There are many professional companies that provide excellent enhanced eBook conversion services. Though there are not many readers supporting all the superior features of enhanced versions, those that support these can offer incredible experience to the readers. Devices such as Kobo Arc, iPad, Nook Tablet and Nook Color support ePubs that are enriched with audio and video capabilities.
Enhanced ePub Files Formats
- Fixed-layout ePub 3: These formats with audio and video capabilities are supported by Google Play, Apple and Kobo. This has great potential as well as it can be distributed through such online stores.
- Standard ePub 2: Many of the tablet devices that are available today support standard ePub 2 files that have audio and video files embedded in them. This can be distributed through Google Play, Apple, Kobo and B&N. However, there is an exception that no service provider can enhance a B&N’s fixed-layout PagePerfect.
Enhanced Amazon Kindle KF8 and Mobi Files
- KF8: It is very disappointing to note that improved features like video and audio capability are not supported by Amazon’s KF8 fixed-layout format.
- Mobi: Audio and video contents embedded in an ePub file are supported standard format for Kindle books by Amazon. However, Mobi files with video or audio capabilities are not accepted by Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) system. Although, you can add the enhanced mobi files to Amazon by creating wholesaler account which is usually restricted for bigger publishers.
How can eBooks be boosted with audio and video?
Incorporation of audio and video is very simple for any professional service provider. Most of the times, service providers avails on-screen player control system with play/pause, stop and fast forward buttons incorporated in the code enabling the reader to play the media. The video or the audio plays till an external command—pause or stop—is given.
Narration can only be added to fixed-layout ePub 3 files used for children’s books.
File formats that can be embedded
An enhanced eBook conversion services provider must be able to convert any type of audio or video file to embeddable formats. That is never a headache for any professional eBook service provider. However, it is always advised to keep the size of the files embedded below 50MB as it makes rendering easier and better. The clients also must make sure that they have the copyrights to any files that are embedded.
Stay tuned to our blog posts for more information and updates about ePublishing industry.