Which readers handle EPUB3 with audio?

[Moonbase59]

Thinking of children’s books and learning material, I think it’s time to start with EPUB3. On ReadBeyond, there are some nice sample EPUB3 books with audio narration.

I’d like to know which current e-readers (software and/or devices) already handle this format in a user-friendly way.

I already tried the following, using F. Scott Fitzgerald’s »The Curious Case of Benjamin Button« as an example:

1. ✅ Readium (JS in browser)
2. ✅ Thorium Reader (Linux AppImage; Readium-based)
3. ✅ Menestrello (Android app)
4. ❌ Calibre Reader (Linux)
5. ❌ Foliate (Linux)
6. ❌ KOReader
7. ❌ Tolino (Vision 5; expected, no audio hardware)

I was a little disappointed to see that neither the Calibre Viewer nor KOReader could play this book with audio.

EPUB3 w/ audio would be an ideal format to learn new languages, for instance: See the marked words and hear the pronunciation by a native speaker. Unfortunately, today such books are mostly sold in Kindle or EPUB2 formats with an included audio download link—not much fun looking up separate audio files if you want to learn a language.

Do you know of others that can play EPUB3 w/ audio? Kobo, maybe?

[kovidgoyal]

Use the calibre content servers in browser viewer, it should play audio fine, though I admit to never having tested it.

[Doitsu]

AZARDI 43.1 (freeware for Linux, macOS and Windows) can handle these books.

[Moonbase59]

@kovidgoyal: Using the browser viewer on the quoted book returns an error when clicking "Read":

Cannot read book

Could not open The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. There was an error while interacting with the database used to store books for offline reading. Click "Show details" for more information.

UnknownError: The operation failed for reasons unrelated to the database itself and not covered by any other error code.

(Using Calibre 5.36 on Linux Mint 20.3)

[kovidgoyal]

Opens fine for me in chrome. Though the audio doesnt play since this isnt an actual embedded audio file but a media overlay.

[Moonbase59]

For people who haven’t yet seen how useful an EPUB3 (with Media Overlays) could be, I’ve made quick screen recordings, using Menestrello on my Android phone and Thorium Reader on my Linux desktop:

• Menestrello.mp4
• Thorium-Reader.mp4

I’d so much wish that at least Calibre, and maybe KOReader, would support this—and more publishers use that format, instead of including dumb "download audio files here" links in their e-books… Earnestly, who would want to download and unzip a bunch of MP3 files, manually look up things like "Chapter 01 - Lesson 3.mp3", start a media player and jump around in the file just to hear the pronunciation of a word? When it could be so easy!

EPUB3 w/ media overlays could be such an improvement for language learning, children’s books, etc.

Still, it appears that for now about 8 years, nobody in the publishing scene even cares. Even Alberto Pettarin, developer of Menestrello and the Penelope dictionary converter, seems to have given up in 2015.

[skillachie]

BookFusion supports EPUB3 with media overlays across:

• iOS
• Android
• Web

[Moonbase59]

@skillachie: That’s good to know, thanks! How is BookFusion’s coverage of foreign-language books, i.e. German? And do the readers support sideloaded content, i.e. books I produce myself?

Note: To properly enjoy audio e-books, you need at least a "Casual" (100MB file size) or "Advanced" (400MB) subscription ($1.99/$4.99 per month, currently).

The free Jungle Book, for instance, is a whopping 160 MB.

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by Moonbase59

@skillachie: That’s good to know, thanks! How is BookFusion’s coverage of foreign-language books, i.e. German? And do the readers support sideloaded content, i.e. books I produce myself?

Note: To properly enjoy audio e-books, you need at least a "Casual" (100MB file size) or "Advanced" (400MB) subscription ($1.99/$4.99 per month, currently).

The free Jungle Book, for instance, is a whopping 160 MB.

We support several foriengb-language books with no issues. Example these are some of the free German books that you can test how they render without creating an account. https://www.bookfusion.com/books/free?language=de . Note some of these free eBooks might have formatting issues with the EPUB.

We primarily support user side-loaded content, however we do have a fully optional store which might be not make that obvious to readers at first glance. We even have a Calibre plugin to support content that users already own.

• https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=299911
• https://www.bookfusion.com/reading/calibre

Currently a few users are using the social aspect in beta to share eBooks with friends and family that they have uploaded (Beta access available to MobileRead members if interested). With regards to the storage limits we plan to lift limits on file size for paid plans to around 3 - 4 GB. We will also revise limits on the free tier.

[Marclee]

Since this is one the first results on Google if one searches for "epub3 with media overlays readers", I'd like to share some updated info.

On Android, there are two good apps for this.
Colibrio Reader
Reasily

They both work fine, but I find that Colibrio Reader is better as it will actually turn pages with the highlighted text reaching the next audio segment.

There is also the Storyteller project for the synchronization of one's ebooks and audiobooks. I have used it already for several of my own books, and it works flawlessly. It is however still in beta and unpolished, but so promising.

It will feature a library with which one can distribute and share one's synced audiobook-epub3s. The accompanying Storyteller app on iOS (and Android soon) can be used to read those.

[vitalbuttering]

Originally Posted by skillachie

We support several foriengb-language books with no issues. Example these are some of the free German books that you can test how they render without creating an account. https://www.bookfusion.com/books/free?language=de . Note some of these free eBooks might have formatting issues with the EPUB.

We primarily support user side-loaded content, however we do have a fully optional store which might be not make that obvious to readers at first glance. We even have a Calibre plugin to support content that users already own.

• https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=299911
• https://www.bookfusion.com/reading/calibre

Currently a few users are using the social aspect in beta to share eBooks with friends and family that they have uploaded (Beta access available to MobileRead members if interested). With regards to the storage limits we plan to lift limits on file size for paid plans to around 3 - 4 GB. We will also revise limits on the free tier.

I have an audiobook that's epub3 with audio. It plays fine on TR on windows and Calibre on Windows. But on BookFusion on iOS, it gives a Cannot Open pop-up window error when i try to play the audio portion. Any clue as to why that is?

Can you perhaps clarify the epub format I should be looking for, or is there a way to convert it to work on BookFusion?

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by vitalbuttering

I have an audiobook that's epub3 with audio. It plays fine on TR on windows and Calibre on Windows. But on BookFusion on iOS, it gives a Cannot Open pop-up window error when i try to play the audio portion. Any clue as to why that is?

Can you perhaps clarify the epub format I should be looking for, or is there a way to convert it to work on BookFusion?

This might be due to the audio format used. If the book uses OPUS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_(audio_format) then that is not supported yet in the mobile apps.

We did not see many epub 3 books using that format prior and so had no optimizations in place. We are now looking at supporting this audio format . Mp3, mp4 are current supported.

Can you share that epub 3 file? We will be happy to get thus resolved and add support where needed.

Edit: Had a typo. Should have been will be happy

[skillachie]

Quick update: We just added support for books that have OPUS audio format. BookFusion should now work with all EPUB 3 books.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=194

[Jugdish]

The Storyteller app was brought up earlier, but it's worth mentioning again since it's progressed quite a bit.

https://smoores.gitlab.io/storyteller/

Storyteller is both a self-hosted app capable of *producing* EPUB3 files with Media Overlays, if you have the eBook + Audiobook pair already.

It is also a mobile app that is provides a great reading / listening experience for EPUB3 with Media Overlays. The files can be downloaded from your self-hosted instance of the Storyteller web app *OR* loaded directory from your phone's local storage, so it can play any EPUB3 file.

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/storyt...r/id6474467720
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...es.Storyteller