Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[JimH]

There have been a few requests for digital book support in the past.  I'm curious how much interest there is now in adding basic support to MC or Panel.

Is EPUB the right format to support?  I realize there are others, but we would need to start with one.

Thanks for your feedback.

Jim

[tyler69]

Is it possible to create polls here? Might be benefitial for some matters.

For the epub support: In general I would be happy if MC only supported video/audio and that in a most sophisticated way (AV support is already good in the windows version btw) rather than being a swiss knife for any kind of digital media. In my opinion adding another not AV related feature bloats (with all the implications) the software. I'd put my ressources into updating/restructuring the Wiki, looking into usability issues, among others. I think there are several AV related requests that come up every now and then but do not get any love.

I use iBooks for reading epubs and it does that perfectly fine (maybe because it just does that). I do not think that I'd use MC for reading ebooks.

[leezer3]

Please

There are two main formats for digital books.
ePub and AZW

ePub is the commonly used solution for anything *other* than the amazon Kindle.
The Kindle solely takes AZW files.

Depending on the exact device & source for the book, there are various types of DRM (plenty of proprietary) which may be involved.


I'd say a good first target would be reading of standard ePub files with no DRM.
That shouldn't actually be too hard, as all an ePub really is is a zipped set of HTML files, along with metadata. (Gross over-simplification, but valid)

[JimH]

... rather than being a swiss knife for any kind of digital media. In my opinion adding another not AV related feature bloats (with all the implications) the software.

I like Swiss Army Knives.  I've carried one for a few decades and use it several times every day.

If you think we're misguided.  I understand.  You could always get a better AV experience from .....  oh wait.

[JimH]

I also think that books will come back, once they are considered cool again.  Think what's happened to LP's.

[drmimosa]

Could be a tough market. I'm not sure how to move my ebooks from Kindle to other apps, or if it is legal to do so.

If JRiver could rip all my paper books, that's another story...

[JimH]

I don't think we would try anything with Amazon, at least in the beginning.

There are a lot of great books in the public domain.

http://www.gutenberg.org/

[leezer3]

Could be a tough market. I'm not sure how to move my ebooks from Kindle to other apps, or if it is legal to do so.

If JRiver could rip all my paper books, that's another story...

There's IMHO a place for paper books.

I've got massive amounts of reference material I'd never want to digitalize (Searchable index yes, but when I'm looking for a specific diagram, I tend to then want to read it somewhere other than the PC), and I actually rather like the feel of reading a large paperback book.
The e-Reader (Kobo Touch original) is good especially for storing large amounts of stuff, but it's nowhere near perfect yet.

[tyler69]

I like Swiss Army Knives.  I've carried one for a few decades and use it several times every day.

If you think we're misguided.  I understand.  You could always get a better AV experience from .....  oh wait.

I had a feeling you'd reply something like this Anyway, I never stated that I think you are misguided. MC is a great tool. I use it daily. I was just stating my preferences. The AV experience is good on windows, the user experience has potential though.

I also think that books will come back, once they are considered cool again.  Think what's happened to LP's.

LP's are a niche market. They will never "come back". It's just that they "overlive" digital physical formats imo.

[mattkhan]

No interest from me, something like improved multiroom/zone audio or increased Linux feature parity seem like worthier targets to me (i.e. make the core product better before adding more stuff especially where the suggested addition is already well served in the market)

[JimH]

No interest from me, something like improved multiroom/zone audio or increased Linux feature parity seem like worthier targets to me

We're working on both.

[mattkhan]

We're working on both.

great

fwiw, and you might know this already, but adding support to panel might be pretty straightforward using something like https://github.com/readium/readium-js

[oie]

Hi,
ePub heavy user here.
Calibre software (free) is excellent. Maybe worth to look at. Main "lack" is remote acces to library and or limited access to library on the cloud (just Dropbox and one drive?). No possibility to run library on a Nas. There are ways around these "issues " but not tidy.
Something similar to Calibre improving its shortcuts would be welcome.
Thanks
Regards,
O

[xpto]

Jim,

I'm a fan of eBooks and would love to have MC manage my eBook library.

In my view books are also 'media', i.e., a material or form used by an artist, composer, or writer. Music, movies and books are all examples.

I believe what user 'syndromeofadown' refers at the following post is a good start:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,87545.0.html

Having by default in MC the customization that syndromeofadown refers on his 1st post on that thread is, IMHO, the right direction.

Then there's the "Get cover art" for eBook aspect that could be greatly enhanced, right now there are a few tricks to achieve that but it is not straightforward.

Being able to query for info on a book (Publisher, date of release, Author, ISBN, etc) based on the book's name after import would allow us to populate the database with meaningful info.

I vote for pdf support along with epub as they are the most popular eBook formats (that I'm aware).

Using Panel to download securely an eBook from my collection while travelling the world would complete the picture.

Most clients where Panel will run will have some sort of pdf, epub reader already installed (or it will be trivial to get one).

Thanks for bringing up this topic,

xpto

[mwillems]

FWIW, I would be a big fan of being able to read epubs and pdfs natively in jriver, especially via something like panel.  I'm currently running a calibre server alongside my jriver server and I'd much rather just run a jriver server.  Most of the background library support already exists: you can import e-books into jriver , serve them via media server, etc.  You just need an external program to open the actual files right now.

I'll second the suggestion to check out Calibre's content server for some thoughts of what the state of the field is.  Calibre does a lot of things very well, but has some definite limitations too.

[syndromeofadown]

epub, pdf, and cbz should be main supported file formats. DRM free only of coarse.

The thing that would set JRiver apart from the piles of reading apps would be the ability to fill a server with documents that could be accessed over internet. A Pi would be especially good for this. YACreader has a Pi server for comics but it only works on home networks. I believe there is a company that makes a comic server that is accessible over the internet. I remember it was expensive, complicated and poorly reviewed. What I'm getting at is that there is a market for this.

If you are looking for inspiration:
An example of a perfect, and simple, cbz reader is ComicsPlusPlus in the windows app store.
An example of a decent epub reader is Bookviser. Also in the windows store.
I haven't used a decent pdf viewer on any device other than a desktop PC. Levels of zoom are always an issue.