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The Calibre Content Server

manual.calibre-ebook.com

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Re: The Calibre Content Server

#121

Post by oridecon »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #118
oridecon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it even matter when the people using these numbers will distort the facts anyway? (this may not apply that much to books but most types of content are usually filled with DRM garbage, region restrictions, usually have worse quality and distribution methods, and they pretend to not understand why people choose to pirate it)

If you think most people who pirate are aware of region restrictions or notice the quality difference, I think you're mistaken. That's a rationale that some idealists use, but most people would just rather not pay. Streaming video piracy sites are becoming more popular than downloading, and that's usually poorer quality and worse interfaces than the official sources.

> but most people would just rather not pay

These people wouldn't pay no matter what you do so it's not really relevant. I'm talking about people who resort to piracy because they can't pay to get what they want. Or the value just isn't justifiable.

For example, I feel cheated when I have to wait months for content to be available in my country. Sometimes years (or not ever). So I go and download some torrent since I can't buy the content anyway. And now I'm one of the numbers on their spreadsheets.

If licensing is broken or too hard to manage, they should spent the money fixing that instead of going after "pirates".

Re: The Calibre Content Server

#122

Post by criddell »

e12e wrote: post #112
bykovich2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you guys so concerned about authors trying to control the profitless distribution of their product? I'm being serious -- what's the issue?

The other day I walked past a few used book stores. I'm quite sure many of the publishers are out of business - yet the books can be read. Books only available behind solid DRM will dissappear along with those who operate the drm system. Never mind the fact that they allow for virtual book burning by taking control over the DRM. See Microsoft zune, yahoo music. Consider that we still read books that are 100s of years…

Copyright doesn't last forever, but DRM can. That's actually a pretty big problem. Maybe DRM vendors should have to share the key and an unlock method with the librarian of Congress?

Re: The Calibre Content Server

#123

Post by michaelmrose »

jl6 wrote: post #102

I am a happy user of Calibre and am grateful for the work the author has done, but I've never heard a convincing explanation of why it is so slow when adding books and updating metadata. 10-15 seconds to add a 500KB ePub. I have apps that will transcode 4K video at a higher throughput than that. What's it doing?!

2 seconds to add a 12MB pdf

Calibre 2.85 Funtoo Linux Current reading a file from a ssd that wasn't previously cached or opened prior to test. Same speed with a 300k file therefore obviously time is dominated by whatever calibre does when it adds a book not reading the file.

Re: The Calibre Content Server

#124

Post by michaelmrose »

throwanem wrote: post #14
rufugee wrote: post #11

I've been searching for a solution to handle the various ebooks I buy and to allow me to annotate them in a centrally stored location. I have kindle purchases, pdfs, epubs, and mobis from various publishers. Moon Reader ( http://www.moondownload.com ) would be great if it had a desktop or web-based client...however, it's only supported on Android. If Calibre can give me this experience, it's value just increased imme…

"Note: "On initial release, the book reader is fully functional but is missing some more advanced features from the main calibre viewer, such as popup footnotes, bookmarks and annotations in general. These will be added in due course. In fact, the browser reader is designed to eventually replace the main viewer, once it matures."

On mobile I would rather use something that doesn't stop working when I don't have internet access. I kind of expect any browser based reader to be thoroughly mediocre compared to actual clients.

Re: The Calibre Content Server

#125

Post by audi100quattro »

sohkamyung wrote: post #34
criddell wrote: post #4

I've always just used Calibre because it's a nice way for me to strip DRM and then archive my books. I've never really used it any kind of active way. Since I buy pretty much everything from Amazon, I already effectively have a content server. Does anybody have a link to an online server (with public domain books)? I'm curious to see what the presentation is like. What's the typography like? Does the screen dim after…

My response is to avoid buying ebooks from Amazon if possible. Most of my purchases are from Weightless Books [1] which sells only DRM free books and magazines. Granted, this is a limited and small market (SF related stuff) but if I have a choice of getting a book DRM free from a vendor or getting it from Amazon, I would avoid Amazon, even if its price was cheaper. [1] https://weightlessbooks.com/

I will buy DRM-free when it's available, but stripping DRM from Kindle Store is the next best option, and usually cheaper too.

Amazon should have an DRM-free option or fingerprinting option for publishers. I am not sure if it does. I believe some publishers would be fine with fingerprinting, since that is what they do on their own sites when you buy a PDF (Springer is one). All the Gutenberg books on Amazon are DRM-free I believe, and it's just more convenient to get them there if you have a kindle and have a significant collection of eBooks from the last few years.

Re: The Calibre Content Server

#126

Post by ReverseCold »

yunyu wrote: post #78
peternicky wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, while Electron apps have trade offs, I never experience the experience of clunkiness I find with Calibre.

Try resizing a window in any Electron app. Bonus points if you have display scaling enabled.

Works fine. That's not the issue with electron (for me at least), it's battery life/power consumption.

Re: The Calibre Content Server

#127

Post by throwanem »

michaelmrose wrote: post #124
throwanem wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Note: "On initial release, the book reader is fully functional but is missing some more advanced features from the main calibre viewer, such as popup footnotes, bookmarks and annotations in general. These will be added in due course. In fact, the browser reader is designed to eventually replace the main viewer, once it matures."

On mobile I would rather use something that doesn't stop working when I don't have internet access. I kind of expect any browser based reader to be thoroughly mediocre compared to actual clients.

"The server downloads and stores the book you are reading in an off-line cache so that you can read it even when there is no internet connection."

Re: The Calibre Content Server

#128

Post by leggomylibro »

criddell wrote: post #122
e12e wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other day I walked past a few used book stores. I'm quite sure many of the publishers are out of business - yet the books can be read. Books only available behind solid DRM will dissappear along with those who operate the drm system. Never mind the fact that they allow for virtual book burning by taking control over the DRM. See Microsoft zune, yahoo music. Consider that we still read books that are 100s of years…

Copyright doesn't last forever, but DRM can. That's actually a pretty big problem. Maybe DRM vendors should have to share the key and an unlock method with the librarian of Congress?

Good idea - and if the Feds think that asking for backdoors in encryption is reasonable, I don't see how they could possibly disagree with that.

Re: The Calibre Content Server

#129

Post by watersb »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #118
oridecon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it even matter when the people using these numbers will distort the facts anyway? (this may not apply that much to books but most types of content are usually filled with DRM garbage, region restrictions, usually have worse quality and distribution methods, and they pretend to not understand why people choose to pirate it)

If you think most people who pirate are aware of region restrictions or notice the quality difference, I think you're mistaken. That's a rationale that some idealists use, but most people would just rather not pay. Streaming video piracy sites are becoming more popular than downloading, and that's usually poorer quality and worse interfaces than the official sources.

> but most people would just rather not pay

I purchase out-of-print paper books, but I would really like to get out of the dead-tree-storage business.

A couple of years ago we donated most of our 3000 books to our school. I still have boxes, though. Mostly textbooks, because textbook sales terms have become even more exorbitant than when we were students.

I would gladly pay for eBook copies of the novels I own and enjoy. Many are simply not for sale.

And textbook market is getting weird: either $200 each, or open courseware for little or no $$.

Re: The Calibre Content Server

#130

Post by paulcole »

sohkamyung wrote: post #34
criddell wrote: post #4

I've always just used Calibre because it's a nice way for me to strip DRM and then archive my books. I've never really used it any kind of active way. Since I buy pretty much everything from Amazon, I already effectively have a content server. Does anybody have a link to an online server (with public domain books)? I'm curious to see what the presentation is like. What's the typography like? Does the screen dim after…

My response is to avoid buying ebooks from Amazon if possible. Most of my purchases are from Weightless Books [1] which sells only DRM free books and magazines. Granted, this is a limited and small market (SF related stuff) but if I have a choice of getting a book DRM free from a vendor or getting it from Amazon, I would avoid Amazon, even if its price was cheaper. [1] https://weightlessbooks.com/

>My response is to avoid buying ebooks from Amazon if possible.

Why? Just because of DRM?

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