RE: [AudioTF] Some helpful comments from an audio publisher

> I've seen discussions about forcing an audiobook to have an entry page (even if it doesn't need one) and the issue about the ToC in JSON is still open.

 

It does beg the question whether we keep trying too hard to make one format to rule them all, at the expense of simplicity where it’s needed? Would an audiobook format that is the same as a WPUB in all aspects except the address/entry page/toc be such a bad thing, if those who want it to be capable of being both can just add in the optional pieces?

 

With the exception of the address, it also seems pretty simple to write a program that could process such audiobook to add an html page with an embedded toc.

 

Matt

 

From: Hadrien Gardeur <hadrien.gardeur@feedbooks.com> 
Sent: December 20, 2018 09:48
To: Reid, Wendy <wendy.reid@rakuten.com>
Cc: W3C Publishing Working Group <public-publ-wg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: [AudioTF] Some helpful comments from an audio publisher

 

Well, this feedback is almost completely aligned with what was proposed in the first comment of the issue: https://github.com/w3c/wpub/issues/352

 

There's a very strong anti-M4B feeling, which I'm not really surprised about.

 

Some additional feedback though:

 

Avoid HTML. Seriously. Same for XML. Let the applications (and there will need to be application support) read and render the JSON data

 

I don't think we've solved this issue entirely. I've seen discussions about forcing an audiobook to have an entry page (even if it doesn't need one) and the issue about the ToC in JSON is still open.

 

Store metadata in a manifest file, not in the audio

 

I'm not entirely sure what that means. In our case, metadata about the publication are in the manifest but metadata about audio resources are in the resource.

 

This potentially goes back to https://github.com/w3c/wpub/issues/229

 

Array items can be hashes, containing *anything*. This is where I would include file hashes, runtimes, and anything specific to the display of the file (font, format, label, etc etc)

 

We don't have a way to indicate the hash of a resource currently. Is it worth considering?