Another reason to host video or audio remotely is to give access to multiple formats of the file. EPUB3 has the capability of looking through a series of links and only using the one that works best in a given ereader. Including multiple versions of a video file in an EPUB file would result in unnecessary bloat. (Of course, this is a bit of a moot point in a world in which video and audio in EPUB mostly works in iBooks, but that is changing with Readium, and surely with newer ereaders. The fact that there is no agreed upon codec for video is also an important factor.)
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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Another reason to host video or audio remotely is to give access to multiple formats of the file. EPUB3 has the capability of looking through a series of links and only using the one that works best in a given ereader. Including multiple versions of a video file in an EPUB file would result in unnecessary bloat. (Of course, this is a bit of a moot point in a world in which video and audio in EPUB mostly works in iBooks, but that is changing with Readium, and surely with newer ereaders. The fact that there is no agreed upon codec for video is also an important factor.)
