Question about using download & transfer by USB

[texasnightowl]

I feel like I should know this, but...

When using the download & transfer by USB from the content page, is there any difference when choosing which device you use?

I have 3 kindles attached to my account. My old K3 keyboard, a K4, and an Oasis. Even though I've had the Oasis for a while, I've continued choosing the K4 as the device when I download & transfer by USB. (Note: all my purchases go into Calibre for DRM removal and then I load them from Calibre into whichever device I'm using ... usually the Oasis these days.)

So, if I select the Oasis as the device is there any difference at all in the resulting files versus if I choose the K4 as the device?

[jhowell]

The files will be different in a few ways.

If you select a very old device that doesn’t support KF8 (azw3) format then you may get the book in the older MOBI (azw) format instead. That doesn’t apply to you since all of your devices are new enough assuming your K3 isn’t running the original firmware it came with.

If the book has DRM, and most do, then it will be targeted to that device and won’t work on any other without removing the DRM first.

There is also watermark metadata included in the book that encodes your account, the target device, etc.

[jhowell]

I should add that the actual content (text and images) will be identical for each format (MOBI or KF8) regardless of which device you choose for the download.

However this will likely be different from what Amazon would have delivered to the device over the air. OTA delivery is more targeted to the characteristics of each device specifically in regard to images. Sometimes OTA delivers higher image resolution (important for comics and manga) and sometimes lower quality (B/W images delivered to e-ink Kindles.)

[texasnightowl]

Thanks for the response and info! Yeah, I haven't selected the K3 in a long time. I do have the drm tools installed in Calibre and have the serial numbers for the K3, K4, and Oasis all in place.

I should add that the actual content (text and images) will be identical for each format (MOBI or KF8) regardless of which device you choose for the download.

This bit is what I was really curious about.

I very very rarely use OTA delivery. My devices typically stay in airplane mode all the time. Also, images aren't typically an issue...I stick to mostly fiction and not usually anything that is picture or map heavy.