ePub vs Mobi, I don't get it

[J. Strnad]

For some reason I can't get annoyed at either Sony or Amazon, but I can see being annoyed at the vendor/provider who doesn't offer books in both formats.

Amazon is a vendor/provider who doesn't offer books in both formats. You may now be annoyed.

And funny how nobody gripes about B&N's exclusive DRM, huh?

You obviously have not been reading my posts!

I suppose if the publishers ever get with it, they should be dictating whichever format is easiest (or most robust) for their epublishing needs. Isn't this how the Bluray/HD-DVD war was fought, with movie studios deciding which format to release in?

Which is pretty much the worst case scenario with one group of publishers supporting one format exclusively and another group supporting another, exclusively, and readers get screwed as many of the books they want appear on the "wrong" platform for them. Until someone wins, in which case a whole bunch of readers lose big as their device becomes useless for anything but re-reading the books they bought in the losing format.

In other words, it's a mess. And I obviously shouldn't post before my first cup of coffee in the morning. What a cranky old poop!

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Correct.

And that is why Nook hit the ground running and has already become a solid number two in less than a year. And funny how nobody gripes about B&N's exclusive DRM, huh?

Well, I am not a fan of any DRM, but of the DRM's out there, B&N's ereader DRM is by far the most friendly. Its the only one that doesn't require you to register your reading device with some central server somewhere that might get shut off at some point in the future.

--
Bill

[GeoffC]

DRM is friendly ...

[kovidgoyal]

And for just a little preview of what will become possible with EPUB, read this blog post:

http://blog.threepress.org/2010/06/2...ity-in-ibooks/

which talks about adding interactivity to ebooks. The linked to epub file will work in either the calibre viewer or iBooks.

[some call me tim]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

And for just a little preview of what will become possible with EPUB, read this blog post:

http://blog.threepress.org/2010/06/2...ity-in-ibooks/

which talks about adding interactivity to ebooks. The linked to epub file will work in either the calibre viewer or iBooks.

Interesting, I hadn't really paid attention to the format differences other than what was available to me from the library. Implemented correctly, and that could really be a huge selling point to people that haven't made the leap to ebooks yet.

[HarryT]

I agree with most of your points, Kovid, but a couple I'd dispute:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

In MOBI it's impossible to have text and images side by side.

Can you not do it with a table?

In MOBI you cannot format poetry

What you generally want with poetry is different levels of indentation for different lines, and you can certainly do that with Mobi. Was there anything specific that you had it mind that Mobi can't do when it comes to poetry?

[PDowns]

One writes "if I didn't have xxx number of ePubs I would get a Kindle, I know I can convert them in Calibre, but it takes too long" and there are several posts along this line. While Kindle owners lament the inability to borrow from e-Libraries because the have all their books in ePub format.

WOW! I found it amazingly easy!!!

[some call me tim]

I assume you mean if there's no DRM involved? I briefly tried converting mobi to epub with a book I got from the library, but it didn't play nice. I know there are ways of stripping DRM, but it seems like a bit more work than just clicking a button.

[MR. Pockets]

Am I the only one who "likes" the current conflict over format? The way I see it, as long as you have the "hard-hitters" (Amazon vs B&N and Borders) promoting the opposite formats, and the ability to convert easily (easily being relative...) is available, the fight will prevent anyone from grabbing a monopoly and driving prices up. Of course, I could be completely wrong, but hey, someone will post and correct me.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by MR. Pockets

Am I the only one who "likes" the current conflict over format? The way I see it, as long as you have the "hard-hitters" (Amazon vs B&N and Borders) promoting the opposite formats, and the ability to convert easily (easily being relative...) is available, the fight will prevent anyone from grabbing a monopoly and driving prices up. Of course, I could be completely wrong, but hey, someone will post and correct me.

The biggest problem with the current situation is that you currently have 4 monopolies. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Apple all have their own specific DRM's that they control. B&N at least will license its DRM to other hardware vendors, but I don't think they will to other stores. In edition, Adobe has their own DRM scheme, so any other stores have to pay Adobe if they want to offer DRMed books.

The optimal solution (in so far as anything involving DRM other than its lack can be called optimal) would be for there to be a standard DRM solution that could be implemented by many different reader vendors and book stores. That way the customers won't get tied into any particular store.

--
Bill

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

The biggest problem with the current situation is that you currently have 4 monopolies.
--
Bill

Go Bill!

I always believed that mono in monopoly meant something entirely different.
But now I know better, and I am all for more monopolies like that.

Gooo Bill!!

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you not do it with a table?

That would not be reflowable, if the screen is made too small then the table will be cut off. A proper reflowable solution would have the image go onto the next line (this is achieved in epub using CSS floats). Also, in my experience, support for tables varies widely between different MOBI renderers.

What you generally want with poetry is different levels of indentation for different lines, and you can certainly do that with Mobi. Was there anything specific that you had it mind that Mobi can't do when it comes to poetry?

No what you'd ideally like is hanging indents so that when the screen is resized to a width smaller than a single line the line reflows and the start of a line can be distinguished from the reflowed part. For an example of what I mean look at the advanced formatting demo linked to in the calibre user manual in a resizable viewer. Make the viewer width less than the line width and see how the lines in the poem reflow.

[PhishStyx]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

That would not be reflowable, if the screen is made too small then the table will be cut off. A proper reflowable solution would have the image go onto the next line (this is achieved in epub using CSS floats). Also, in my experience, support for tables varies widely between different MOBI renderers.

After I downloaded Sigil because I was interested in producing game e-books, I noticed that there is very little table support and when I asked about tables, I was told quite specifically (in the Sigil forum here) that ePub tables do NOT reflow well. So I abandoned the idea and have continued with PDF's.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What you generally want with poetry is different levels of indentation for different lines, and you can certainly do that with Mobi. Was there anything specific that you had it mind that Mobi can't do when it comes to poetry?

What neither Mobipocket nor ePub can do is have lines of poetry be left-aligned, but any excess be right-aligned on the next line. Which is what you really want in lines of poetry.

One can get fairly good effects in both by using large negative first line indents.


But ePub is the far superior format, even just for text formatting purposes. You can't have Drop caps in Mobipocket at all. You can't have true smallcaps in Mobipocket.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Go Bill!

I always believed that mono in monopoly meant something entirely different.
But now I know better, and I am all for more monopolies like that.

Gooo Bill!!

Its a question of how you look at the ebook market. Yes, it is true that if the market is looked at as a whole, then there is no monopoly in the ebook market. However, that is not the only, or even the best way to look at it. If someone buys a kindle, they are no longer part of the larger ebook market -- at least with respect to books with DRM. For those books, there is only one place they can go. At a certain point, they are going to have enough books that they will not be willing to leave the Amazon ecosystem because they will loose the books they have bought (Assuming they can't or won't strip the DRM).

I wonder how people would react if car companies started building cars that needed an additive that only the individual car company could provide for the car to work?

--
Bill