hellodave

There's a couple of instruction manuals for v3 on Pioneer's UK site - Here http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/products/25 ... media.html under "manuals" They show what changes have been made in the new version of iGo, and say you need a password to run the upgrade (though it doesn't say how you get it!). The user manual is actually in English, not Spanish!!

Yes - you can't change any settings unless the handbrake cable is grounded or you bypass the unit. You'll need a CANBus wiring adaptor for your car to generate a switched live signal, then the unit will switch on and off with the key

Yup - I use +r dl and it works fine. I think the only reason the manual only mentions -R is because Pioneer invented the format (in competition with +R), so refuse to acknowledge the existence of anything else!

I've scoped my F900 Using a 1KHz 0db test tone, flat EQ, SLA on 0 and no bass boost, the unit doesn't clip at volume 62. BUT as soon as you add any boost to the EQ (or change bass boost or SLA settings), it does start to clip. Personally I would use 60 as max volume, to give yourself a little bit of leeway. When I measured it, volume 62 gave the full 2v output, and 58 gave around 1v, which is normal line level IIRC - volume 46 will be very low in comparison. I suspect the 3sixty will cope with input voltages from about 1-5v, which covers almost all head units out there. I'm planning t

As long as the mp4 is 640*480, and the video doesn't contain any black bars it should fill the screen

mp4s will only fill the screen if they're exactly 640x480. If that 640*480 includes black bars, the video will appear not to fill the screen. The problem is that 640*480 is a 4:3 aspect ratio. However, the F900 is widescreen (16:9). I've managed to get mp4s to fill the screen by resizing them before I encode (i.e. stretch a 16:9 video to 4:3). When the F plays them back it stretches the video widthways, thus making it 16:9 again. Simple eh?

I can't remember the settings offhand, but if you look in the back of the manual it tells you what settings you need for mp4 video. It's something like 640x480 resolution, a certain bitrate, h264 codec etc. IIRC an "mp4" file is just a container, the actual codecs used for the video can vary. Personally I wouldn't bother with mp4 video on SD though - I've never got it to play smoothly, despite playing around with codecs and bitrates for some time. As for DVD-R, just burn files to a disc as normal - my F900 is quite happy with + or -R discs in ISO format, and I think it'll handle UDF as wel

I haven't tested extensively, but the last time I received a phone call, I'm pretty sure it didn't swtich to the map screen. However, I've only had one phone call since I've updated it...

No, you can't save EQ settings to SD/USB, but there's so few settings anyway it's not necessary. Go through each option on the AV Sound menu and write down the values in each one. The EQ settings are easy - there are lots of sliders when you look at the EQ screen, but there are only 3 seperate EQ "bands"; just write down the frequency and wide/narrow setting for each band (low, mid and high) and that's it - job done. I'd note down the HPF, loudness etc settings (and subwoofer settings if you have one) as well, and that should be about it

I haven't applied the update yet, but looking at the contents of their zip files, the only difference between 1.9 and 2.0 is that iGo has gone from version 0.45 to 0.46. Wow

I have a UK spec Golf, but I assume yours will be similar, in which case you'll need an antenna adaptor (the VW plug is usually called a "Fakra" type) and a wiring adaptor, which goes in between the VW radio connector and your F900. To make life easier, I'd recommend buying a CAN bus interface - they're not cheap, but should give you an easy way to connect the switched live, reverse and VSS wires to the F900 (otherwise you have to go digging behind the dash), and mine connects the steering wheel buttons to the F900 too (if you have them).

My first F900 did this - it was wired correctly, but asked for the password on every bootup, so I gave up with it! I haven't tried the password on the replacement unit, so I don't know if that's any better.

1. Nope - no manual. I'm on my second F900 - the first didn't even come with the install manual, so consider yourself lucky 2. Can't help, I'm resisting becoming an isheep 3. Radio reception isn't great IMO. I can get most local stations, but they're noisier than my old Clarion HU, and the auto seek tends to miss them. There's a few local stations I can only listen to if I manually seek to the correct frequency, but you only need to do that once and then save them as a preset

They're probably encoded with the wrong codec. Make sure they're .mp4 files, with (IIRC) h.264 video and mp3 sound - check the specs in the back of the manual to be sure.

I've installed it! I haven't tested it much, but I've noticed a couple of things so far - - USB resume still doesn't work - SD cards still resume from the start of the track that was last playing, not the exact point where it left off - Starting playback from USB/SD no longer sets the "master volume" to max - they've actually fixed something!

Don't bother with NTFS - I doubt WinCE supports it, and while it is a "better" filesystem than FAT32, the extra features (security, encryption etc) aren't relevant in this case. FAT32 will be the faster filesystem IIRC, NTFS appeared when Windows NT was released (1993?), but didn't come into widespread use for home users until Windows XP came along. CE has been around for a long time, but it's been constantly updated just like desktop Windows has - if anything, desktop Windows is older (having been released in 1985). As for the white noise, I've heard the same thing - it could be low

It may not apply in your case, but Pioneer head units are notorious for blowing earth tracks on their preouts. This usually results in a lot of alternator whine, but I don't think it kills the preout completely (unless the F-series are different). Blown earth tracks are usually caused by touching the preout or RCA ground (the outer ring of the plug) to 12v - it only needs to touch for a fraction of a second to blow the track. If you think this might be causing the problem, a simple check is to connect the ground part of the RCA plug to earth with a bit of wire and see if the problem goes a

Do you use SD card to play music? If so, does it always set the "master volume" (under navi settings) to max whenever you play back from SD (or USB)? Anyone use USB playback with this update? Does the resume function work any better (I have to unplug and replug my USB stick on 1.001600)?

My unit does the same thing. Compared to some of the other problems I've had with my F900 it's a very minor problem! It's probably a problem with whatever video chip they use, so I very much doubt it'll be fixable in firmware.

The Alpine H700 is particularly known for a loss of SQ when using the analog input, but other processors may not be as bad. What do you want to do with your system? If it's just EQ-ing, I'd stick with the F's built in EQ. If you want to run active, but aren't bothered about time alignment, I'd get an analog crossover (e.g. Audiocontrol 4XS) and use that. If you do want time alignment, it gets trickier because you need a digital processor; there are models out there that accept analog inputs, but you'll have to live with some loss of SQ. How much will depend on the processor in question - I

So unless you really know what you are doing (or even what that port actually does) I wouldn't mess with it. You could damage the unit as well as whatever you plug into it, and it might also void the warranty if you plug something in that port that isn't certified by pioneer to do so. If you plug an cable into the optical output there's no light at the end, so it's not enabled anyway... fb2001 - you'll have to use a processor that accepts an analog input, such as the Alpine H700 or Audiocontrol range, but the quality will be affected if it's a digital unit (like the H700, DQX etc).

I'm not sure what you're referring to, but the F manual states specifically that SD/USB videos should be 640*480. The Full/Wide option works on DVDs, but not Divxs or mp4s as far as I can tell. It certainly won't scale a small video up to fill the screen.

^^^ That's what it'll be. Annoyingly, the F series can't properly scale SD/USB video to fit the screen, so it has to be encoded as per the spec in the manual (640x480 IIRC). Even more annoyingly, the F is widescreen, but 640x480 is 4:3, so widescreen video ends up stretched, with black bars at the top and bottom. The only way I've solved this is to resize widescreen video to fill a 640x480 frame when I encode it. It looks wrong on your PC, but will appear correctly on the F.

I think the F series is immune to this, as mine survives crank, even though my old head unit didn't. It's not too hard (or expensive) to make a DC-DC converter that outputs 12v for input voltages between 6v and 30v (I used one in a CarPC), so this may be what Pioneer has done . Remember that power isn't cut during crank, but the voltage drops very low (8-9v), which isn't enough to run most head units - the DC-DC converter solves this

Regarding the European update - Fixed - - USB audio no longer skips in map screen - According to Pioneer, the "USB/SD audio suddenly blasting at full volume" issue is fixed Not fixed - - Bootup time (not that it ever will be) - Resuming USB playback on switch on. Either it doesn't work at all, and the stick must be unplugged/replugged, or it resumes, but from the first track on the stick. - BT Calls always switch to map screen - No way to tell which number relates to which contact - No way to switch all button beeps off, only Nav ones. - Speed camera audio alerts are stu