Porting or new Funtionality

[fabiocbr75]

The most important miss functionality for PDF files is the possibility to read a DRM PDF.

A lot of online store sell ebook protected (Apress, Manning etc...) and the DR1000S can't read this files.

Some of you (for ex. Adam B.) can port another PDF reader with this feature?
OR
IRex Development team can add this feature to DR1000S (The same of Sony 505 for PDF-DRM)?

Thanks

[Adam B.]

Do you want something to read password protected PDF's, or those with DRM protection.

DRM protection is difficult. It has to be licensed from Adobe, and you won't find any open source software that works with it. You'll likely need to remove any DRM if you want to read it on your DR.

[wallcraft]

Adobe PDF ebooks are only currently readable using Adobe Digital Editions, because only ADE supports Adobe DRM (the last Adobe Reader that could handle them was version 7). MobiPocket requires DRM-exclusivity on dedicated reading devices, so since the DR1000 has Secure MOBI it won't have Adobe DRM from iRex. That said, the following is in the FAQ:

Q: Will there be any additional formats supported in the future and how will this work?
A: Yes I imagine that additional format support will be added over time. We have separated functions from formats. A specific content format is rendered in the memory by a small rendering engine. The functions like zoom or bookmark are controlled by our Universal Document Shell or UDS. The UDS will load the correct rendering engine and tells it which page to render in the memory. When a specific function is not available for a specific format (e.g. increase font size in PDF), the UDS will disable this function in the menu.
This way third party developers will be able to easy add content plug-ins, which will be stored on the memory as add-ons. The advantage of this approach is that the user experience and interface will be consistent over all applications. Currently we support a PDF, Mobipocket, TXT and image plug-in.

Q: Are there any plans to add Adobe Digital Editions and/or or ePUB support?
A: As explained above, our open platform allows easy addition of content rendering engines and we support any third party developer willing to add these formats.

Given the DRM-exclusivity deal with MobiPocket, I think this means that Adobe would have to decide on its own to port ADE to the DR1000 series. I'm not even sure that the agreement would allow iRex to "provide support" to this effort, beyond the software tools available to everyone. In any case, I doubt the DR1000 will sell in the volumes necessary for Adobe to consider it a viable target for its own porting efforts.

The other way the device could "support" Adobe PDF ebooks is if someone cracks Adobe DRM. Then these potentially become standard PDFs which the DR1000 already reads.

[thomega]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

The other way the device could "support" Adobe PDF ebooks is if someone cracks Adobe DRM. Then these potentially become standard PDFs which the DR1000 already reads.

In fact, one can find high quality standard PDFs of books that are published as ADEs. So it must be possible to crack the DRM - but I don't know how. [This message should not be misconstrued as an endorsement of copyright violation.]

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by thomega

In fact, one can find high quality standard PDFs of books that are published as ADEs.

The only method I am aware of is to make images of the screen (there is a program to automate this), so I assume these PDFs actually contain "scans" of the pages.

[thomega]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

The only method I am aware of is to make images of the screen (there is a program to automate this), so I assume these PDFs actually contain "scans" of the pages.

Doesn't look like it. These are 500 page textbooks in about 4MB and the quality is like the real thing, no camparison to scans that take 10 times the size. They's also definitely not prepublicatin drafts.

[Shaggy]

You can take screen captures, OCR them, and basically end up with the same PDF you started with (after fixing any OCR errors), just without the DRM.

[thomega]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

You can take screen captures, OCR them, and basically end up with the same PDF you started with (after fixing any OCR errors), just without the DRM.

That's true for most books, but the examples I refer to are theoretical physics texts: particle physics, quantum field theory, string theory - all full of equations and diagrams. There's no OCR program in the world that will be able to handle that. You can see an example at this link (the exerpt is from the introduction which is very light on math, it gets heavier later ). A copy of the whole book that can be downloaded from file sharing sites has the same quality. It's a pity that this stuff is not yet legally available for the DR 1000S.

[Shaggy]

Interesting. If you find out how they did it, let us know.

[adi]

Originally Posted by thomega

That's true for most books, but the examples I refer to are theoretical physics texts: particle physics, quantum field theory, string theory - all full of equations and diagrams. There's no OCR program in the world that will be able to handle that. You can see an example at this link (the exerpt is from the introduction which is very light on math, it gets heavier later ). A copy of the whole book that can be downloaded from file sharing sites has the same quality. It's a pity that this stuff is not yet legally available for the DR 1000S.

I am in the similar situation, trying to read books in djvu with lots of math. So far, the easiest (for the DR1000, not for me) solution is to first convert from djvu -> pdf (using print to pdf from djvu-viewer), then convert pdf to individual pages using pdftk, and then convert each page to a png using imagemagick's convert. Then store all the pngs in a single directory, on the reader, this shows as a multipage document. All the steps can be automated, but it takes a lot of time for each book.

There are a couple of drawbacks. The size increases by a lot. Typically a 400 page (4-5 MB) djvu document gets converted to 400 pngs approx 300kB each. Also, in principle one does not need to split the pdf into individual pages, convert is supposed to handle multi-page pdf. But, for pdfs created from djvu files, convert gives a ghostscript error on a multipage pdf.

Another drawback is that the DR cannot hide margins correctly. I normally end up doing a selection zoom once for each book.

[omro]

Can apps from the Zaurus or similar Linux based pdas/phones be ported?

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by omro

Can apps from the Zaurus or similar Linux based pdas/phones be ported?

Yes, in fact gtk zaurus apps are often the easiest to port because they don't have gnome dependencies.

[omro]

That's kinda cool then, just wish I knew more about how to do things in Linux beyond switching things on. Ask me to build, compile or port something and I look as lost as an English tourist dropped in the middle of Russia with only a Chinese map to guide him.

[thomega]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Interesting. If you find out how they did it, let us know.

I found out that the license permits to print 20 pages of these ebooks per month. Assuming that the reader generates PostScript for printing, one could use GhostScript to turn it into PDF. If all fonts are Type1, the resulting PDF will look nice. Now if one fiddles with the clock of the PC, one migh not have to wait the whole two years to complete the task.

Caveat: this is all pure speculation, since I never use Windows!

[keng2000]

There are two types of secure PDF as I know, Password Protected and DRM
The password protected is easy ro remove by Russian hacker serveral years ago and there are many software now.
Honestly, I collect over 20,000 PDF ebooks about 150 GB now. There are huge many soruces since fiction, Text book or Playboy magazine...

For DRM, I found only way now, Buy it and read on PC.