Rich Media Format Reference

Overview

Audio and video support In ePub2 was somewhat erratic and "custom" with ADE only supporting Shockwave Flash, and eBooks supporting M4V and M4A. Audio and video are mandatorily supported in ePub3.

The official specification formats are MP4 for video and MP3 for audio.

MP4 and WebM will dominate video and MP3 will remain the dominant audio format. However as digital content becomes more ubiquitous and is used beyond e-book readers as HTML5 in various reading contexts, wide Web format support is required to make sure audio and video work everywhere. The SMIL audio book "A Christmas Carol" available from the AZARDI Online demonstration site is an example of this. It uses both MP3 and OGG audio so it works in all browsers.

IGP:Digital Publisher incorporates video and audio format conversion and size optimization on the fly during packaging. So this table is important for IGP:Digital Publisher users to understand which video and audio format conversions should be used at format packaging time for specification standard or custom platform requirements.

A la carte audio and video format conversion is one of the significant advantages with generating your formats from a master XHTML source on demand that creates a reliable ePub or other format package.

Video Support

This table maps the various readers, frameworks and browser video support packaging. Depending on your target platforms you will sometimes need to include two video formats in your package. Package size is always a consideration and you will only want to put in video fallbacks where it is really necessary.

Notes

This chart shows device native support (green) and support with plug-ins (blue)

MP4 means H.264 encoding

M4V is MP4 with an Apple custom package for encryption and DRM control in iStore and other Apple controlled areas.

AZARDI Online and Mobile are dependent on browser support and must therefore have MP4 and WebM formats for all current HTML5 capable browsers.

SWF is dependent on the user having a correct plugin installed and can be used in browsers and ADE.

Audio Support

Audio is more straight-forward. MP3 is required for all platforms except AZARDI Desktop which requires WebM or OGG. Generally it is recommended to use WebM to keep the audio variants to a minimum.

Notes

This chart shows device native support (green) and support with plug-ins (blue)