there are several different pages and links to docs dealing with the licensing details of Readium SDK for non-members of the Readium Foundation, and it is difficult to tell what are the exact licensing terms applicable to that case, especially for FOSS projects.)

Bill McCoy's email address on this page:

http://readium.org/membership/application

Thanks for your feedback Alberto!!

[AlPe]

Originally Posted by daniel.weck

Interactive waveform editor, audio resampling, etc. ??
(genuinely asking, I do not know the tool)

Sorry, no, I was just speaking about creating the sync map (the SMIL file), which features a mechanism (play + press spacebar) similar to TOBI --- but other functions like audio editing are missing in that web app. (I will amend the previous post.).

[PoP]

Originally Posted by Hitch

...
Moreover, there are so few readers for this type of product, although Alpe's company apparently made the investment to create a tool, I wouldn't do it at mine. If we had a much larger demand for this type of work, of course, we would, but the demand for it, at least at my shop, is negligible. We did 24 titles in the fall-winter of last year, and another....5? 7? this year, so we have made about the same number as Alpe's shop, which I think probably is indicative of demand. The 24 last winter was anomalous, I would normally not expect our shop to do more than 10 a year, not at this point in time, not until more reading devices/apps support it.
...

You are certainly right Hitch. Respect. You know your business.

Rest of this post is just to share my experience and is off topic wrt the OP.

This is epub3 stuff was new to me so I wanted to try for myself on some sample books. I used Chrome+Readium today.

My initial thought was « Why would anyone use this? If you listen to a book, this is because you can't read it, you are in your car or jogging with your earphones on. If you are reading the ebook, then you don't need to be distracted by a narrator. This is still one more silly epub3 audio/video feature that can only attract geeks like me »

Turns out I was wrong. It didn't hurt my reading experience, to the contrary the professional well paced voice in sync with highlighted text merrily took me through the book. I felt like a long time ago, my mother reading me a book while pointing at the words. It was fun.

[AlPe]

Plus, let me state again the importance of reading+listening for learning foreign languages.

[Self-Promotion deleted - MODERATOR]

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by PoP

You are certainly right Hitch. Respect. You know your business.

Rest of this post is just to share my experience and is off topic wrt the OP.

This is epub3 stuff was new to me so I wanted to try for myself on some sample books. I used Chrome+Readium today.

My initial thought was « Why would anyone use this? If you listen to a book, this is because you can't read it, you are in your car or jogging with your earphones on. If you are reading the ebook, then you don't need to be distracted by a narrator. This is still one more silly epub3 audio/video feature that can only attract geeks like me »

Turns out I was wrong. It didn't hurt my reading experience, to the contrary the professional well paced voice in sync with highlighted text merrily took me through the book. I felt like a long time ago, my mother reading me a book while pointing at the words. It was fun.

I actually think this is a wonderful use for children, and of course, for anyone visually impaired. I adored the books we made for Fergus the Ferry--I really did. I don't say that due to bias, I think that they are absolutely fabulous kids' books, and the read-along (iBooks and Nook only--Nook has a different implementation than SMIL) was a hoot.

Maybe, due to PoP's insight, I'll have to rethink this for adult books. I mean, grown-up books, not "adult" books. Hell, you guys know what I mean!

Hitch

[mrmikel]

I wonder how long before Amazon jumps into this field since they own Audible.

[AlPe]

They already did, but with relatively small success as far as I can tell: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...cId=1000827761

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlPe

They already did, but with relatively small success as far as I can tell: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...cId=1000827761

Hard to know. 20K titles?

Hitch

[AlPe]

The "scarcity" of available titles is already indicative of something, doesn't it?

[AlPe]

BTW, we just released 111 English Short Stories, for free, in EPUB 3 Audio-eBook format (= reflowable EPUB 3 + Media Overlays, hence enabling text highlighting and tap-to-play). The files are available here: https://readbeyond.it/shortstories.html