Does anyone know how to hack the NAV to disable that annoying caution screen that always comes on first? I would love to not have to always press the enter button everytime i start my car. Thanks!

ditto

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I'm in the process of modifying my NAV DVD at the moment..

I'm trying to figure out what each file represents.. too bad there is reference data for this particular program.

I did acquire the SDAL format specs, which specified the *minimal* file requirements..

which consists of a database pair of files (any name.sdl) and a series of voice files.

On the disc are 8 different languages, even though the program itself only accesses two, English and French.

I'm in the process of searching for the resource which contains the lame warning however for all I know it's probably built into the hardware.. I'll check that later when I try out my newly burned SDAL disc with new voices (UK English, female, will sound cool)..

awesome, I'm sick of that warning screen

That would be so awsome if you could have your own special grafic instead. I can't wait to find out how it can be done. Since this is not a Mazda only product there must be other hacks out there on the Navitech software. I guess I know what I am doing once I get off the forum.

bad news... the nav system doesn't read DVD+RW drives..

I'll try DVD+R next...

BTW, I'm not sure if I can pull this off, since there are some clear challenges here.

1. the NAVTech system requires the DVD to be in the following format: SDAL format, ISO 9600, UDP file system, Joliet

2. The files contained on the original disc exceed that which can be written by a regular DVD burner. It is over 4.6GB, while a DVD burner can only burn approximatey 4.5GB.

3. The graphic and sound resources on the SDAL format is compressed using various compression schemes, chosen by the developer. It's primarily LZH compressed in most files. Figuring out the offsets of the compressed data in each file will be a challenge.

4. Figuring out what dependencies are programmed in the system.. I can either simply leave some files out to burn the dvd, or figure out the resources within each file and trim them down manually without disturbing the offsets of each data segment.

How does one remove the DVD from the Nav Player? I could not find the eject button..

once you pull center console piece up, press down on the dvd player and it should open

It it doubtful that you could turn off the nag screen without some kind of serious hack. The NAV software isn't on the map DVD. It's loaded into the unit (from CD) at the factory. My RX-8 was shipped without the software loaded and nagged to insert the upgrade disc. Rather than send out a disc with the software on it, Mazda elected to send another NAV system...and thus I have a working NAV setup.

Originally posted by Squidward
BTW, I'm not sure if I can pull this off, since there are some clear challenges here.

1. the NAVTech system requires the DVD to be in the following format: SDAL format, ISO 9600, UDP file system, Joliet

2. The files contained on the original disc exceed that which can be written by a regular DVD burner. It is over 4.6GB, while a DVD burner can only burn approximatey 4.5GB.

3. The graphic and sound resources on the SDAL format is compressed using various compression schemes, chosen by the developer. It's primarily LZH compressed in most files. Figuring out the offsets of the compressed data in each file will be a challenge.

4. Figuring out what dependencies are programmed in the system.. I can either simply leave some files out to burn the dvd, or figure out the resources within each file and trim them down manually without disturbing the offsets of each data segment.

Where have you gotten. I can't figure out how to read any of the files so far. I'm not an expert in this kind of stuff at all, but I think having the other voices would be cool. Keep us posted on what youve figured out.

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anyone done this yet

sorry I haven't gotten back to you guys.. I have been super busy with ... my girlfriend..

Anyway, it didn't work.. the DVD+R wouldn't read either.. Now I'm thinking it might be that I'm removing a necessary file.. sigh... gotta think about this a little more.

perhaps removing a different file... or simply chopping the end of one of the files... dunno.. there's really no other way since I can't burn all of the files on a single DVD recordable.

any programmers here? maybe you can make heads or tails what file does what.

otherwise I'll keep experimenting.

Have you tried DVD-RW or DVD-R. I think I have one of each at home and will give it a try. I'm guessing that you just renamed the files to change the languages?

sorry no luck yet squidward
but thanks for responding

Originally posted by Squidward
sorry I haven't gotten back to you guys.. I have been super busy with ... my girlfriend..

Anyway, it didn't work.. the DVD+R wouldn't read either.. Now I'm thinking it might be that I'm removing a necessary file.. sigh... gotta think about this a little more.

perhaps removing a different file... or simply chopping the end of one of the files... dunno.. there's really no other way since I can't burn all of the files on a single DVD recordable.

any programmers here? maybe you can make heads or tails what file does what.

otherwise I'll keep experimenting.

Maybe you can scratch it off?!!! :D

I'm a professional programmer, been one for 15 years. I'd be very interested to know what you've learned so far. I'd love to be able to hack my NAV system to do other things besides NAV.

jtdwab's suggestion is a good one: if the drive can't read +R/+RW, try -R or -RW.

martin, if the software is loaded from CD, any idea what sort of persistent storage the unit uses? I'd guess some sort of flash memory, but...

Also, anyone know what interface is used from the navigation unit to the LCD display? Anything standard?

Anyone know who manufactures the hardware? NavTech appears to be a software company. Information on the hardware specs (especially processor) would be really useful.

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Originally posted by Voice of Reason
I'm a professional programmer, been one for 15 years. I'd be very interested to know what you've learned so far. I'd love to be able to hack my NAV system to do other things besides NAV.

jtdwab's suggestion is a good one: if the drive can't read +R/+RW, try -R or -RW.

martin, if the software is loaded from CD, any idea what sort of persistent storage the unit uses? I'd guess some sort of flash memory, but...

Also, anyone know what interface is used from the navigation unit to the LCD display? Anything standard?

Anyone know who manufactures the hardware? NavTech appears to be a software company. Information on the hardware specs (especially processor) would be really useful.

good points... I unfortunately don't have a -R/-RW.. only +R/+RW.

Does anyone know the manufacturer of our NAV system?

Originally posted by Squidward
Does anyone know the manufacturer of our NAV system?
I contacted Mazda, and they said Panasonic. I have my doubts. Any souls brave enough to pull out the drive and look for an OEM's badge?

I've also contacted NavTech about maybe getting their SDK. We'll see how that goes.

thank you
seems just a matter of time now

How about eliminating the french word data to make space?

Any word on DVD -R?

Vince

Originally posted by compaddict
How about eliminating the french word data to make space?

Any word on DVD -R?
Could save a lot more space by eliminating the other languages. There is a total of 23 languages on the disc.

I haven't had much of a chance to play with this lately. I've got the audio file format pretty well cracked. Unfortunately, the different languages have different numbers of audio clips in them, which leads me to think that the software has some rules for grammar in it. Changing languages wouldn't be as easy as renaming one audio file to another.

UK English and US English have different numbers of audio clips, which I don't really get.

I looked at removing the extra voice files to save space and it wasn't enough. You still need more room on a recordable format. I guess what we need is to filter the database and remove the records for areas of the country you don't plan to be in. If you do go on a long trip you can put in the original disc.

How are the audio files cracked?

I haven't tried this but I'd assume you still get the nag screen even with the CD out...if so the nag is built into the firmware of the panasonic unit....good luck hacking that without MAJOR risk of killing the unit.....I work on alot of IT hardware everyday and firmware hacks are very risky...hell firmware upgrades from the manufacturer can be risky...I've killed alot of equipment over the years just upgrading firmware.

Yeah, I know that disabling the nag screen will be virtually impossible. I'm more interested in hacking the system in other ways.

Originally posted by jtdwab
How are the audio files cracked?
The file format is as follows:

1: Zero
2: Number of files
3-x: Offset of start of each file

All of the above are 4-byte big-endian integers. The files themselves are in a variant of 4-bit ADPCM.

Originally posted by Voice of Reason
I contacted Mazda, and they said Panasonic. I have my doubts. Any souls brave enough to pull out the drive and look for an OEM's badge? I haven't done that, but I called a number that my dealer gave me when trying to run down a nav problem -- it turned out to be the people who repair the nav units, and they said they would contact Panasonic. So, I would think that Panasonic is the manufacturer.

Originally posted by compaddict
How about eliminating the french word data to make space?

Any word on DVD -R?

Vince

I eliminated all the non-English language files and one more to get the size down to recordable. I didn't expect the system to work w/o the deleted file, but I wanted to see if the hardware would read DVD-R. No, it wouldn't read DVD-R.:(

Bump

Has anyone made any process this year :D

I have a jap nav which I want to switch over to english with european maps....hmmm

Bump ...

Press [enter] to confirm.

*bump*

At this point I would be happy with updated maps!!

Vince

It seems that the Nav DVD is DVD-ROM. That's an older format that is not compatable with either DVD-R or DVD+R. Other than being the first on the market about eight years ago, DVD-ROMs are true random access devices while DVD-+ are indexed sequencial access devices. All three system can be read by any DVD drive, but it requires DVD-ROM drive, DVD-ROM disk and some software to write them.

My Company bought DVD-ROM years ago and then had to replace them when the incompatablity became known.

I planning on pulling one out of our garge sale room and seeing if I can re-create the NAV disk. (The drives are all SCSI devices, so I have reserect a SCSI controler also.)

Dave

Navteq and Mazda confirmed that Panasonic is the OEM for the nav system.

good find on the DVD-ROM. So there's no way, even with some kind of upgrade or special software, that DVD+/- writers can write DVD-ROM?

edit: is there another, specific name for the writing format? DVD-ROM seems to be just what any DVD-reading drive is called

Perhaps he meant DVD-RAM?

resurrecting this thread...


bump.

:D good luck ;)

Why not use a dual layer dvd?

That would give you 8.5 gigs and most all dvd roms can read DVD-R DL

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
thats how i DID my COPY of the navi CD :D

Geta Dual layer DVD it will WORK 100% + LOL

lets hope...it has been tried on this new disk before and failed :(

also .. see if your burner can set the booktype/bittype setting.. if you have a dvd+r drive you may be able to hack the burner firmware to burn in "dvd-rom" mode..iknow i can on my NEC 3520A dvd DL burner.... which pretty much makes it compatible in any dvd drive anywhere. if you want to send the files i'll try to burn them myself...

ok i burend the old map ON a dule layer dvd its a dvd+R DL and its working fine so it works fine with me :D just to let u all know that :)

ok i burend the old map ON a dule layer dvd its a dvd+R DL and its working fine so it works fine with me :D just to let u all know that :)


So it works in the nav huh? Cool, good work!

So it works in the nav huh? Cool, good work!
only the old disc (which was confirmed a year ago) the new disc...not yet, notice how I used the word yet :wavey:

ok i burend the old map ON a dule layer dvd its a dvd+R DL and its working fine so it works fine with me :D just to let u all know that :)

Good job - making a new burn is, of course, the necessary first step.

However, the subject of the thread is "Disabling annoying NAV start up screen". Has anyone had luck hacking the files? I am an electrical engineer, but I have seen my software engineering co-workers use disassemblers to view and edit compiled assembly code. It's hard to make a complex change to compiled code, but it seems possible to find the code for the start-up screen and just jumping around it. Of course, first you have to find the *file* on that DVD-ROM.

We are eventually going to start a seperate thread on this that should be stickied...right now I have a copy of the Operating system kernel compiler. It is really an industry only embedded systems Operating system. I only have a trial version that needs to be unlocked with a password for full access after the trial version runs out. I do not know the cost of obtaining the password.

Since we have a copy of the new Nav firmware update we can start tinkering.

There is one individual who also has a copy of the OS kernel compiler I sent them and another who has requested to be in the loop.

I don't use my Navigation system much, the modded xbox setup I use 99% of the time so I don't mind being the guinea pig for running a new modified firmware we create.

In terms of goals for this project we are first looking to...

-remove the startup screen
-Using drive characteristics to copy NAV disc, I've taken my NAV unit completely apart if you want pics to see the internals, btw the drive is ide based as speculated but with a micro-ribbon

Then as things progress...

-change menu colors/skins
-change opening sequence logos
-change voice (ie kinky female voice ;))

is it possible to use the panasonic dvd drive to play audio files rather than navigation?

2 year old revival of a thread! yay!

=)

is it possible to use the panasonic dvd drive to play audio files rather than navigation?


Unfortunately no. Well unless you want to just tear the drive out and use it as an IDE drive for a car pc, there are lots of cheaper ways of doing that though :).

I use the NAV so infrequently that the warning screen doesn't even bother me. Still, would have been cool if someone had eventually figured this out.