Embedded Video Support in ePubs

Posted on | July 23, 2010 | No Comments

Videos in ePubs? Are you serious?

Well, eventually our books will look like the newspapers in Harry Potter movies (MPal, 2010). Just imagine, not just static images to embellish the text, but also the motion pictures and sound of people screaming and yelling in Azkaban.

But are we there yet?

This is what I found from a short googling on the matter. This is what I know to be true by Summer of 2010.

• Video and audio files are not part of the core media types that are supported per the current ePub standard (IDPF – OPS 2.0.1). However, the standard allows for embedding non-core media if an alternative core type is specified as a fallback. The result is that currently some readers support media types that other readers don’t. See the standard page.
• Apple iBooks can play embedded video in 3gp and m4v using HTML5 notation. See:
  • http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/2010/05/html5-video-works-on-ibooks-on-ipad.html
  • http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/15/using-html5-video-in-epub
• Bookworm is web-based reader, and it supports ePub with embedded flash video. See: http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/14/using-flash-video-in-epub/
• Sony Reader doesn’t support video.
• Comprehensive report on video and audio support on different readers are not yet to be created. This issue is tabled for later.
• Linking to resources outside of the ePub bundle is not suggested, but may not be fully restricted, if alternative media available. I know from previous experience that Bookworm and Calibre allows external media. However, iBooks on iPad crashed on some sample with external links without alternative embedded media.

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