Why no discussion of HTML as a book format?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by pittendrigh

How well the multimedia works in or on your device relates to the quality of the programmer(s) who made it. This is a technology in development.

The technology is in a state of flux.

Multimedia is too big to store on a phone. There is no technical reason phones couldn't stream video (show it but don't save it). But they don't yet

This is mostly nonsense. In most situations still images are better than video for instructional material. You can go at your own speed and backwards and forwards easily.

I had a multimedia company in the later 1990s. The technology was almost mature then. Now the difference is that it all works on most smart phones.
The phones CAN store it OR stream it.

The technology isn't in a state of flux.

An app is the best solution for a phone or tablet. Not trying to shoe-horn stuff into ebooks which won't work on real ebook readers.

There are even tool kits for over twenty years to build multimedia applications and distribute them. Android and iOS have the modern equivalents. At the top end the Unreal engine can be used for Multimedia, not just games. Games need audio, video, text, a database and interaction. A decent gaming engine is one route to build a phone/tablet app. However it's not that hard to do text, audio and video with a simple book like interface from scratch in iOS or Android. The libraries are out there. It's a solved problem with mature software.

Even my six or seven year old Sony-Ericsson 4.25" approx smartphone has enough storage via 32 G SD card and a good enough screen for ebooks (I test ebooks on it) or multimedia. It can manage streaming video from 3G or WiFi either full screen or in a window. Using Mpeg4 the storage isn't a problem either.

There used to be Multimedia books called Encyclopedias. Wikipedia killed them off. They ran with MUCH less RAM, screen and CPU than a smartphone has even a few years ago. They often came on ONE 0.65G Byte CD. You'd fit over 30 of them and other stuff on an old iPhone 4s!

[Deskisamess]

There are birding apps that work very well.

You don't have to see a bird to have it count on your daily list. Birding works on an honor system. If you heard a Pileated Woodpecker but didn't see it you still get to put it on your list. All birders accept this.

Nope, this isn't correct.

[philja]

The evolution of reading technology will continue. We've seen broadcast media tech converge with computer tech so you can fetch your movies on a tablet and cast the picture to your large screen tv. Just the same way, convergence will occur in reading devices and the present pandemic has put pressure on teaching systems. This can only speed up the convergence.

Fiction readers will not be obliged to look at embedded media but for many non-fiction projects, audio and visual media will only make the teaching more accessible.

In any case, I am with the responder above who hates the self-starting videos on webpages. I also hit the back button. The consumer should always be in control.

After noting a reply above where pdf's were mentioned, I've been experimenting with embedded audio and video in a pdf. I used LibreOffice Writer to embed the clips, about 10 - 15 seconds long, in the document, and then exported to pdf.

In my pdf reader running in linux, both the video and audio clip could be played but there were problems particularly with the video.

First, the window for the video seems to have to be of a format used for video screens, 4:3, 16:9 or similar. The clip which I wanted to use to enhance the written description needed to display full width for clarity but didn't need more than half the vertical height of the video display box. So a large part of the page was wasted. The video display canvas must be adjustable to the author's requirements.

The second problem I encountered was that once the video displayed, there didn't seem to be any way to close the video box and when I scrolled up or down to another page, the video either stayed permanently on top or filled up with a random text from the document.

I tried my test pdf document on a Windows10 box using Adobe Acrobat Reader. An Adobe notice came up saying that a supplementary video reader was required and providing a hyperlink to Adobe's website. Unfortunately, that link just lead to a "404 not found" page.

So it doesn't look like the pdf format is the magic bullet solution required and in any case, pdfs give poor results on most reading devices because not reflowable.

I wish I understood more about video tech and its applications.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by philja

The evolution of reading technology will continue. We've seen broadcast media tech converge with computer tech so you can fetch your movies on a tablet and cast the picture to your large screen tv.

I wish I understood more about video tech and its applications.

That's totally trivial. The hard bit is the Video playout servers. That sort of technology is 20 years old.

Reading is about reading. If it's multimedia, then you use an app or a web page. It can be on the phone, laptop, tablet, in the so called smart TV or displayed on the "TV" via cable or RF (casting is just one protocol using RF).

I was writing technical documents about VOD (Video On Demand) aka Streaming twenty years ago and building multimedia programs for PCs with only 800 x 600 high colour and even 640 x 480 by 256 colours with adaptive palettes so each photo (only one on screen at a time with the text) looked naturalnearly twenty-five years ago.

PDFs are for proofing for paper printing, but can be useful for fixed layout documents on 10" and bigger screens. No animation at all, by design.

For multimedia, that's text, stills, video, gifs and audio, you need an app. Even HTML5 is poor compared to an app. It's not that hard.

[pittendrigh]

Someone above, who claimed to be a multimedia professional, actually said a series of still images and diagrams do a better job than video for instructional purposes. I have many hobbies. Try demonstrating that in the (fishing) fly tying and lure making context.

Is phone memory big enough to store video? Sure for a few, but not for much video. For what ever reason video is not well supported yet, in the ebook context. It could be. It will be. In the meantime HTML5 is an interesting idea that has a largely unfulfilled niche market.

Here's one more argument NOT yet mentioned. I don't know about book publishing in the general context. I do know a lot about fishing books. I'm an author with perhaps 20 publications in glossy, nationally distributed fishing magazines (which are all dying now as we speak). I'm working on a book. It's about half written now. In the fishing book industry unproven authors who write a book typically swing a deal with a paper technology publisher to make a first printing of 6000 books, where the author gets $1 dollar ro $2 dollars per book sold. That makes an upper bound gross profit of $12,000.

What were your expenses? Did you travel in order to write this book? Did it take you four years to complete your project? This isn't very good money.

I have been selling blue prints and written boat building instructions since the late 1980s. I used to have blueprints made plus a spiral bound notebook of smaller diagrams and written instructions. I sold my blueprints for $135 dollars as late the late 1990s.

As a guy who earned a CS degree late in life I was an early adopter of the internet. I now sell a password for $25 dollars that grants access to several hundred pages of how-to-do-it boat building instructions, diagrams, photographs, downloadable generic cad files and to growing extent video. I make a lot more money than I ever did packaging up paper blueprints. All of this is presented in a book-like format with Next Page, Previous Page and Return to Last Read Page buttons, plus a Table of Contents that collapses and expands with a mouse click. A searchable keyword index will happen this winter. That's almost trivial with mysqlite. Other features will evolve. Steadily. This winter I will write a few pages of Python code that runs from cron, that will create a downloadable version of my book in epub3 format. For those who want it.

If I sold an HTML5 book online, about something other than boat building (I'm working on it now) I will sell it for $25 dollars too, and I wlll get all $25 dollars, not the $1.50 a publisher would dangle at me.

There is a need for book-like HTML. I'm not arguing it will replace epub. It won't. It will, however, be very useful in some contexts. It already is. I use it and sell it every day. Because of Social Media advertising I sell more online boat plans every year. Because I present it in book-like fashion my customers are all happy. I offer a no-conditions refund to every new customer. "I don't need a reason (for a refund) my order form says. "Just a request." .................I get one refund request every two years or so. No problem. There is nothing for anyone to package up. These are digital assets. It all happens with a mouse click.

[pittendrigh]

One more observation.

I mentioned fly tying (making small fly fishing lures). Search youtube. There are tens of thousands of fly tying and lure making videos on youtube now already. It's astonishing how many there are. Why? There are too many intricate steps. You cannot teach complex stuff entirely with words and still images. Video rocks.

But the corollary is true too. Video only is severely inadequate. The fly tying videos mentioned above nearly all suffer from the excruciating presence of a long-winded talking heads. Too many youtube authors feel the need for background discussion. Some viewers need it. Some don't. When I click on a youtube video only to be greeted by three minutes of talking I usually click away.

Background discussion is important. Some readers (primarily beginners) need it. Some don't. Background resources and context discussion should be presented as optional text, rather than as an annoying talking head. The meat and potatoes how to do it video should be short quick and to the point. You can't do that on youtube now. Not yet anyway.

Try combining a smile with smoothly-flowing imagination rather than knitted eyebrow negativity. Video enhanced ebooks have their place. Online books will be a useful part of the overall big picture. It's already starting to happen.

Online ebooks have the potential to be far more profitable to the authors, albeit at the publisher's expense. That's the best part of all.

[Deskisamess]

You cannot teach complex stuff entirely with words and still images.

Really? That's quite an absolute statement.

The fly tying videos mentioned above nearly all suffer from the excruciating presence of a long-winded talking heads. Too many youtube authors feel the need for background discussion.

The written word can also be bloated and long winded.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by pittendrigh

I mentioned fly tying (making small fly fishing lures). Search youtube. There are tens of thousands of fly tying and lure making videos on youtube now already. It's astonishing how many there are. Why? There are too many intricate steps. You cannot teach complex stuff entirely with words and still images. Video rocks.

Too true. I managed to teach myself knitting before Al Gore invented the internet but it would have been so much nicer with videos or sitting next to someone.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by pittendrigh

Someone above, who claimed to be a multimedia professional, actually said a series of still images and diagrams do a better job than video for instructional purposes. I have many hobbies. Try demonstrating that in the (fishing) fly tying and lure making context.

Is phone memory big enough to store video? Sure for a few, but not for much video. For what ever reason video is not well supported yet, in the ebook context.

I learnt fly tying without video. Some things need a mentor, a teacher. I agree some things need video, in an app, not YouTube or Frankenstein's Monster misuse of the term ebook.

It's nonsense what you keep claiming about phone memory and video.

Ebooks absolutely should never have animation or video. They are an electronic delivered version of paper books. Add Video and/or Animation and it's no longer an ebook. Available since before Smart phones existed on PCs with probably less than 1/20th of CPU and RAM and a 1/50th of the storage.

Why try to invent a new format or destroy ebooks when what you need already existed on PCs twenty-five years ago and on smartphones as an app for over ten years?

Use a multimedia app to combine video, stills, audio and text.

[pittendrigh]

"Ebooks absolutely should never have animation or video. They are an electronic delivered version of paper books"

As mentioned earlier, we need another name. Instead of ebooks perhaps we'll call them potatoes.

RE> "I learned to tie flies from a book"

You didn't learn how to make a "Game Changer" in a book. No ever has and no one ever will. It's far too complicated to describe in words. On youtube however, you can take your pick. There are dozens of tutorials.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pittendrigh

"Ebooks absolutely should never have animation or video. They are an electronic delivered version of paper books"

As mentioned earlier, we need another name. Instead of ebooks perhaps we'll call them potatoes.

eBooks with audio and/or video should be made into apps.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

eBooks with audio and/or video should be made into apps.

There is a reasonable use case for a file format that includes text, audio and video in a standard form, so that a custom app doesn't have to be developed and installed for every separate publication.

I would have thought that this was obvious.

Whether that format should be called an ebook is a separate question. If you don't like using ebook for that format, suggest a better one.

[BetterRed]

electronicmediabook

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

electronicmediabook

I like to call it eDstraction.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

electronicmediabook

I could go for embook or even just mediabook, c.f. audiobook