Forum - View topicNEWS: Viz Sells Downloadable Manga via iPad App
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Vertical_Ed
Company Representative
Posts: 278 Location: New York, NY |
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Is it that difficult? Well actually yes it is at this time. Publishers generally provide PDFs of 1600dpi to printers. And if the industry standard were PDF we wouldn't have this issue sadly only a few providers including Direct2Drive are using PDFs right now. There are currently more than a dozen file formats being used by the various service providers. So to be truly agnostic a publisher/author needs to format their books into each one. Some are very specific as Apple has their own unique format. And they generally only accept files from a select few file converters unless the publisher/author is working through a traditional distributor like MacMillian, McGraw-Hill, HarperCollins (RandomHouse the largest is currently not working with Apple). While ePub is becoming the standard for regular books (lets forget about comics or manga as these pretty much have to be PDFs or something of that nature), Amazon's Kindle uses their own version of ePub, which basically turns books into freeflowing text files similar to a hybrid of an .html file and a .txt files (yup notepad). The Kindle is so much of a pain in this regard that Amazon does not recommend photos or even simple things like bullet points, unique fonts (take foreign languages or kanji/kana) or even proper footnoting as these can mess up pages or require additional code to be added to the file, essentially messing up the file flow. So even looking at files between different versions of the Kindle can result in different issues (IE a PC version versus the Kindle 3G version or the Kindle on iPhone version). Imagine having to do this a dozen times or so for just one book, when normally a production manager (who may not know HTML or any coding for that matter) just has to convert inDesign files to PDF I will say that the ePub coalition is working on a new version that will read right to left fonts, add asian fonts and add two-page spreads. But that won't be coming until mid-2011 at the earliest. And who knows how quickly it will be universally accepted or if it will be at all as things are changing rapidly. Ultimately QC is the tough part. We are going to launch some eBook novels in 2011 and will be working with our distributor Random House to do so. If we work through them they'll handle the QC'ing and file conversion that should cover more than 2 dozen major eBook services. If we went at it alone, that would be a pain in the butt as we'd basically have to make sure those quotation marks or diacritics (grave or acute) are all there and not turning into mumbo jumbo like "sak#" (instead of sake). [edit: adding PSP info] We were courted by The PlayStation Network over the Summer to be the first manga pub on the PSP (mainly because of our ties to Tezuka). While rights issues held us back, formatting files was another issue. This was another proprietary file format and we were told by the PSN that formatting a page should take around 10 to 30min of work, as they ask publishers to cut up each page into a sequence of flowing panels (kinda like a slideshow). Well not every panel is the same size and sometimes panels cross over pages...Tezuka's books in particular have tons of panels, as well. So when we were using their developer kit to format one of our books it really ended up taking forever to do a chapter. And yeah, the PSP network was not looking at distributing whole tankobon, they asked (at the time) to provide individual chapters on a scheduled basis. Sadly it's still early days in this part of the market. So until the format wars, and to some extent the hardware wars, end agnostic/multi-platform conversion will be something of an issue. Last edited by Vertical_Ed on Wed Nov 03, 2010 11:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
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The Mad Manga Massacre
Posts: 1172 |
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As nice as this news is, it really means nothing to me until they announce this app on the iPod Touch/iPhone. They say there is "more to come" (more platforms) so I cross my fingers it means what I hope it means (that it'll be released for the iPod Touch/iPhone). I just hope "more to come" means in the near future (next couple of weeks, though I doubt that's what it means). It'll be interesting to see how Viz expands/uses their digital services.
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LUNI_TUNZ
 Posts: 809 |
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Aren't iPad apps convertible on iPhone? |
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Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2175 |
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This is a step in the direction I want, although it's still a misstep imo. Personally, I could care less about actually owning manga. I've got Netflix and Crunchyroll. I think that the model of paying monthly to access a library of content should be an option down the line.
Viz titles take up more than 80% of my manga collection so if they offered a service like this, I'd be in day one. As it is right now, I can't ever see myself purchasing a single digital manga. |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6372 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Glad to see more manga going to the Ipad (and the Iphone, I assume). Now for the PSP owners like me, when will this come to the PSP. We have the digital comic reader already, and a lot of people with PSP and are reading comic book are very desperate.
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RedSwirl
 Posts: 344 |
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To be perfectly honestly I actually am getting an iPad as a laptop replacement.
The iOS already contains every function In need in terms of mobile computing (my main system will always be a desktop) and the iPad costs half as much as the kind of laptop I'd need to get. I stopped using my last laptop completely when I got my iPhone. I'm just getting this one for the extra screen real estate and iWorks (with the keyboard). |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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In a sense, since almost everybody except Apple will be able to use Flash, all they need is a flash comic reader that works as well as eManga's, and they could say, "here's the comics online, and for those of you who prefer to live inside Apple's walled garden, you can buy volumes one at a time as downloads". I was going along for months thinking nobody had a usable Flash manga reader for my netbook, when it turns out it was just the site that has a usable manga reader for a netbook is chock full of manga I am not particularly interested in reading (though, I hasten to add, YMMV). |
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Sunday Silence
 Posts: 2047 |
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So basically, it's a cluster**** of competing formats, machines, and companies that are holding back eBooks. In the immortal words of Onslow from "Keeping Up Appearances": Oh, Nice! |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1525 |
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You make it sound so hopeless 
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Sunday Silence
Posts: 2047 |
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Compared to CD's and Books and MP3's, all you need is just one format to use said item. Whether it be a CD player, a MP3 player, or....your own two eyes. Why is it hard to do the same with eBooks? |
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