epub3 kobo external video opf issue

[Ryn]

Producing an epub3 with videos leads to a kobo nag about manifesting external video files, as per the epub3 spec.

There are six entries in the opf, such as this:

<item id="vid2" href="https://www.website.ext/videofile2.mp4" media-type="video/quicktime"/>

(The marketplace using) Kobo responds with the following message.

Missing file OEBPS/https://www.website.ext/videofile2.mp4.: java.lang.RuntimeException

It seems to "think" that the location the https protocol refers to can be found within the epub package. Appears to be a bug in the Kobo testing suite.

I've perused the MR forums, the MR wiki, the github/kobolabs/epub-spec and various other kobo materials, to no avail.

Anyone have any idea why this occurs, or how to circumvent it, short of bloating the epub to the tune of 78mb?

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by Ryn

Producing an epub3 with videos leads to a kobo nag about manifesting external video files, as per the epub3 spec.

There are six entries in the opf, such as this:

<item id="vid2" href="https://www.website.ext/videofile2.mp4" media-type="video/quicktime"/>

(The marketplace using) Kobo responds with the following message.

Missing file OEBPS/https://www.website.ext/videofile2.mp4.: java.lang.RuntimeException

It seems to "think" that the location the https protocol refers to can be found within the epub package. Appears to be a bug in the Kobo testing suite.

I've perused the MR forums, the MR wiki, the github/kobolabs/epub-spec and various other kobo materials, to no avail.

Anyone have any idea why this occurs, or how to circumvent it, short of bloating the epub to the tune of 78mb?

Have you checked against the Kobo Epub specs at https://github.com/kobolabs/epub-spec

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[Ryn]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Have you checked against the Kobo Epub specs at https://github.com/kobolabs/epub-spec

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Yes, I think I mentioned having checked that resource.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Ryn

Producing an epub3 with videos leads to a kobo nag about manifesting external video files, as per the epub3 spec.

Did you add properties="remote-resources" to the manifest entry of the content document containing this video clip?

[Ryn]

Yes, I did. For three separate documents, which all have video tags sourcing the remote links.

Example

<item id="h1.xhtml" href="Text/h1.xhtml" media-type="application/xhtml+xml" properties="remote-resources"/>

[KevinH]

For the record, no where in the official epub3 spec that I could see does it say you should add a manifest property for something not inside the epub3 container. I realize that many people/sites say you should add a manifest item for remote resources but I could not find it in the spec anyplace. If someone can send a link to where in the spec it says it should be that way, I would love to see it. A manifest by its very nature should only include things that are actually contained there-in.

So what happens if you remove the manifest items such as these:

<item id="vid2" href="https://www.website.ext/videofile2.mp4" media-type="video/quicktime"/>

but keep the remote-resources properties on the xhtml files with source links to external resources?

[DiapDealer]

Have we been given any solid reason to believe that the subset of EPUB3 specs that Kobo supports even includes remote-resources? Last info I saw showed Kobo supporting about 60% of the EPUB3 spec.

[Ryn]

Originally Posted by KevinH

For the record, no where in the official epub3 spec that I could see does it say you should add a manifest property for something not inside the epub3 container. I realize that many people/sites say you should add a manifest item for remote resources but I could not find it in the spec anyplace. If someone can send a link to where in the spec it says it should be that way, I would love to see it. A manifest by its very nature should only include things that are actually contained there-in.

So what happens if you remove the manifest items such as these:

<item id="vid2" href="https://www.website.ext/videofile2.mp4" media-type="video/quicktime"/>

but keep the remote-resources properties on the xhtml files with source links to external resources?

Thank you for your thoughts. What happens when I remove the manifest items is that epubcheck throws an error:

Col: 174: ERROR(RSC-008): Referenced resource is not declared in the OPF manifest.

(times 5 for 5 external links not declared)
(which made me assume that declaring external links for media files was in the spec somewhere.)

To answer your question, I cannot provide you with actual data from the spec, it was an assumption on my part.

[Ryn]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Have we been given any solid reason to believe that the subset of EPUB3 specs that Kobo supports even includes remote-resources? Last info I saw showed Kobo supporting about 60% of the EPUB3 spec.

Let me ask the question in another way. Does anyone know of a way to have Kobo readers play video content that is not actually present within the epub? ie content that lives on a server somewhere, in order to keep the epub's file size down. Preferably, this would be a solution that does not break the functionality for other platforms, such as ibooks.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Ryn

Let me ask the question in another way. Does anyone know of a way to have Kobo readers play video content that is not actually present within the epub? ie content that lives on a server somewhere, in order to keep the epub's file size down. Preferably, this would be a solution that does not break the functionality for other platforms, such as ibooks.

I don't know the answer myself, but even if there were a way, support for it would very likely vary from device to device and app to app (or platform to platform) within the Kobo family of devices/apps

[PeterT]

Video is only supported by Kobo on Android and IOS (but you most likely know that)

[Ryn]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Video is only supported by Kobo on Android and IOS (but you most likely know that)

I did see that in the kobo epub-spec hosted on github.

It is my understanding that there are kobo devices that run Android. Obviously expecting to run video on eInk devices would be folly, but so would be to require eInk device users to download and host a 80MB KePub on their relatively low-spec'ed machines, just because *some* devices are capable of video playback.

Hence the decision to host the video files remotely, which now feels like an impossibility, due to what appears to be a random rakuten testing bug.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. It's hard to believe that no one has run into this. Hopefully someone will yet come forward. I have asked kobo (or well, rakuten, with whom our retailer works) about this issue as well, and will report back once they have responded in a constructive way.

[JSWolf]

One problem is what if someone is reading that eBook with no Internet access or with WiFi off? Then it won't work for sure.

[Ryn]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One problem is what if someone is reading that eBook with no Internet access or with WiFi off? Then it won't work for sure.

Good point. Another huge problem is that if a person turns their device off, they won't be able to read the epub like at all! How will the world survive?!

[PeterT]

The only Kobo DEVICES that run Android are there long discontinued tablets (ARC and VOX I think).

Yes there is a Kobo app available for both IOS and Android.

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