Converting from Topaz, finally - Page 5

stewball · 12-30-2009, 09:17 PM

I got it to output a file that I could open up with K4PC and it was exactly the same as before. (Hypothetically speaking, I wonder now if someone else can open it). The script gave me a device PID, a book PID and a book key.

Stew

stewball · 12-30-2009, 09:26 PM

In Ultra-Edit I'm getting the same thing. Only the last lines have legible text, which is font info, author info, etc.

Stew

rcuadro · 12-31-2009, 11:14 AM

I cant get the stupid script to work... I removed the # mid way through the script and added the 'd' but I still get an error Ugh!

stewball · 12-31-2009, 11:41 AM

rcuadro, I sent you a message with some info.

Stew

rcuadro · 12-31-2009, 12:08 PM

It worked! Finally!!! Now to test the book somehow since Calibre does not display it

volwrath · 12-31-2009, 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chorpler

Somebody claimed Topaz is a variety of ePub, but who knows if it's true. The only page with any detailed info at all seems to have vanished.

I dont think that is correct, since it bogs down whatever device one tries to read it on. Seems more like a bitmap/pdf type format.

chorpler · 12-31-2009, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by volwrath

I dont think that is correct, since it bogs down whatever device one tries to read it on. Seems more like a bitmap/pdf type format.

According to a comment on the Darkreverser blog, it does indeed appear to be a bunch of pointers to images of letters. If I understand right.

kennyc · 12-31-2009, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcuadro

It worked! Finally!!! Now to test the book somehow since Calibre does not display it

Whew!

rcuadro · 12-31-2009, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

Whew!

Yep,now I have DRM free topaz books that I can read on my kindle... but I could read them with the kindle with drm anyhow lol.

phenomshel · 12-31-2009, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcuadro

Yep,now I have DRM free topaz books that I can read on my kindle... but I could read them with the kindle with drm anyhow lol.

Yeah, this is only half the battle.

rcuadro · 12-31-2009, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phenomshel

Yeah, this is only half the battle.

Unfortunately all this is good for is to "share" books since you can change them to a say ePub or mobi

phenomshel · 12-31-2009, 03:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcuadro

Unfortunately all this is good for is to "share" books since you can change them to a say ePub or mobi

Yes and no. It *should* also allow the people smart enough to be able to do something about it, access to a decrypted Topaz file to see how it's put together with intent to convert. That's why I said it was "half the battle" the other half is conversion.

rcuadro · 12-31-2009, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phenomshel

Yes and no. It *should* also allow the people smart enough to be able to do something about it, access to a decrypted Topaz file to see how it's put together with intent to convert. That's why I said it was "half the battle" the other half is conversion.

I forgot a key word in my reply and was "for now"

chorpler · 01-01-2010, 06:31 PM

Quoting from my post on Darkreverser's blog:

Looking at the dictionary file for a popular astronomy book ("Death by Black Hole"), I think it almost looks like badly-OCRed text, featuring entries like “solar,yslen,” (presumably “solar system), “space,huttlc” (presumably “space shuttle”), and “rainhow” (clearly supposed to be “rainbow”). This could be a bad sign, since it might mean that Topaz books only contain the information of a scan and an OCR, not a real text format that would allow us to export it to another format.

These results do match the quality of this book, however, because this particular book displays very poorly, with large gaps in the letters themselves (like the book was scanned with the brightness setting too high, so the thinner parts of the letters were washed out). So if the dictionary file contains OCRed (and not even proofread) versions of the words on each page, well, this book isn’t going to be very exportable. If we could reconstruct the page images we’d be able to re-run our own OCR and proofread it, but what a pain.

The one thing that makes me wonder about this conclusion is the fact that you’re supposed to be able to search Topaz files, right? But on my Kindle you can only search via an index of all the books, and the Kindle for PC app doesn’t seem to have a way of searching at all that I can find. So I can’t test to see if searching for “solar,syslen,” actually comes up at the place that says “solar system” in the graphical text.

Anybody know what format the glyphs are stored in?

RobbieClarken · 01-01-2010, 11:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcuadro

Yep,now I have DRM free topaz books that I can read on my kindle... but I could read them with the kindle with drm anyhow lol.

Are you sure they are DRM free? I copied a "liberated" tpz to another Kindle and it wouldn't open.

EDIT: Nevermind... I must've been doing something wrong with the original script. The files outputted by skindle work fine.

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12-30-2009, 09:17 PM	#61
stewball Enthusiast Posts: 37 Karma: 90 Join Date: Dec 2009 Device: PRS-500	I got it to output a file that I could open up with K4PC and it was exactly the same as before. (Hypothetically speaking, I wonder now if someone else can open it). The script gave me a device PID, a book PID and a book key. Stew

12-30-2009, 09:26 PM	#62
stewball Enthusiast Posts: 37 Karma: 90 Join Date: Dec 2009 Device: PRS-500	In Ultra-Edit I'm getting the same thing. Only the last lines have legible text, which is font info, author info, etc. Stew

12-31-2009, 11:14 AM	#63
rcuadro Wizard Posts: 1,686 Karma: 874275 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Virginia Beach, VA Device: Kindle DX	I cant get the stupid script to work... I removed the # mid way through the script and added the 'd' but I still get an error Ugh!

12-31-2009, 11:41 AM	#64
stewball Enthusiast Posts: 37 Karma: 90 Join Date: Dec 2009 Device: PRS-500	rcuadro, I sent you a message with some info. Stew

12-31-2009, 12:08 PM	#65
rcuadro Wizard Posts: 1,686 Karma: 874275 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Virginia Beach, VA Device: Kindle DX	It worked! Finally!!! Now to test the book somehow since Calibre does not display it

01-01-2010, 06:31 PM	#74
chorpler Zealot Posts: 128 Karma: 278 Join Date: Jun 2008 Device: Kindle; PRS-500; MobiPocket on Windows Mobile	Quoting from my post on Darkreverser's blog: Looking at the dictionary file for a popular astronomy book ("Death by Black Hole"), I think it almost looks like badly-OCRed text, featuring entries like “solar,yslen,” (presumably “solar system), “space,huttlc” (presumably “space shuttle”), and “rainhow” (clearly supposed to be “rainbow”). This could be a bad sign, since it might mean that Topaz books only contain the information of a scan and an OCR, not a real text format that would allow us to export it to another format. These results do match the quality of this book, however, because this particular book displays very poorly, with large gaps in the letters themselves (like the book was scanned with the brightness setting too high, so the thinner parts of the letters were washed out). So if the dictionary file contains OCRed (and not even proofread) versions of the words on each page, well, this book isn’t going to be very exportable. If we could reconstruct the page images we’d be able to re-run our own OCR and proofread it, but what a pain. The one thing that makes me wonder about this conclusion is the fact that you’re supposed to be able to search Topaz files, right? But on my Kindle you can only search via an index of all the books, and the Kindle for PC app doesn’t seem to have a way of searching at all that I can find. So I can’t test to see if searching for “solar,syslen,” actually comes up at the place that says “solar system” in the graphical text. Anybody know what format the glyphs are stored in?

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