which format will win?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Semantics or not.............

Stating "DRM prevents you from making a useable backup" is akin to stating "house fire prevents you from making a usable backup"

Let's see.. If I had purchased PDF with DRM from Amazon (when they sold them) and had them backed up, the backup would right now be 100% useless as there is no way I can strip the DRM or have a program to be able to view those files due to the DRM. So sometimes DRM can make backups useless. But these days since we can strip DRM, backups will be better then the originals.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John F

Just as an aside.

I had an opposite experience. I have a Sony 505. I bought a DRMd book (LRX). I had it backed up. Sony support had me reset my device (I was having some problems with their software). I copied the file back to my 505. Now, I cannot read the book on the device. Sony is fine with my inability to read the book. The device and the book were purchased within the past year.

But you should be able to go back to Sony and redownload that eBook in ePub which you will be able to view on your 505.

[JSWolf]

DRM prevents you from making a backup that you you can 100% reliably say you will be able to use should you need to restore it sometime in the future.

[DawnFalcon]

PKFFW -

No, there are files which are useful backups and there are files which are not. DRM outside your control means it's not a useful backup. It's precisely the same issue. Simply copying media does not mean you've necessarily made a backup...

Your constant accusations I'm morally wrong are amusing and typical...

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by orwell2k

FB2 is pure XML so the book has a heap of marked-up text than can then be interpreted by the reader of choice and displayed with almost limitless felxibility.

Um, orwell, ePub's XHTML. There's not a massive amount of difference to chose from between the formats, you realise? Yes, the ePub renderers on devices need improving, but that doesn't reflect on the standards specification itself!

What you're talking about with fonts and CSS is perfectly possible for ePub - and the more advanced renderers such as Bookworm do that and more (MathML, embedded video, etc.)

as an analogy with something from the old space race days. The problem was to solve how to write in zero-G environments.

Urban Legend

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That was done with MathML. But as for the long lines, just make the window narrower and the long lines won't be so long.

But the whitespace usage will become more inconsistent if I do that, hence, in actual circumstances that matter, it won't look as nice.

I know ePub does not currently support hyphenation. So yes, you can get word spacing that may be a tad larger then you'd like. The f-series ligatures is not really an issue at all.

It is an issue if I want them and can't get them. You said that your ePub looked better than my PDF. I was just pointing out ways in which it looked worse.

The idea is not to see how PDF duplicates an ePub but to show that ePub is capable of doing it and doing it well.

But the point was ePub isn't capable of doing it right now. I do think it will be in the future, so the problem is not with the format in particular but the renderer.

Yes, PDF can duplicate anything that can be printed. But PDF cannot be reflowed. That ePub can be reflowed and still look good. If you reflow that PDF it won't look so good. So really, overall for readers, the ePub is way better despite anything you may feel is wrong with it.

No. What this shows is that ePub is a good choice for distribution, not that it is a good choice on your reader.

The only point of reflowing is to be able to get the font, font-size, etc., and other layout features you prefer from the same source. You can take that source and create a PDF that has all the desired features you wish, plus additional features that are impossible display on an ePub on most devices. . Once the PDF already has your preferred layout, what would be the point of reflow?

So, again, my conclusion is that I'd rather acquire ePub than PDF, but I'd rather read PDF than ePub right now. (Of course, I'd really rather be given LaTeX source, but HTML-based source, like that found in ePub, is almost as good.) So again, my conclusion is that PDF is currently better for reading than ePub.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

.....DRM outside your control means it's not a useful backup......

As you and others have pointed out numerous times in the past, there is no DRM that is outside your control. There is no DRM scheme that can not be broken.

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Your constant accusations I'm morally wrong are amusing and typical...

You are the one who brought up the issue of morally wrong. I was merely trying to clarify exactly which circumstances you believe things to be morally wrong and which you do not.

If you re-read my posts I'm sure you will agree I have not accused you of anything.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

As you and others have pointed out numerous times in the past, there is no DRM that is outside your control. There is no DRM scheme that can not be broken.

If you want to commit a criminal offence, with penalties worse than the civil offence of downloading the book DRM-free from the darknet, that's up to you. However, I'm going with the assumption that I don't want to be a criminal at all.

"Potentially a backup" | Backup. S'all.

(Also, you're quite wrong - example: One Time Pads. Immune to "breaking" when used correctly)

[nick_]

Typography (pdf, latex) is important only when you want to print something on fixed sized paper.

If you want to view it on a screen it is counter-productive, since pages are meaningless on a screen, and screen sizes vary.

For screens the HTML format is much better. Therefore, epub will definitely win.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by nick_

Typography (pdf, latex) is important only when you want to print something on fixed sized paper.

If you want to view it on a screen it is counter-productive, since pages are meaningless on a screen, and screen sizes vary.

For screens the HTML format is much better. Therefore, epub will definitely win.

Well, except to be used professionally for citing etc. there must be some way to reference the "page" being cited.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well, except to be used professionally for citing etc. there must be some way to reference the "page" being cited.

Yep, that's a big issue for me being an academic.

But some standard location system would work. The Kindle has that, each "page" on the screen will have say location 678-675. You type in select go to location 678 and it will take you to that sport regardless of font size whether you're on a Kindle 1/2 or the DX with it's bigger screen etc.

We will need something like that for citing purposes etc. But at the same time, reflowing text doesn't work well for academic books (research findings, not textbooks--though it sucks for those too), journal articles etc. as text needs to be around certain figures, tables can't be broken up etc.

So for that realm I'm hoping we get some A4 sized readers and that becomes the standard for academic documents (A4 or smaller) and devices meant to read them (A4 screen or larger) so reflow isn't an issues. And stuff can just be displayed with the original pagination etc.

The documents may change in the future, but that doesn't change the fact of having 100+ years (depending on field) of research articles us academics need to read and be able to properly site. So an A4 screen is a major want for me.

[kennyc]

"Pages" in epub are always the same regardless of display/flow that's one of it's advantages to me.

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by nick_

Typography (pdf, latex) is important only when you want to print something on fixed sized paper.

Oh, it is, is it? Thank you for informing me. That stuff I wrote earlier about advantages to PDFs that have nothing to do with pages, like hyphenation and kerning and ligatures and consistent uses of whitespace, not to mention stack and river control and all the other aspects of typography not mentioned, are obviously not important to anyone. (I don't count obviously.) The entire art of typography of the past 500 years was a waste, and good riddance. Good thing we have insightful people like you around.

We have YouTube now, so what's with all this industry trying to make high quality movies and TV shows? Don't they know that's not necessary anymore?

(Geez. Not to mention that e-Ink readers do display one page at a time, so page-typography is relevant to them.)

For screens the HTML format is much better. Therefore, epub will definitely win.

Care to give a single reason for the claim that HTML is better?

Such claims are only made by people who are completely ignorant of one side of the argument. I know both HTML and LaTeX mark-ups; they're barely different. The latter is just a little easier to read, and more powerful. (Though the tide is shifting.) HTML is in some ways more convenient to parse, and is a little more consistent in its syntax, at least if it conforms to XHTML guidelines.

The real difference is not so much in the mark-up languages but the fact that there is already a typographically rich renderer for one, though it could be adapted to use the other's mark-up easily enough. In fact, there are LaTeX packages that can take (at least a subset of) HTML as input and deliver nice results, and things like Prince XML do pretty well with their own superior algorithms.

In any case, I'm not saying that ePub will lose. I don't think it will. I'm saying that in the future, hopefully, the display software for ePub will give typographically pleasing results. This is important whether on real paper or virtual paper.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

If you want to commit a criminal offence, with penalties worse than the civil offence of downloading the book DRM-free from the darknet, that's up to you. However, I'm going with the assumption that I don't want to be a criminal at all.

That is not a feature or consequence of the DRM itself but rather of ones' choice with regards to what to do with the DRM.

As an example think of a wall in the middle of a walkway between points A and B. That wall can only stop you from travelling from point A to point B if you choose not to go around or over it but instead simply continue to walk straight into it. In the case of one choosing to simply walk into the wall and not go around or over it, the wall itself isn't stopping the person from reaching point B it is their choice not to go around it that is stopping them.

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

"Potentially a backup" | Backup. S'all.

I don't understand this line.

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

(Also, you're quite wrong - example: One Time Pads. Immune to "breaking" when used correctly)

Oh my apologies then. I was merely going by the oft repeated claim(perhaps even by you but I couldn't be bothered going through every one of your posts to be sure one way or the other) on these boards that there is no DRM scheme that can not be broken. From what little I know about computers and computer code I believe that statement is correct and concur. If you are now saying that claim is incorrect then I will have to re-evaluate my subsequent claim and ascertain more definitively which is correct and which is not.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

If you want to commit a criminal offence, with penalties worse than the civil offence of downloading the book DRM-free from the darknet, that's up to you. However, I'm going with the assumption that I don't want to be a criminal at all.

Could you explain what activities in relation to DRM are criminal, please? This isn't a snipe, I'm interested in the answer.

(Also, you're quite wrong - example: One Time Pads. Immune to "breaking" when used correctly)

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Oh my apologies then. I was merely going by the oft repeated claim(perhaps even by you but I couldn't be bothered going through every one of your posts to be sure one way or the other) on these boards that there is no DRM scheme that can not be broken. From what little I know about computers and computer code I believe that statement is correct and concur.

DawnFalcon is correct in that a "one time pad" cannot be cracked "head on". A "one time pad" is an approach to encryption where both ends have a file full of random numbers (really random, e.g. from a radioactive source), which one uses to encrypt and the other to decrypt. You can only use this once (hence the name), then you need another one (otherwise, previous messages can be used to aid decryption). Because the encryption is truly random, there is no algorithm that can crack it - it's not an algorithmic approach. Most encryption in use today uses an algorithmic approach where the mathematics used is much faster one way than the other (like multiplying is much faster than dividing - only more so), and to decrypt it "head on" means taking the slow way around.

I don't see how this is relevant to DRM, however, because the way in which DRM is cracked is typically not by cracking the encryption, but by getting the user to provide the key, and decrypting in just the same way that the legitimate software being cracked does it. Even if there was a "one time pad" mechanism (which seems unlikely ever to be practical for a mass market), you could circumvent the DRM by applying the data in the same way that the legitimate software does.

In short, the reason that DRM can typically be bypassed is that it must be bypassed in order to give any access to the content at all. Whatever lock they put on the data, they must also provide the key - and this is their undoing.