RallyJon

Bitrate seems to matter more than resolution. For an mp4, seems like 500kbps is about the limit, no matter what the dimensions. Of course, 500kbps looks awful and pixelated on the Z's nice screen. Yet another forehead-smacking catch-22 from this POS.

That is the correct answer to far too many of the reasonable issues and inquiries people bring up here.

Come on now, if you are going to make a comment like that could you tell us what you think is so flawed? For me the nav is a big one. I've played around with lower end Tomtoms and Nuvis, but this is the first one where I've really read the manual and tried to learn all the tricks. Only problem is, there aren't many tricks. Specifically preconfigured routes and data interchange. Maybe I just haven't figured it out yet, but it appears to be impossible to plan out and upload a simple drive around the block, starting and ending at my house. I know the starting point, the ending point and the road

Reading all the gripes on the 9140 forum convinced me to buy the Z110. Now I get to experience all the shortcomings of the Z myself. It is beyond belief that these two frighteningly expensive flagship models, incorporating the best that two major CE companies engineers can come up with, are still so completely flawed.

It was the ipod. Wouldn't have guessed that the default output was 4:3. Once that was fixed it looked great. Streaming video from an ipod does appear to be the best way to get a movie onto the screen with this thing. Certainly better than USB or SD.

I encoded a movie for my wife's iPod touch to test it. It's 480x270 (normal widescreen proportions), mp4--the precise format the iPod touch prefers. When I play it on the Z, it's letterboxed, with black bands on the top and bottom, and the picture is squeezed between them. Setting the widescreen mode on the Z to On or Off has no effect. WTF? Any ideas?

I want the Nicky Grist plugin. "Nointy roight opens moibee... Ohhh Colin." Or maybe Fabrizia Pons. I could learn French.

All of the six offered route variations used I-95. When I told it to avoid highways, it refused. I'm not really sure what to think here. This is a pretty glaring flaw.

OK. Just drove up and back to Boston this weekend. The nav drove me nuts. How do it do the following: set a route that goes up the Jersey turnpike, over the GW bridge, up 9A, across the cross county to the Merritt, up to 91 and then to 84. WHAT CAN I TELL THIS THING TO KEEP IT OFF I-95?!? If I set waypoints along the Merritt, it would take me to 95, then back to the Merritt to the waypoint. Insane! How do I tell it the route I want to go? How do I prevent it from even considering using a road? (I-95/cross Bronx)? I tried toggling all the options: toll roads or not, fastest,

How does the ipod work for movies? Can you post specific versions and formats? Been having nightmares trying to get video to play from USB (see my thread the troubleshooting forum).

I was pretty please to get it for less <$1200 ordering when it first came out. But then I ended up waiting a few weeks anyway. Makes sense that prices will drop now that it's out. What are retail margins like on these things anyway? Always some e-tailer who's willing to take an order for a buck or two profit.

Now, on to SD. Better results here. The 512 x 384 mp4 played fine from an SD card, with no stuttering. Then I tried a larger version, 640x480 and 1480kbps, and it also played fine. That one wouldn't even load from USB. Still, none of the WMVs played at all. So now it looks like maybe a bandwidth problem with USB, rather than processing power?

In my 2002 996 C4S:

Now I tested a version of the same video that worked, but at 512 x 384 instead of 320 x 240, 1000kbps instead of 64kbps and 30fps instead of 15fps. It would play, but totally choked on it--stuttering, audio dropouts, etc. Unless anyone has a better explanation, this thing just doesn't have the processing power to render video from USB. Next I'll start testing various video formats and sizes burned on DVDs and SD cards.

OK, got one to play: 320x240 mp4 basic at a very low bitrate. 320x240 h264 does not play. Now I'll try ramping up the size and bitrate using mp4.