January 2013
Intermediate to advanced
372 pages
9h 58m
English
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Chapter 6. Media Overlays
Having looked at embedding audio content within documents, the natural progression is to look now at how to provide synchronized audio narration, another of the key new additions introduced in EPUB 3. Media overlays, as you’re about to see, are the secret behind how this magic works.
When you watch words get highlighted in your reading system as a narrator speaks, the term media overlay probably doesn’t immediately jump to mind to describe the experience, but what you are in fact witnessing is a media type (audio) being layered on top of your text content. Apple was the first to adopt this technology, adding it to their support of EPUB 2 under the name Read Aloud while the EPUB 3 specification was still being finalized, but other reading systems, like Readium, have since appeared offering beta support. Even Amazon has jumped into the synchronization game, if not with the same media overlays technology.
But the ability to synchronize text and audio in ebooks isn’t a new development in the grander scheme of ebook formats. It goes back fifteen years in DAISY digital talking books, and even further in antecedents to that format. The value of text and audio synchronization for learning has an equally long history, which is why the technology is so important across the entire spectrum of readers. Media overlays are more than just an accessibility feature of EPUB 3, in other words.
Overlays enable any reader to quickly and easily switch from one reading modality ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.