Ravage

You're missing my point. The F500 is a standalone unit right, so why not get a standalone tomtom unit instead? You can add that stuff to them also. I totally get doing it to the F700/900/90 though.

Not just that, if you go to an in out area where HD is not so good and it keeps popping in and out you could just revert back to the normal FM.

I doubt that will be fixed, it's not really a bug, it allows you to choose the unit's AM and FM tuner, if you want HD you choose HD.

Is it just me, but why would somebody put TomTom on a F500BT? Why would you not just go out and buy a dedicated TomTom unit?

Isn't the Pioneer Avic F series hardware designed by MiTac?

There is no difference between the sat inputs. The GPS chip is the same! I really bet that cable is just to confirm the car is moving for the DVD. I say this because if you disconnect your GPS how does the unit know you go over a certain speed. Since the 700 can't play DVD's it doesn't need the cable.

The software and hardwire bypass work the same I believe, there is no difference. I think if you ground the parking break wire from the head unit and do the software change you don't have to change the mute wire. GPS antenna can really go anywhere. The closer to a window the better nd the roof even better. Some cars however have coatings or wires that block the signal. For instance euro ford focus heated front windscreen can cause interferance. This is why they don't recommend it on the front of the car. Outside would be best of course, but only if you are able to. As for the dashkit

I think it's really for the dvd playback. I don't think that satnav uses it at all.

Read the whole post and the details are there. It takes 60 days after you purchase and then you can transfer the money into your paypal account. You also got to pay using paypal. I've said it several times before, read the Terms and Conditions as it's easy to screw it up.

I know not much of a deterrent, but you can install this on some cars with screwes then it can't be ripped out. Though it won't stop them from trying I guess.

It sucks that iPod is the only thing really supported, don't get me wrong I have an iPod, but I love my zune. I get all the music in the world for free, well 95% of what I want. The zune pass service just rocks. I'm going to hook up the video interface from the zune to the unit, it might work out quite nice.

skicrave awesome! You have made me so happy. I'm installing my kit tonight and the though of accessing the parking break cable in my car is scary. So that's freaking awesome news for me!

Read the rest of this post it's all in there. You go to live.com and search for "avic" and there should be an ebay advertisment at the top of the page. Some times it doesn't appear. I ended up searching for "sony" to get the link and then searched for avic afterwards on ebay. As long as you have the cashback logo on the ebay page you should be fine, but please read the terms and conditions as if you make a mistake I don't want to get the blame. Also it's not always 30%, sometimes it's 20% and sometimes not even there. Also you're maxed at $200 cashback per single item.

Do you have to connect the cable to the parking brake and ground it or can you just ground the parking brake cable on the unit directly without hooking it up to the real parking brake.

I'm just saying what's in the user guide. If you go to the pioneer website and download the user guide from there it shows you images of how the traffic is highlighted on the map and the screen where you can view all the details in a list.

GPS is a funny technology. If you drive in the open and then drive into a car park and then power off your GPS (switch your car off) and then drive back out later it can take a very long time to repick up the GPS signal. This is quite common with a lot of devices. What I used to do with my PDA satnav was power off before I went into a carpark and power up after I left, this way it would get the signal faster. Now you can't do that with the Avic though.

I say then it's used for the DVD player to make sure that you're not moving when there is no GPS signal.

I'm not saying your wrong, I was just staying to get the avic fully booted up in 10 seconds just ain't going to happen. They'll speed it up I'm sure, hopfully get audio playback earlier and we'll all be happy* *I get mine tomorrow. The avic is likley to be using a near full feature set of WinCE, so to strip out everything that is not needed is going to be tough and unlikely

I can't wait to get mine. It should arrive on the 22nd. Even with a minute boot time at $500 if fantastic!

So I wasn't saying it won't boot faster, I was saying it won't boot in 10 seconds like mentioned at the start of the posts. So booting in 50 secs compared to a minute is likley to be where this confusion came from. It's more than likely 10 seconds faster and not boots in 10 seconds. Big difference here.

The F series takes upto a couple minutes for full functionality.

Guy's I've worked with WinCE as a developer and while you can change the way it can boot to some extent it is unlikely to happen for the Avic. There are just too many required components needed for it to boot at a speed which you would expect for a normal stereo. I am saying that they can make changes and probably will improve some aspects, but the time savings you are expecting just won't come. You can bitch about me all you want, but that will not change the facts.

So definintely read the Terms and Conditions, there are some specific rules. Also make sure you have the 30% off graphic at the top of the ebay screen, otherwise the discount will not apply. You should also see the graphic as you go through the purchase process. You also got to pay using paypal, if you don't you don't get the rebate. Once you buy the item through buy it now and pay by pay pal you get a message in your ebay message account after about 10 minutes. Once you get that it gives you a link to live.com. Click that and sign in. That links the accounts. For me I had to w

The Avic F series is based on WinCE this is not a desktop OS, but similar to what you find on Windows Mobile Phones. If it requires Windows, it probably won't work on the Avic. Have a look at this thread about launching alternative software http://avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18522

What i think is that they will speed up audio playback and then load everything else.