Maybe some tech's could answer this.

Why couldn't you (in theory) burn a "new" DVD that could be recognized by the DVD NAV system? As far as I know all you'd need to know is A. what type of files the system uses B. what kinda software it's running and C. What kind of file structure it is.

But again in theory you could create and burn a "new' DVD for the NAV. Lets say a tour of the car or a little looping like "show car" screensaver? Something to pop in and loop?

Any ideas? I think it would be a fun project...

Ciao,
Michael

 

isnt the the suckiest part ripping the DVD?

Yes you can burn into the new format, but it takes like 8 hours per movie to rip and the quality sucks and you need two disks and then you gotta do data mods and then burn. No thanks.

 

The NAV system doesn't play DVDs! (It uses DVD ROM to store the data for all cities, but does not recognize the DVD-Video format).

 

We know about that, i'm not talking about DVD movies, I'm talking about MAKING a DVD-ROM that would work in there. Like an interactive demo of the car? A little looping Video Screensavers etc. I am a mutlimedia/graphic/video freelancer and don't know why it wouldn't be the same as like making a CD-ROM just on a DVD-ROM format.

The trick would be to get the right file fomatting to be recognized by the system. Sounds like I have to stick the RIGHT NAV disk in my computer and disect it.

Ciao,
MichaelU

 

oh I see. I wonder if you could check out the formatting info of a nav upgrade. Maybe itll even be a aftermarket thing. Maybe you can be the first and start a little online business!

I just think its stupid that the dvd unit is visible and has DVD written on it making it look like its useful for something. I bet Nissan is planning to do some big stuff with the unit cuz otherwise they should have put it somewhere in the back behind a plastic panel

 

Put the DVD in your computer; set your windows explorer to show hidden files. Then, switch the view to details and screen capture or list all the files on the root of the DVD and post it here.

 

The NAV system is essentially a computer running specific software. If the software is loaded from the DVD (and not just the map data), you could theoretically put different software on the disc. But you'd need basically an SDK (software developer's kit) for the NAV system to know how to program it. It's unlikely that such a thing is available. And it's also possible that the software is built in on a ROM and only data is loaded from the DVD-ROM, in which case it would not be possible to run your own code at all. In any case, this is not a trivial thing to do, unless the makers of the NAV system have specifically made it easy to do this for third parties. And I don't think this is very likely.

But then, clever hackers with too much time on their hands are everywhere, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone reverse engineers this system and puts up a web page with instructions on how to reprogram the unit. That would be cool. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it!

 

Yes, I didn't want to complicate the topic with going into the ROM. But surely the ROM is simply 8meg system loader if it is there almost like a BIOS for a standard computer; but I figured we could start with the basics. If he can read the DVD, then we know already the DVD is not encoded in a proprietary format (a plus). Then based on the files, we can see what happens next.

 

Ahh... let the hacking begin! I love it! This would be so much fun to program and have to figure things out as you go along, making it do things it was never designed for. (Kind of like programming back in the early days of the first microcomputers.)

Maybe if we're lucky it's a Windows CE device! That would sure make it easy to program, and let us run just about anything we want on it. The possibilities...

 

there are updates available from nissan on DVD, so I assume a disk CAN be loaded in. I say there WILL be third party developers because of Nissan making the format DVD. If some other stuff wasnt planned then it would be a sealed unit with upgrades from some nissan computer at the dealer me thinks..