PRS-500 to get EPUB support after all? - Page 2

sminarovich · 08-14-2009, 10:32 AM

Zippy! I was planning on updating to the 600, but I was concerned because I have over 600 books on my 500 I certainly didn't want to be worrying about eventially loosing them, I also hope in the coming years we will see colour. I have 4 standing bookshelves, floating shelves books piled on furniture, l love the colour and look forward to the day my ebooks can have colour in their front pages, and manga just seems pointless on ebook without colour and for b/w more degrees of grey.

igorsk · 08-14-2009, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by porkupan

Doesn't mean a whole lot in my book. Who is this Lisa? A first level support person answering the chat at SonyStyle? What does she know?

Second level. And I skipped a lot of not really relevant chat at the beginning which makes me inclined to believe her.

Who are you? · 08-14-2009, 10:57 AM

The files in the firmwares are in cramfs, I assume they stay in cramfs on the device, then the extra space needed is about 2MB compared with the current adobe viewer.

porkupan · 08-14-2009, 11:05 AM

igorsk, what do you think, how many PRS-500 owners are still out there? Not the total number, but the number of people, who actually buy books at Sony eBook Store and generate some sort of revenue for Sony? One thousand? Two thousand? Fifty thousand?

The ADE license according to Robertb costs 70K per device model. Plus development costs to integrate into the Reader FW (probably including the Mass Storage Device emulation driver). Plus making the new FW updater that will rearrange the partitions in the flash and remove some of the books from /Data in order to shrink it to the newly allowed maximum size. Plus the customer service effort to support the angry callers whose devices have been messed up by the process. Is it worth it? Or is it a charity effort, a good will gesture?

Perhaps you are right, and there will be an update. That would mean Sony is going all out for EPUB support. Sony, which two years ago announced that it wasn't making any more FW updates for PRS-500, is all of a sudden making an exception in this case... This is very hard to believe. The "update path" statement is just vague enough to not commit to anything in particular.

igorsk · 08-14-2009, 11:30 AM

I agree that Sony probably won't see any direct financial return from the update. However, it will be of quite big PR value. It would send a "Sony won't abandon you" signal to many users and make them more inclined to buy Readers in future.

DaleDe · 08-14-2009, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by igorsk

I agree that Sony probably won't see any direct financial return from the update. However, it will be of quite big PR value. It would send a "Sony won't abandon you" signal to many users and make them more inclined to buy Readers in future.

It may be that, in exchange for promoting Adobe DE, they are getting a break in the price of an upgrade for old, not for sale, products.

Dale

slayda · 08-14-2009, 11:35 AM

I wonder if those of us who bought LRX books with our PRS-500's but have sold the 500 can DL their LRX books in Epub format now.

On second thought, probably not since there would be no way to view except on PC.

igorsk · 08-14-2009, 11:38 AM

Of course you will be able to. Purchases are tied to the account, not the device.

pilotbob · 08-14-2009, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by igorsk

Of course you will be able to. Purchases are tied to the account, not the device.

Good point. Now I wish I had spent hundreds of dollars buying ebooks from the Sony store.

BOb

(no not really!)

08-14-2009, 11:05 AM	#19
porkupan Fanatic Posts: 556 Karma: 1057213 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: North Eastern U.S. Device: Sony Reader	igorsk, what do you think, how many PRS-500 owners are still out there? Not the total number, but the number of people, who actually buy books at Sony eBook Store and generate some sort of revenue for Sony? One thousand? Two thousand? Fifty thousand? The ADE license according to Robertb costs 70K per device model. Plus development costs to integrate into the Reader FW (probably including the Mass Storage Device emulation driver). Plus making the new FW updater that will rearrange the partitions in the flash and remove some of the books from /Data in order to shrink it to the newly allowed maximum size. Plus the customer service effort to support the angry callers whose devices have been messed up by the process. Is it worth it? Or is it a charity effort, a good will gesture? Perhaps you are right, and there will be an update. That would mean Sony is going all out for EPUB support. Sony, which two years ago announced that it wasn't making any more FW updates for PRS-500, is all of a sudden making an exception in this case... This is very hard to believe. The "update path" statement is just vague enough to not commit to anything in particular. Last edited by porkupan; 08-14-2009 at 11:13 AM.

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08-14-2009, 10:32 AM	#16
sminarovich Connoisseur Posts: 95 Karma: 3133 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Ontario, Canada Device: sony ereader 500 & 600	Zippy! I was planning on updating to the 600, but I was concerned because I have over 600 books on my 500 I certainly didn't want to be worrying about eventially loosing them, I also hope in the coming years we will see colour. I have 4 standing bookshelves, floating shelves books piled on furniture, l love the colour and look forward to the day my ebooks can have colour in their front pages, and manga just seems pointless on ebook without colour and for b/w more degrees of grey.

08-14-2009, 10:57 AM	#18
Who are you? Groupie Posts: 184 Karma: 300001 Join Date: May 2009 Device: 505	The files in the firmwares are in cramfs, I assume they stay in cramfs on the device, then the extra space needed is about 2MB compared with the current adobe viewer.

08-14-2009, 11:30 AM	#20
igorsk Wizard Posts: 3,442 Karma: 300001 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Belgium Device: PRS-500/505/700, Kindle, Cybook Gen3, Words Gear	I agree that Sony probably won't see any direct financial return from the update. However, it will be of quite big PR value. It would send a "Sony won't abandon you" signal to many users and make them more inclined to buy Readers in future.

08-14-2009, 11:35 AM	#22
slayda Retired & reading more! Posts: 2,764 Karma: 1884247 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: North Alabama, USA Device: Kindle 1, iPad Air 2, iPhone 6S+, Kobo Aura One	I wonder if those of us who bought LRX books with our PRS-500's but have sold the 500 can DL their LRX books in Epub format now. On second thought, probably not since there would be no way to view except on PC.

08-14-2009, 11:38 AM	#23
igorsk Wizard Posts: 3,442 Karma: 300001 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Belgium Device: PRS-500/505/700, Kindle, Cybook Gen3, Words Gear	Of course you will be able to. Purchases are tied to the account, not the device.

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