Container Research Committee
From zedwiki
Contents |
EPUB Compatible Container
Here's a straw man container layout, which is an extension of [1] / 2.3.2.
Abstract Container:
index.html [for dumb web browsers, points into OEBPS] META-INF/ container.xml [the root of the container, contains references to each profile] [manifest.xml] [not really sure if this is needed... maybe we exclude to keep it simple; see: [2]] [metadata.xml] [unnecessary ... maybe we exclude to keep it simple] [signatures.xml] [perhaps unnecessary?] [encryption.xml] [useful, as a replacement for pdtb?] [rights.xml] [useful for international distributers] compression.xml [propose we add this to allow per-file compression; for backwards/EPUB compatibility, OEBPS contents cannot be compressed] OEBPS/ [required, for epub readers] foo.opf foo.html chapters/ .... Z3986-2005/ [optional, allows quick juryrigging of existing daisy players for backwards compatibility?] foo.opf foo.xml foo.ncx foo.smil ... Z3986-2010-X/ [required, light profile] ... Z3986-2010-Y/ [optional...] ... Z3986-2010-Z/ [optional...] MEDIA/ [required if relevant profiles exist] video/ ... image/ ... audio/ ...
The overall container can be bundled as a ZIP (for general compatibility, at the cost of streaming) or TAR (to allow streaming).
Format Evaluation
The following table gives a brief summary of the different container formats that were investigated. The container format names in the column headers are linked to pages with more discussion, including pointers to their technical specification.
| + | OCF/OEBPS | OPC/OOXML | ODF/OASIS | UCF/MARS | ZIP | RAR | TAR/Gzip | File Systems | MXF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Playback suitability | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes* | Yes | |
| Transfer suitability | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Streaming suitability | No | No | No | No | No | No? | Yes / No | Yes | |
| Progressive playback suitability | No | No | No | No | No | Yes / No | Yes | ||
| Encryption support | W3C Encryption | No | W3C Encryption | No | PK (PBE), AES | AES with 128-bit key length | No | Some | No |
| Industry support | IDPF, Open eBook | Microsoft OOXML | OASIS, Open Office | Adobe | Bookshare | ||||
| Multimedia support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Compression support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Optional | Some | No |
| Licensing | Open | Open | Open | Open | Open | Proprietary | Open | Open | |
| Straw man example | Media:Mybook.epub.zip | Media:Odfsample.zip |
Group Information
Members
- Reuben Firmin (lead) (Benetech)
- John Brugge (Benetech)
- Hiro Fujimori (Plextor)
- Dominic Labbé (HumanWare)
- Ian Mailhot (HumanWare)
- Lloyd Rasmussen (NLS)
- Nick Williamson (RNIB)
